Machine Guns on Offense
In Flames of War, the machine gun combat platoon is one of the core platoons you can put on the table top. They have an insane rate of fire and are able to hold back even the most spirited assaults. They are also valuable on the attack for giving covering fire to your advancing troops. While using them of defense is a no brainer, using MGs offensively requires some finesse, but achieves deadly results.Defending is the place where machine guns excel. When your opponent is trying to take a position from you, having the large number of shots from these guys is essential. This is the obvious use of machine guns, but they are also very useful when preparing to assault as they make your opponent think twice about repositioning his forces.
Many missions require there to be at least two objectives for the attacker to capture. They only need to secure one of them to win. This is where you can use your machine guns offensively to cover the flank of your main attack force. Since the defender will see which objective you are going for they may want to try and reposition their forces accordingly. By placing your MGs to cover your flank you force the defender to choose to either push through your guns to shore up his defense, or stay put and hope the other troops can hold out.
This is what good offense is about. Forcing your opponent to make the choice between two things that are going to hurt. Regardless of what decision they make, you can react accordingly, maintaining your inititive in the battle. MG’s when positioned properly are a deadly weapon on offense, plan to set them up so you force your opponent to move through them because there are no good choices left.
