[narwan]

The FG42 was thought up after Crete. German paratroops would need a weapon with decent firepower they could drop with ON THEIR PERSON and immediately be able to go to combat to without having to go to weapon canisters first to retrieve weapons. MG34's and MG42's were to heavy to jump with. So they thought up the FG42. I was intended as an infantrymens personal weapon, replacing the standard rifles, that COULD be used as a 'stand-in' LMG too. It was not primairily designed or intended as a SAW or LMG. It wasn't very good as a LMG however. It's low weight proved to be it's biggest drawback. That's because the designers kept the full 7,92mm cartridge for the weapon. That resulted in a recoil that made the weapon very difficult to handle and control when in full auto mode, it had a very strong tendency to kick upwards. That made it very hard to keep the sustained fire on a target that one would need from an LMG. The BAR, being a lot heavier, didn't suffer nearly as much kick as the weight helped keep the weapon down. Although having drawbacks of its own, the BAR was much better suited for the LMG role.

Further, even though use as an LMG was part of the INTENDED design, there is little evidence to suggest it was actually used as such. Two reasons, first it was much better as an automatic rifle, ie firing aimed single shots in rapid succesion. The extreme muzzle flash and extremely loud noise when firing also were less of a drawback when used as a rifle. As an LMG it would be used more from a 'fixed' position and the flash and noise would make it easily identifiable by the enemy, especially when firing on auto.
Most important however was that the Luftwaffe needn't have bothered with coming up with a weapon parattroops could jump with since another outcome of Crete was Hitlers decision that there would be no more paratroop attacks. Many of the later paratroop units didn't even receive jump training anymore. So without combat drops being on the agenda anymore, the paratroop units did the smart thing and they went back to the excellent MG34 and superb MG42 as the squad LMG with the FG42 being used as an automatic rifle.

And this is how it is portrayed in the game, the game isn't historically inaccurate at all in this respect. As said so many times before in this thread, you can not do a straight comparison between the stats of primairy and secondary weapons.

Narwan