Okay, here goes, after rather a long gameplay time with that honey, my suggestion to actually make it "useful" and feared machinegun.
First, let's take a look at its counterpart - the Lafette (MG42 is rather a counterpart of the BAR, as those guns are actually spawn kits and not deployable pickups). You can see a guy manning Lafette almost every round and on almost every map you can find them (either if it's an MG34 or MG42). The Lafette actually follows its real version's footsteps -
in laying down a massive highly accurate suppresion fire which pins down/kills everyone in its way and soldiers on the other side of the barrel just literally shit themselves while under the fire. Noone actually tries to get that Kraut manning it or well, if he does, he rather pays for it. It also has the advantage of the tripod itself, which is rather high so you can set it up wherever you want to and you're basically fine in every spot on the map (on top of that, you can adjust the height of the tripod).
Now to the .30 cal - that gun is just bad. Not that it was bad in WW2, but it's bad as it is "portrayed" in this game. What I mean: every single enemy who you are shooting at with your .30 is just simply laughing at you the moment he figures out where is those tracers' origin, not scared at all of dying for two reasons: first, nobody worries about dying in FH2, you just respawn after 15s - which isn't my point, and I do not aim to propose a change to that, second, the rate/cone of fire of the actual gun is actually rather bad (nothing you can do about, it's just how it was in RL) therefore every enemy will just try to pop his head out (if he actually bothered himself to dive for cover at all) and he will manage to own you with just one shot almost exlusively. The thing is, unlike Lafette which is a fairly good shield for the player himself because of its construction, the .30 cal doesn't provide cover to you at all (talking about rather far distances, as on 10 meters everyone will own a guy behind Lafette because of obvious reasons) meaning even if the .30 had the fire ability as German MGs, it would still be more vulnerable head-on. Also, unlike for Lafette, there are very few places where you can even set the gun up properly with some reasonably good view and even less if you want to start killing before enemy picks you with his rifle, because of the gun's low profile (low tripod, that is - although that tripod should be adjustable at least a bit just like the Lafette one, shouldn't it?) which really doesn't give you much options. In real-life, this wasn't that much of a problem, as they would just set it in a ditch but in a way that only top of their helmet would be seen (frontal leg would be higher than the two others and soldier's body would be in cover of the ditch/crater) - that cannot be done in BF2 because every gun you deploy on even a fairly sloped terrain will appear in a horizontal position (only in extreme terrain height differencies but then the guns are useless totally). Also, soldiers could actually deploy it in a window/another higher positioned places with the use of a table or something similar while actually standing behind the gun. This, as well, cannot be done (or well, it could, like you would have "2" .30s in your kit but one would deploy with lying use animation (just like now) and the other would have the soldier standing behind it.. but I dunno how would that work out actually).
All in all, nobody can wonder how come Brownings are lying alone in the bases unused while Lafettes are pouring it on Allies on the frontline. So here comes my little suggestion how to maybe increase the rate of survival for user of this MG:
Add a small, at least bout the same size as the soldier's head,
invisible impenetrable plate to the front of the gun (note I don't suggest it in front of the soldier's face) so enemy would really keep his sorry ass down if you're suppresing him (not like now, where you are just poorly trying to actually pin him down) while an enemy for example a 30° next to you still would be able to kill you (I'd love to see proper flanking actions against every MG in the game because they really were feared, but as that also depends on the players themselves that will probably never happen so eh...). I understand you can't (in a multiplayer game) artificially force the player to DO something (in this case, flank the position completely, otherwise you will fail every time - like in Brothers in Arms where it was impossible to take down MG from the front and you had to actually flank him to get him) because it would feel unnatural as soldiers were able to take that MG gunner down, they just couldn't because their pants were being colored brown in the process of shitting themselves out of that MG tracers flying above their head (and there goes the problem with players being actually willing to die just try to get that bastard).
What I want to see in the game is most definitely not an undefeatable guy lying behind MG and pwning everyone who dares to come into his FOV (*cough* Lafettes *cough*
) but to at least make that darn thing being used by other players and not just me because of my bad deviantion for it. I mean, when you drag that thing half across the map (PHL) you do deserve to actually gather some nasty kills/enjoy a nice scene mowing down Krauts, don't you?
Now, let me have it...