I am okay with unmounted MGs (including bipods) using STR for attacks. I am okay with a weapon that isn't meant for point targets to have a penalty when targeting them. I am okay with requiring an Aim action IF it doesn't go away as a requirement for a flat roll (which I think it should).
WW2 Bren Guns (still in use with some TAVR units in the period, perhaps? certainly ISTR they were in the 1980's) were used in single shot mode as sort of sniper rifles, or so I read about Australian troops in the Western Desert. Of course, the Bren is really more an Automatic Rifle than a LMG.
ISTR that BARs could be similarly used ... would they have still been in reserve in the USA?
As an aside, I don't know if anyone noticed in the coverage of the Syrian Civil War, but early on in the piece some of the Rebels took a Syrian Government Arsenal - which stocked *thousands* MP-44's (i.e. late war GERMAN Automatic Rifles) ... and ammo for them (presumably 7.92mm Kurz which was what they were originally chambered for).
This ammo could have been quite old and still good, I remember a response from someone on an old TW2000 board who explained that military ammo was varnished and vastly less subject to environmental degradation than commercial rounds.
I know the Australian Army had virtually (or completely) new Brens and Vickers HMGs in stockpiles (along with *millions* of SMLE Rifles) until the mid to late 80's, though I believe in the real world they were all scrapped gradually in the 90's ... I presume other countries had the same sort of obsolete weapon stockpiles (except the US, of course, where they were all probably sold off to the civilian market!)
Phil McGregor