Slitherine

After I don't know how many years of playing Order of Battle I am finally asking a question about, um, Order of Battle

As a player (not designer...at least not yet) I have long wondered how designers decide what kinds of non-regular infantry to include in a historical battle. (heavy infantry, engineers etc)

I am most curious about when to include heavy infantry as they seem the only way to directly reflect support from battalion-level mortar batteries.

Erik--this question was spurred by my 1v1 MG with AdmiralYamamoto as the Fallschirmjagers get a single heavy infantry unit while all other formations (esp II SS Corps) get none. I think the Germans are already a tough proposition so not saying there is any kind of balance problem.

Some factions (ie Germany, Britain) included a MG battalion in their roster. That is just about the only time I include heavy infantry.
The Soviets usually had low-quality MG companies as part of a frontline defense. I would use MG nests for these.

In my SquadMod I have split the original heavy infantry units into pure MG and mortar units.

I have to agree with that... I also experienced with lower unit scale, with doubled weapon ranges, that means most artillery is quasi-off map like in Steel Panthers series. As such mortars are also arty class (with multi mortar crew anim)
and HMGs are Flak that have ground attack values.

I have created a lot og different mortar units with different stats including of course range.
I have at least covered just about everything I've found in my oob-sources from 50mm to 120mm.
It is quite fun to find that these kind of mods work fairly well with OOB.

I apparently need to get out more as I have never seen any variants on the basic heavy MG unit

Perhaps the new Market-Garden 2v2 will spring some surprises...

There are only a couple of new very minor Belgian modded units in M-G in the last version.
But there are already para engineers/AT/Art units.