Battlefield V is one of my favorite games at the moment and I love examining how what's featured in the game compares to the actual events of WWII. Given the current talk surrounding Medic weapons right now and some people suggesting they have pistol carbines or shotguns, it made me wonder what weapons medics in WWII would have brought with them, if any.
So how realistic is it for anti-explosives to carry SLR's and AR's (Assault), medics SMG's (Medic, obviously), and the people in charge of ammo carrying LMG's and shotguns (Support)? I don't have many questions about Recon since snipers having bolt actions is a no brainer, although I'd inquire about the use of SLR's for that class as well.
Feel free to extend this discussion to equipment as well, like the explosives for Assault, the rifle grenades for Medic, the anti-tank mines and Bouncing Betties for Support, etc.
There are two questions here:
1) How well does the "class" system reflect the way WWII armies were actually organized?
Very poorly. Battlefield 5 has highly-specialized soldiers doing highly-specialized things. In reality infantrymen tended to be more flexible.
It also gets the proportions wrong. There are lots of Assaults running around with automatic weapons, when in reality automatic weapons were relatively rare (a squad might only have 1-3 machine guns and sub-machine guns). There are lots of Medics. In reality a platoon would only have one (unarmed) aid man.
Infantrymen could have distinct roles in their squad or section, but not quite in the way BF5 shows. Take a 12-man U.S. Army rifle squad, for example.
Unlike the Battlefield V smorgasbord of exotic weapons, nearly everyone has the same weapon. You'll note that the M1 carbine (an Assault class weapon in BF5) is not seen at all. There's only one carbine officially-issued to each platoon and it's carried by the platoon leader, usually a 2nd Lieutenant.
There are distinct roles. But the unlike the clearly-delineated classes of BF5, the lines between actual soldier's roles were blurrier. For example, rifleman could easily move on to serve as a scout if one of the scouts became a casualty. Everyone usually humped spare BAR mags, not just the AAR.
One man in every platoon could be given the platoon's bolt-action M1903A4 or semi-auto M1C sniper rifle (the M1C only appeared at the front around early 1945), to act as a dedicated marksman/sniper. In ideal circumstances, this man would have completed a short sniping course prior to his division's combat deployment, but this was not always possible. In other words, you'd have very few of "Recon" class-like soldiers. The man with a sniper rifle might not even be specially-trained!
Battalions had dedicated reconnaissance platoons, which were usually sent out in small patrols, but these men typically carried standard M1 rifles and the odd SMG.
There are also relatively few medics, since each platoon only has one aid man (i.e. medic).
The G.I. History Handbook video's on the Organization of the WWII U.S. Army Infantry Rifle Squad and the Organization of the WWII U.S. Army Infantry Rifle Platoon are well worth your time for getting an idea of what every soldier in a WWII U.S. Army rifle squad actually did.
Military History Visualized's video on German Squad Tactics in World War 2 presents the German side of things.
2) How should medics be armed, if they should be armed at all?
They shouldn't be armed. American and British medics were not issued weapons. German Sanitäters were sometimes issued a pistol for self-defense, although not all chose to actively carry one.
In the European Theater of Operations (ETO) and Mediterranean of Operations (MTO), both sides generally observed the Geneva Conventions. Stephen Ambrose's piece "Medic!" in American Heritage discusses the varying respect both sides had for medics, ranging from the extremely chivalrous (refusing to fire on field ambulances) to the outright brutal (shelling enemy positions, waiting for the medics to arrive, then shelling the area again to kill the medics).
In the Pacific Theater of Operations (PTO), the Japanese shot medics indiscriminately. U.S. Army medics and U.S. Navy corpsmen often armed themselves for self-defense. Their primary job was providing first aid, not shooting people, contrary to the way people play them in BF5. M1 carbines and M1911 pistols were generally the weapons of choice. Anything bigger got in the way of the medic's bulky aid bag and made movement difficult.
Arming a medic with a rifle grenade would have been a waste of the weapon. He wouldn't be able to carry many grenades and he'd be too busy attending causalities to provide effective fire support.