Now I can understand putting MGs in sponsons, it's pretty useful, but why do you need more then one per side? And removing two of the MGs would allow you to put the PRs in the sponsons with the extra weight it free's up
Putting your main guns into sponsons means effectively losing half the all-important forward firing arc. Even sponson-mounted, a weapon on the right side of your vehicle can't engage a target that's even a tiny bit to the left of "dead ahead" -- a forward-mounted one can.
So if I did put one PR each into one of the tank's sponsons? Great, I'd now be able to bring
one to bear against any target I had LOS to -- but only combine
both against something in the single line of hexes straight ahead or astern anymore. I've tried that experiment once (picture, if you will, a tank with sponson-mounted AC/20s...) and concluded that while sponson turrets make side-mounted weapons decidedly more useful than they'd be otherwise, they're nonetheless mainly for secondary and defensive stuff while the "real" guns logically still go into the forward arc or main turret as usual.
And obviously I need more than one MG per side because each can still only
fire once per turn. Machine guns are great against conventional infantry they can catch, but they still fall somewhat short of "anything PBI that moves into range instantly dies, muahahaha" levels -- especially the light models as mounted on the Hanse.