Comet and Panther are not typical "medium tanks".
If one wants to compare the T-34/76 with other factions one should probably compare it with:
M4A3
Cromwell
PZIV
as those are vehicles in the same class/role with the T-34/76
The T-34/76 is an end-game tank for the Soviets tech tree. Soviets don't have non-doc Comets. Soviets don't have Panthers. Soviets don't have anything that even remotely resembles a non-doc KT. In short, Soviets have absolutely no way to spend their fuel, if they ever managed to hoard it.
On the other hand, Soviets' non-doc infantry bleeds hard in the late-game. They need some way to tap into their fuel reserves (if they have any), so that they can conserve MP for something else? Since the best non-doc generalist tank that Soviets can get is the T-34/76, I have the following questions for you:
- What problems would a fuel-sink T-34 create to balance (as opposed to the current MP-sink T-34). The T-34 already comes late. With a hiked fuel cost, it will arrive even later.
- If Soviets have no fuel-sink units, how can we ever claim that MP and Fuel costs can ever be converted to one another?
- How does your answer to the previous question reflect on the statement you made 5 hours ago on a different thread? Aren't those two statements contradicting each other?
The cost of a vehicle it the combination of manpower cost and fuel...that is what you pay to get a vehicle...
To give you an analogy, Bitcoins would be worth absolutely nothing if you could not trade with money (directly) or buy goods with Bitcoins (indirectly). In the micro-cosmos of CoH2 OKW, OST and UKF receive something like Bitcoins as their fuel income. Soviets receive something like Dogecoins as their fuel income.