Bad idea. Balance team already tried to reduce auto-attack power without increasing the barrage damage and we got the suppression ability which was worst.
Removing the auto-attack and increasing the barrage's power is a crazy idea on its own because its suppose to make of the pakhowi a dedicated artillery unit which would be mobile so difficult to counter when it is on cooldown.
Imagine we remove the auto-attack and double the number of shells (which is quite a fair trade imo). PakHowi would become completely OP vs structures such as bunkers or OKW trucks, or pak43.
What I mean is if you switch the pakhowi from auto-attack with a weak barrage to weak auto-attack (or no auto-attack) to strong barrage other problems will rise with the pamphlet of complains following it.
The unit has been design around auto-attack because there is no way to vet it with the barrage at the moment which mean that it does what it is supposed to.
I think the unit is balanced at the moment, it can only target one unit, it has a small arc of fire forcing it ot reposition quite often and can't defend itself vs flanking. It counter static play but is much less effective vs moving targets. And yes it doesn't quite a good damage vs infantry without wiping them unless they are already low in health.
1- This was still on Relic old balance team and you are miss informing people when you mention the era when ISG/Howie was given suppression on both, AA and barrage.
This was still pre-rework OKW btw (so no MG34).
The intention was fixing "blobbing". AA was not reduced and was one of the reasons the ISG was one of the most obnoxious units to be created by Relic.
2- Artillery units demolishing structures and static defenses... With the exception of OKW base buildings, if a single one of them proves to be too effective against them, that can be easily adjusted with decreased damage modifiers against it. Scatter and FoW penaltie are other ways to adjust it as well.
3- Is the unit really design around AA? It unlocks WP barrage. It unlocks Heat shells barrage. It always had a smaller AA range compared to barrage. Yes, with the small amount of shells it fired on barrage, it would be nigh impossible to vet the unit. That's why i always said they should improve barrage and nerf/remove AA. Even more so that they added a mortar to the roster.
4- If the unit had 120mm mortar values in AA, then the unit wouldn't be good against mobile units. It has stronger scatter and reload values which makes it deadly by comparison. The whole point is that ALL mortar units had been nerf so they are weaker against mobile units nowadays.
If you take a look at the changelog, the unit received certain buffs which might had not been warranted considered the power level at which indirect fire was brought up to.
I just remembered the Soviet 120mm mortar. I literally forgot it even existed. Haven´t seen one in months. How does the balance team think about Soviet 120mm mortar and Pak Howi performance in comparison? Balanced? These two units are pretty similiar in role and cost. Difference being the Soviet 120mm being doctrinal.
If coh2db stats are up to date:
-AA RoF:
Howie: 9.94s
120mm: 14.15
OH 81mm: 10.81s
-Scatter (Angle/Distance Ratio/Distance offset)
Howie: 6/0.1/8
120mm: 10/0.1/10
82mm: 10/0.08/8
-AoE (Radius, Distance near, Mid, Far)
Howie: 5, 1.5 (68dmg), 3 (40), 4.5 (20)
120mm: 6, 1.5, 3, 4.5
82mm: 4, 1, 2, 3
Let me explain and add some bits. The most important value is the distance near(1.5). All indirect fire were made so they can be less wipe in full health models, so unless a straight direct hit, they are not doing lethal dmg anymore to 80HP models.
While the value difference might be small, let's remember that it's the radius and any incremental is practically double the area.
Also, for some reason, the 120mm barrage is less lethal than the AA (1.1/3.5/4.5)