Guards Troops
That could kinda work. The question, though, is why would you pick a generalist squad that's meh-ish, when Shocks are so sexy now. Being forced to start with a PTRS kind of gimps you.
It appears that pre-nerf Guards really worked because of their ultra-high received accuracy & the speed they were attaining that. Low casualty rates meant the squad didn't have to juggle 4 slot items among them.
On other hand, if we reduced their firepower instead of RA, then all squads in the game would just a-move walk up to them.
We though about making guards start with 0 guns and have 3 slots.
However, the thought of 3 DP's kinda scared us. We could make Guards come with 1 forced PTRS to have a middle ground between uniqueness, customisability and good performance. However, we're going to wait and see how the upcoming improvement to Guards will make the unit feel.
Here are my humble two cents on the Penals/Guards issue.
Currently in live, Penals have more or less turned into mainline infantry despite the recent changes to their scalability. The reason being in my opinion is that most of those changes were directed at their slot weapons. I think Penals being equipped with SVT-40s, which are effective at all ranges, is their real problem for being the mindless spammable unit they are. Might I suggest giving Penals back their Flamethrower Package and changing their base weapons to Mosins? It would lower their initial shock impact, but having the option of having flamethrowers would increase their anti-infantry anyway. If that's not enough, perhaps they could get the Assault Package back (1x Flamethrower and 5x PPsH?) for even more close range infantry death?
My problem with Penals having SVT-40s is that as mentioned before they are effective at practically all ranges and that even with the PTRS downgrade in AI performance, they can still match Axis squads in firepower. Using a Mosin + PTRS or a PPsH + flamer adds a clear distinction of the unit's intended role as a more specialized unit, as opposed to a generalist that competes with core infantry. Additionally, switching their weapons to the Mosin would increase historical authenticity, as Soviet forces didn't have enough SVT-40s to go around in the war, especially on Penal Battalions who arguably received lower priority in supply shipments. If SVT-40s were in supply, those who best utilized it were those who have gone under additional training, like Naval Infantry and Guards.
On the subject of Guards, I'd say that they come with two undroppable slot item SVT-40s, and then an option to go DP or PTRS. That's three slot items in total, although the SVT-40 slot item sizes could be tweaked to allow for tweaks in how many slot items the squad can pick up and use if need be. The reason why I opt for two SVT-40s as opposed to 3 or even using them as the base weapon (6) is because, again, historically Soviets had few of these rifles ready to be distributed. It was planned that a third (1/3 * 6 = 2) of infantry rifles would be SVT-40s, but was seldom achieved in units. However, being Guards Troops and being offered the best equipment available in real life, I'd see no problem giving them a few of the rare SVT-40 in-game.
This would add additional flavor to the Guards Infantry since they are then the only Soviet infantry armed with semi-automatic rifles, and it would prevent the Guards from being either being underwhelming or overwhelming from the beginning.
FHQ
We -will- give the doctrine the ability for engineers to build their own FHQ, in case everything has been wrecked etc. ATM, we're just waiting for people to come up with a suitable model for it.
E.g., would FHQ looking like soviet T1 (tent) or soviet T2 (trench) seal the deal?
There is a radio post model somewhere in the game files that might be helpful. It's a tent with a radio and a few crates. I believe its animator is "gameplay\resource_points\radio_post_sp\radio_post_sp"