Profile of Switzerland

People both Like and dislike the unit, both camps existing isn't going to be a reason to remove the unit. folks may want to attempt to disagree on the ST having an unsuccessfully history but thankfully relic doesn't seem to disagree from their own development statements. So if folks cant cede that there have been some borderline wacky choices and changes to a units real world history of success that's ok, no need to debate against stubborn refusal. Relic has done their homework (as id hope they did) and they are aware that they took those wack not very true to life route with units like the KT and Jagdtiger for an interesting product.

Some people want it some people don't, and again I don't think you can please everyone. I like to hear Relic reasoning that they want to weigh those previous inclusions that were fictional representations and use that going forward to make some new inclusions. And again the Skink would be a cool inclusion as since number don't matter to Relic, it would be a cool compatriot to the whirblwind and the Centurion would have seen the war if only the surrender hadn't come as it was shipped with the intent to do the same battlefield testing as Pershing. I'm glad relic didn't go full historical in COH otherwise it would have been a pretty limited franchise, we've seen some cool units and abilities that aren't true to their life nature.

It’s not on me to manufacture a history to make a fictional take on its combat history, it’s on you to find more than one alleged instance it had a success. I’m leaning towards you’ll have a tough time manufacturing a history where the sturmtiger was a successful AFV. I don’t think anyone is under the illusion it was deployed in its intended role, it wasn’t but that doesn’t make it a success story either it was a failure.

So again it’s a fictional liberty that relic took for gameplay to come back to the thread discussion. The BP is the same move. If we are going to be so concerned the BP never shipped to the front line, the Centurion mark 1 only missed combat due to the surrender of the nazi regime. More simply put, if the old men and boys fought afew days longer you would have seen the centurion on the field, so maybe swap the model of the BP to it if that’s your historical fiction line.

The ST was not designed for "forcing battalion into retreat" it was designed fire support vs enemy strong position or in urban terrain.

As you can see in wikipedia though there at least one record of "wiping entire platoons":

"During this action, one of the Sturmtigers in Sturmmörserkompanie 1001 near Düren and Euskirchen allegedly hit a group of stationary Sherman tanks in a village with a 380mm round, resulting in nearly all the Shermans being put out of action, and their crews killed or wounded. This is the only tank-on-tank combat a Sturmtiger is ever recorded engaging in."

Lets be generous and drop the word allegedly for this record. To call the units combat history successful was again a large adventure in fiction. One alleged combat venture a success record or combat legend does not make. Hence the very discussion on how a units life was blown up into historical fiction, very generous treatment considering they had to record the one time it hit something that wasn't a city albeit allegedly.

Also in the sentence above it does mention a company of 7 sturmtigers failing to hit Remagen bridge, if that may lend an ear to the luck or legitimacy of the alleged hit. Again a generous fiction to make it as accurate and powerful as it is when it was likely luck or perhaps didn't occur.

Note : The Wiki for the Sherman company hit still needs citation on Wiki, hence has no written record provided on the Wiki.

Relic has re-written the history of vehicles before. Somehow we got a stock KT at 500 made and a doctrinal and now mostly relegated IS2 that is an infantry only wagon in a couple doctrines with some 3,000 built.

Why? Because they don't care about numbers.

For gameplay reasons Relic don't care about numbers or a units failed history in combat like the sturmtiger. They want interesting units. Again within historical fiction, what this product there isn't a special separation of the fiction of a useful sturmtiger and a deployed Black Prince both things didn't occur.

Relic is welcome to make the same fictional choices in their product. As others have pointed out this new shake of fiction sprinkles isn't going to spoil the fiction layer cake of COH 2 whose layers include KT/JT, useful sutrmtiger, stock IR halftracks, invincible stuka aircraft etc..

They don't care, and don't need to care about this tailored gatekeeping of historical (insert label trying to create new genre of fiction where prototypes are the line) because they have done this in all previous iterations of the franchise, created fictional events to make an interesting product.

To me the fact relic is acknowledging that they feel they took a historical-fiction route overrepresenting the presence of the JT & KT alone shows that they understand that is just as much of a fiction as the BP and they did it for gameplay. I consider it a fiction that the ST is such an effective weapon at all in the game but its a gameplay choice they made for their product and both I and many others use it often so id call it a success.

There isn't two divisions of historical fiction either. It is just as fictional to see the stock KT stock IR halftracks, an effective sturmtiger, invincible stukas and entire squads with IR guns. Their chat on stream shows that they understand that for their own IP they've taken big liberties. I'm leaning towards their thinking that hey its time for another gameplay choice for the COH product that has not so often stuck to the lines off a history book. The statement of needing to be careful by them is also important as 3 games in a row of creating fictional histories for some axis units to make a faction, you may want to throw in an interesting gameplay unit for the allies to spice up the IP.

COH already being a historical fiction doesn't change now that they want to put in the BP, it was one before its presence and will remain one afterward.