Profile of Olekman

While i think i understand what you are trying to imply, we almost had a model like that in the first days/beta of the game. But it's a nightmare to balance if all units behave in that way. Maybe it's worth trying again (deflection dmg) for CoH3 and applying a similar concept for infantry as well (early days all infantry had armor) with say "glancing" dmg been a thing for a failed penetration.

Deflection damage is basically a much simpler form of what I proposed, but it's much less flexible from designer's perspective - it's always the same set damage percentage that goes through on deflection. I think that it could be implemented for CoH3 if it was core part of the design.

In case of infantry, only the [accuracy * target size] modifier could be used, as there's in my opinion there's no need to add complexity there. Cover already adds another dimension to infantry combat and splash damage weapon add yet another.

There's an alternative to "hit or miss, penetrate or not" of Company of Heroes and "always hit for damage minus resistances" of many other games.

Weapons would still have accuracy and penetration values, and units would still have target size (i.e. received accuracy) and armour values. When a shot is fired, it will always connect with its target, but the damage dealt would be multiplied by chance to hit and chance to penetrate. For example, your gun deals 100 damage and has 100 penetration and 0,75 accuracy. Your target has 120 armour and size 0,90. Effective damage dealt would be:

Damage * (Penetration/Armour) * (Accuracy * Target size) = Effective Damage
100 * (100/120) * (0,75 * 0,9) = 56.25

Taking into account that all of those values are affected by other conditions (distance from target, movement of the target/shooter, frontal/rear armour) and expanding range definition with a continuous function instead of just close/mid/far for additional variety, no two games would play the same despite effectively removing randomness. In this system positioning would be paramount, even more so than in current CoH2 implementation. Few meters would be the difference between losing a tank or it surviving with a sliver of health.

And yes, it wouldn't be very realistic and misses have cinematic charm to them, but with proper effects it would look just as good to the viewer (e.g. huge particle explosion and tank rocking when it receives hefty damage, rounds bouncing off armour like in CoH1 when the penetration is very low).

Just had an idea sparked from two issues:

In my opinion, the T34/76 comes a bit too late (about 30s-1min or ~15-25 fuel). Second, absolutely nobody gets the mobilized reserves in T3 (the initial reason for this was that the 7 men upgrade came 'too late', but it turned out that the T70 is enough of a power spike in T3. As Soviets, there is no reason to delay tech for additional power).

We could potentially fix this by reducing the cost of Soviet T4 by about ~15-20 fuel, but move mobilized reserves to T4 for 20-25 fuel.

Potential issues:
Earlier SU85, Katy and call ins (including heavies)

Benefits:
- Soviets now get the T34 finally earlier than Ostheer gets the P4.
- Decreases the apparent benefit of T70. Soviets could now have a choice between building a T70 OR rushing a medium.
- Since the cost of 7 men Conscripts is now truely separate, both cost and abilities could finally be balanced towards the performance of the unit and don't have to bridge the gap between "must be good enough to spend resources on BUT not too good because you get it for free later anyway".
- T1 builds could become more popular again due to the earlier arrival of the T34 and some saved costs on T4 that can be invested into back teching, while T2 builds now carry an "additional cost" in Mobilized Reserves. All this while no unit of T1 needs to be changed.

So Mobilize Reserves no longer comes free with T4, but T4 itself is cheaper? Sounds reasonable and would certainly improve T-34/76 timing, but as you mentioned it would have impact on timing of call-ins. I think it wouldn't be THAT big, but I bet there's one specific scenario where it's busted. Earlier Katy and SU-85 does t sound so bav, neither really has much of a shock value as T-34/76. It would definitely require solid testing all around.

I had this idea, but they said no "anti everything" infantry allowed. Therefore allowing a downgrade back to the initial 6 SVTs seems to be the best idea since PTRS package is best suited for the LV phase.

If it unlocked at T4, when actual tanks start rolling out, I feel it wouldn't be as anti-everything, because against tanks they would only be able to do chip damage.

Alternatively, if we're looking for something unique and unexplored, allow them to swap between SVT and PTRS, but only in the HQ sector.

The Emplacements in general can return more MP when dismantled with each vet. Like now they all give back 100mp, may be vet 2 can return 150 and vet 3 200 MP.

This was proposed for Withdraw and Refit back when it was still a thing, if I'm not mistaken. Personally, I find this to be a fair solution. The exact MP values would have to be adjusted (I'd propose exponential growth as a starting point, so something like extra 50/100/200 MP for vet 1/2/3), but overall it would reward players for holding on to their emplacements.