Yea, infantry with almost 0 firepower efficiency and 0 ways of making it better without doctrines (exclusive for USSR, lol), infantry, which can't hold a punch because of high target size stat, infantry, which only can run like a crazy and throw shitty grenades, exahusting my ammopool, right after exhausted fuelpool on unlocking that shit is fine.
If such infantry is fine, then I guess Grens are Uberfinegoodnice! And TommyRiflemans are not tommies, they are Rex Power Colts, each of them. Soviet mainline infantry is one of the worst infantry squads in game and definitely - worst mainline infantry squad of all factions.
Utility squads shouldn't worth like combinants (240 MP). Utilites of all other factions cost something around 200 MP. If they would cost so, then OK, at least it will have sense. More or less.
We may look at another "utility infantry" squad in game - Rear Echelones. They are pretty similar - cheap, ineffective in combat with their "drunk redneck accuracy", but working good as support and utility. And even may be turned in combat effective squad with... additional weapons! Rears showing us, that weapon upgrades can be really saving for Cons and their poor state, we shouldn't ignore that!
So, as I said, more sense it will have, if there will be some way to improve combat stats of those trashsquads. Commissars is good way, they can improve their accuracy and rate of fire by their aura, there are video, that shows how Commissars work, I like that. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFOfH70Yb4w
Or, Conscripts may already get non-doc weapon upgrades. Can somebody explain me, why USSR is really ONLY faction in game, which not allowed to have non-doc weapon upgrades for core infantry? And what they getting instead of such significant (it is significant) loss? From my point of view - USSR getting nothing, it's one way "downgrade", without compensation. That's not how assymetrical balance and balance in general works.
Conscripts are not the worse infantry out there. Besides, these guys have had some issues during their first year and they've found themselves a good spot that makes them more reliable in the long run than Riflemen and grenadiers. Want to know why, their merge ability allows them to be useful on the field where they can reinforce elite infantry on the go before they can quickly reinforce at HQ or a halftrack.
You know what makes them better than other frontline infantry units, they are a cheap. I don't know about you, but they can handle taking losses and can return to the frontline if the player decides to give them some healing. Back during the beginning of WFA, these guys were better than riflemen because they were
cheap to reinforce. This is useful when fighting against snipers or guys who kite with their 222.
Don't even compare these guys to Rear Echelons, because the main difference is that conscripts can actually do some damage to their targets. Even their veterancy allows them to take damage while they gain better accuracy at vet two and shoot faster at vet three.
If you look at these guys from the balance perspective, these guys are cheap, but cost effective at being versatile in the field. Especially at reinforcing, defending from cover, and even chasing after snipers if one decides to go risky.
Not to mention, you can have more conscripts on the field than rifleman, tommies, or grens because they are so cheap to reinforce. Compare 20 manpower of a conscript to the 28 manpower of a rifleman. These might not mean much since one has more manpower to reinforce, but when losses begin to stack up conscripts win the war of attrition. Its that part which the Ostheer, UKF, and the USF can't risk because manpower would simply disappear thanks to their high reinforcement costs as the Soviets may still have some extra manpower left. This is the case if players don't take too many losses everywhere.