How is this remotely comparable? AEC doesn't do much in the late game so putting the command aura on it (even with penalties) is a net big buff to your army. Those bonuses are equivalent to two levels of vet. Clearly the Command AEC is far superior to the Command Panzer, unless you have lottery-winning RNG with the short 75mm gun.
Hetzer into into JP4 gave USF player an aneurysm. He didn't know what to do and proceeded to make mistake after mistake.
GG
Thanks for giving it a look, though I'd argue it was more the case that the USF was overconfident chasing down the pz IV and then we broke his neck. Lost the pz IV for it, but worthwhile.
You get Guards (and upgrade with their DP-28s) and these will beat Falls vet-for-vet. Or just use your sustained fire maxim to suppress the inevitable falls/volks blob. Penals will bleed very badly.
I think this old meme I did should answer your question (attention to the bottom right). Iirc at the time the prevailing consensus was that COH3 would be released in 2022 for some reason.
You were behind and needed the power spike a Pz IV ausf J would have given you. Stalling for KT was one of the worst moves you could have made. Shocks can do nothing against it. If the SOV goes PTRS penals then your men will walk all over them, free vet farm for Obers. Behind on squads as you were, 2 Obers was a logical setup and you presumably used the volks to soak up penal fire. But OTOH they will charge you and it doesn't sound like bundles/blendkorpers were used. You can gut a blob with those. 3+ Obers will just invite Katyusha wipes.
I don't see an MG in there either. Badly needed as outnumbered as you were. Yes the shocks can smoke it, but you can just move it back. If they get particularly brave then you can turn their smoke into a poison filled deathtrap, discouraging further MG smokes.
Yeah. Still, leaving them in tatters was not the best of moves. Spios are fine. 300 MP, 4 man engineer squad that melts. Expensive and dangerous. Nothing wrong with that. Fact is that pios are not really the strong ones, but REs are useless. Literally like having no squad at all. Well, they can capture territory, so there's that. And the tank traps, if well placed can actually be better than the sandbags due to their survivability. But still, no proper mines, extremely weak early game, veterancy that can only really be acquired with zooks, or in 1v1 with LMGs. If a miracle happens and COH3 is a success and Relic decides to give a gift of a balance patch to the COH2 community (hardly that the COH2 community will die with COH3 release), I would like to see a removal of volley fire in a muni starved faction, more XP for vet1 and a buff to close-mid range performance
I thought I should check the data before I posted and it turns out RE DPS is comparable to CE, getting better at close range. Main difference is that they don't have a flamethrower of course and the moving accuracy is 0.25 vs 0.5 for CE. RE are clearly not meant to be firing on the move in any situation. They're both terrible against mainlines and bad vs pioneers (say your prayers against SP) but idk what to suggest. Maybe your suggested change would help, but needs to be carefully scaled. Volley fire doesn't really do much even in the best situation (even volks will eventually get up and shoot you in the face) and the suppressed squad has 50% RA vs most small arms(?) so it can work against you.
But I think this whole business is part of a wider issue of USF needing a rework I think. I'll admit their early game is pretty unpleasant to play and mortar is a must get vs OST or just get memed by 2 x MG42 openers.