Profile of Vipper

I will try to clarify some things:

All sniper have a target size of 1.15

Ostheer and UKF have 82 HP

Soviet have 64 HP per entity for a total 128

Vs small arm fire that translates:

that Snipers have 71.3 effective HP (EHP) and the sniper team has 111.3 EHP (roughly +56% more hp)

Vs explosive/ballistic weapons:
Thing become a bit more complicated since the team will take more damage if both entities are inside the blast area.

In order to be killed with one shot the snipers need to be within a blast radius above 82 HP which is different for different weapons while the team need to have both entities inside a blast radius of 64 HP.

So it really depends on the type blast radius of specific weapon and where it lands relative to the position of the team.

222 vs snipers
The 222 has to 2 weapons. The kwk38 20mm autocannon and the MG34 coaxial mg.

The 20mm has very low accuracy and has very little chance of scoring a "natural" hit on sniper (around 6% close) so it only helpful via AOE damage.

Even that is a low chance since the AOE is 1 while the scatter is wide (scatter angle 5, ratio 1, distance 6). Even if it land with in 1 unit it only do 5. For practical reason the damage from the 20mm is negligible.

The coaxial MG34 has a x0.75 penalty vs sniper.

The DPS of the MG34 vs sniper is (range 0/10/20/30)

12.34/10.71/9.09/7.11


That means that theoretically if the 222 was firing only with its MG even at range 0 would need around 10 second to kill the sniper team.

That might seem as a sort time but things chance radically when moving penalty cuts the DPS in half and retreating bonuses lowering the DPS further to:
2.47/2.14/1.82/1.42

Now the 222 needs around 52 secs to kill a retreating sniper team even firing at range 0.


Suggestions:
Imo one could try to reduce the moving penalties of the 222 and the bonuses of sniper on retreat, one should also rethink the 0.75 damage modifier vs sniper on MG.

I would further suggest to reintroduce the 221 that could come earlier be cheaper and have bonuses vs sniper while the 222 could become more expensive and tougher and better suited vs lightly armored targets.

One could also try to change the 20mm cannon to work with accuracy and AOE similar to Centaur's dual 20mm cannons so it can also contribute vs snipers.

222 could either be an upgrade that costed manpower/fuel or a separate vehicle.

...
all this complaining about Puma vs jackson is missing the point entirely, of creating a unique late game unit.

If you think I am complaining you are missing the point. I am simply trying to clarify things.

Puma is not design to be used as "kiter" firing on mediums tanks from max range, it can do it but it is not what it excel in. Puma is meant to engage enemy medium either from the flanks or from very close as "flanker".

In that sense it is not unique since USF already have such a vehicle in the form of M10.

In your proposal you are suggesting a "super" kiter that will be able to engage enemy targets out of their SR, out of their range while being faster than most of them. The "only" weakness would be that it would die to 3 shots. You are asking for high micro unit modeled after what the Sniper is for infantry.

My question remains, what in your opinion would be a suitable counter to this "sniper" from Ostheer and OKW.

... While I find a redesign warranted for UKF and beyond, it really should be a holistic redesign not a series of adjustments and rebalancing of units or stats that result in things being "different" or "consistent" or whatever for the sake of it.

In my opinion UKF needs fixing probably more than other factions.

Yet Relic chose to make the trenches "consistent".

Once more I simply offered my opinion and explained where it comes from, feel free to have another opinion.

(I would have little objections in removing sandbags from conscripts and VG alike once they upgrade with weapons).

Both sniper seem to be problematic, with the Soviet team being more problematic.

The approach of making the sniper rifle un-transferable and SR bonus available to team-member only seems solid.

They are more resistent against small arms fire, but against explosives both yes and no, generally no. Ost sniper will survive a direct nade or mortar shell to the face, sov snipers will go down to one between them, but might have more luck vs med tank shots.

Neither gets armor or rec acc bonuses and neither have it below 1, small arms actually have Bonus accuracy(1.15 target size) against snipers for some time now, but 222 itself (its mg34) has acc epnalty vs snipers(it would murder them in a blink previously) and its coax isnt that good at vet0(it scales pretty well though with vet).

If you want to kill snipers with 222, its better to force them off the field and get 222 into the base to kill them there or just use long flank with infantry.

The information that small arms have bonus accuracy vs snipers is misleading. Pls elaborate/clarify which weapons you are referring to.

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UKF is indeed superior but as an ability it isn't all that unique, just better. I merely objected to you using it as a "and another thing" pile on to the sandbag discussion.

I really don't think any of this is a viable solution to what I see as a non-issue. I don't even understand where you are coming from on this. I mean you say they have to be dealt with in a pain in the ass way that eats up time and resources. Welcome to every allied faction dealing with spio rushes.

Imo (as I have pointed out many times) strong infantry should be delayed and that includes SP and Penals.


(The reason mention healing is that unless you manage to dislodge tommies from their cover you are going to face them again fully healed which makes things even worse.)

But all this is irrelevant to sandbags which in my opinion should not be available to mainline infantry unless those infantries are really weak. (pre patch conscripts, pre St44 VGs)