Profile of Vipper

From a design point of view

Rifle grenades Upgrade
Imo this ability can easily prove problematic.

The weapon upgrade being available from CP 0 and with no tech cost is inconstant with other weapon upgrades. It would probably be better to have some tech requirements.

The ability to fire 2 rifle grenades from a mortar pit is excessive and can easily lead to squad wipes.

The combination of smoke grenades and rifle-grenades allows the unit deal with HMG too easily.

The ability to equip rifle-grenades BAR and minesweepers is excessive the upgrade should at least take all weapon slots.

From the little testing I did the unit has a big advantage when is garrison while the combination of volley fire suppress and rifle-grenades can also prove problematic. One might have to remove volley fire from the unit once upgraded.

Generally speaking the grenades forces enemy units to move allot reducing their DPS.

I personally would suggest moving the ability to riflemen taking all weapon slot and swapping with flamer from rifle company.

Off map smoke barrage
The ability should not be available to e used inside enemy bases.

Dozer blades
I find the ability good since for 70 munition you get a tank that is better than the Ostheer PzIV. On the other hand I see little reason to be bundle with Sherman 76mm so the Sherman 76mm could become a separate ability. (I would suggest that Sherman 76mm becomes identical with normal Sherman with only difference having AP round instead HE)

This ability could be replaced with a timed ability giving better bonuses to units fighting from or against garrison.

Rangers
The unit is simply OP and way more cost efficient than PGs for almost the same price. I would rather have the unit's damage toned down and have lower CP than making it cheaper.

M4 Sherman Calliope
The unit does need fit the commander since it is not actually a good unit to use in a urban environment. Reducing the price is not really a good solution since the unit is very hard to kill. I would suggest increasing minimum range so it can not be used aggressively and adjusting damage if needed.

A units better suited fro the commander would be the dozer (one could then remove the dozer blades). The dozer could also be redesigned to work more like a mini KV-2 and maybe have a limited to 1 or 2. Or mini priest weapon with significant less range but providing some sort of indirect fire support suited for urban environment. Or a very durable tanks with good frontal amour and less wipe potential.

That could also allow the easy8 to be moved to elite armor.

I like those suggested improvements, well thought out.

This game may be at the end of its cycle, but that's the stuff we need for coh 3.
Outstanding technical work.

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So your opinion is that stg pnz is what an "assault rifle" should be, or should it be closer to bar ? Or somewhere in the middle ? "Assault rifle" as a term is pretty much generic, i get it, so is important to establish how an assault rifle is meant to work exactly.

Thanks
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BAR is again an "OP" weapon since its superior to M1 at long range and since it designed for the "OP" riflemen.

Imo assault rifles should have most of their DPS at mid range being the in between of carbine (semi automatic) and SMGs. So they should lose to SMG bellow 10 and to Carbine above 20 (for the same cost).

Another way to implement them would be to have them work as semi autos but have the addition option for full fast auto as timed ability with or without a MU cost.

The original design still didn't consider STG as "assault rifles", and WFA impacted it as result with its bar before, and STG volks immidiatly after.
STG volks were implemented because STG were the best weapon to fit that kind of mid range role, but it conflicted with previous smg-ish design of Panzergrens.

No it did, read the spoiler, Pgs ST is described as an assault rifle, Listed as MP44.

Actually VG ST does not follow any weapon profile and it is a weapon good at all ranges.

Not to speak of STV-40 as cqb weapons despite being similar to G43.

SVT-40, G43, m1 are all semi-auto (carbine according to Relic) and according to weapon profiles should be optimum at mid to long range. The M1 garrant was actually buffed to be better at long range due to the old USF faction design.

That is why weapon classes must be accounted for when drawing weapon profiles.

It doesn't mean that weapons should be copypaste, but when semi auto rifles act like long-mid range semi auto rifles, assaupt rifles act as assault rifles, carbines semi auto are actually all cqb/midish carbine semi auto and smg/cqb role is taken by actual smgs, you give everything more consistency and don't bar out any possible option risking for conflicting outcomes like volks stg.

You do not have to convince me, I have been advocating for it for quite some time.

That's where doctrines get the job done.
I'm not saying.that all factions should have nondoc similar tools, but that the "rules" for equipment should be somewhat standardized.

Ab eventual STV long range weapon equivalent to g43 could be made doctrinal upgrade or standard issue for doctrinal units, and URRS retair their close range nondoc roster with the proper weapon classes (penals could be a 6 men mosin with 2 atv-40, cons remain the mid-close range low accuracy mosin unit).

STV could become guards standard weapon.

IF coh 2 teaches something, is that you should plan ahead such thing as weapon classes to give some kind of concistency.

Otherwise we end up with semi auto rifles that for some reasons abide to completely different rules and 3-4 version of G43, mp40, bren,...

They have its called "weapon profiles" and "relative positioning", but for some strange reason the game is gradually moving away from it.

Small Arms Weapon Profiles
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Update April 24th, 2014
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According to test contacted by Soviet army it was inferior to SMGs close and semi auto rifles long range.

Personally I am not against the AVT maybe for the new Soviet paratroopers if they can get the animation and sounds right, but I see little reason for it. You can get similar result (or even better) with Assault Guards and the ppsh/SVT combination.

Finally each faction seems to be better oriented to fight a specific ranges and the soviets seem to have units for all ranges thus I see little point in it.