Then they are badly designed because they come too early and Soviet is the can field an exclusively "elite infatry" army.
My point is rather simple buffing conscript to make them more attractive the Penals is the wrong way go about. Conscripts should be balanced with Grenadiers as the benchmark and designed so that that there is room for both units (conscript and penal) to coexist in composition of army each one bringing something worthwhile into the table.
(I refuse to get drug in a debate about "roles".)
I said penals are an alternative to elite infantry, not that they ARE elite infantry. I do feel that penals are over performing and have said as much, have discussed as much with you so don't put words in my mouth you know damn well I didn't say. I think penals are too strong regardless of Conscripts and I think Conscripts scale like a bag of rocks regardless of penals. I've said countless times I want any scaling for conscripts to come utility based or raw effeciency based. Something like a molotov isn't worth 20mu in the late game for example, knocking munitions off of it in T3 or 4 would buff cons, make them attractive late game and not effect the gren balance in the least.
Want to discuss roles or not there is no way to have penals and cons attractive without refining their roles. You said yourself yuu want one to be defensive and the other offensive--their vet already supports that distinction.
IMO as I have said, cons need some way to support the units around them so that no matter what unit you as a Soviet player decide to make the staple of your build conscripts have a place.
Again I'll propose that oorah provides a small aoe buff that scales with tech and or vet. If oorahing beside your maxim makes it able to actually suppress an enemy squad then you can get away with a con maxim build instead of maxim spam because anything less than 3 mgs won't stop anything more than 2 squads of infantry. If conscripts oorahing near penals make them shoot faster or survive a bit longer then a con/ penal build with balance each other and be more attractive than just penals..
You don't want them to overperform against grens, I don't want them to over perform on their own. Make them a support unit that can actually support and they won't out perform grens but synergies with their army much like the mg42 does for Ost.