According to the new Wehrmacht Commander getting OKW P4 with better armor right from the beginning, I made some comparrisons between OST P4 and OKW P4. They both have the same cannon (Penetration values) but different armor values.
All values are from: https://coh2db.com/stats
Used penetration values are for mid range, cause it's the most common range for fighting.
TLTR: Reduce OKW and OST Vet 2 P4's armor a bit and in exchange increase hitpoints to survive a 5th shot and increase fuel from 140 to 150. That would make a difference between those variants and give you a real choice.
So here we go. All percentages show the chance of penetration. E.g. the USF 57mm AT gun penetrates the OKW P4 with 60% chance, OST P4 with 78%. That means, OST P4 survival chance is 18% worse.
Conclusions:
1. The higher armor value of OKW P4 doesnt matter when it comes to allied tank destroyers. They almost all penetrate with 100%. Same could be said about AT guns. The differences are marginal. You don't feel a difference ingame. For example the 6 pounder at gun penetrates OKW P4 with 85% chance. That menas you have a chance of 15% to survive, thats not even every 5th shot.
2. Better armor seems a bit stronger vs allied medium tanks. But even there, almost about 1 in 2 shots penetrates your OKW P4 at mid range. Thats not pretty much. And heavy mediums (T34/85 and Sherman E8) also don't care much about better P4 armor. They penetrate with ~65%, which means 2/3 of all shots fired will penetrate.
3. If you turn tables and look at the penetration values of the German Pak 40 vs T34/85 and Sherman E8 you can see similarities between Pak 40 and 6 Pounder:
Pak 40 vs T43/85 (160 armor): 125%
6 Pounder vs OST P4 (180 armor): 111%
=> Both at guns will always penetrate. The higher armor value doesnt matter.
Pak 40 vs Sherman E8 (215 armor): 93%
6 Pounder vs OKW P4 (234 armor): 85%
=> For having 19 armor more you get 8% higher chance of not getting penetrated. Thats neglectable.
T34/85 does nearly cost the same as OST P4 and Sherman E8 nearly costs the same as OKW P4.
BUT both allied heavy mediums do have more hitpoints, so they survive one more shot! And thats much more important in combat, than having a little bit more armor.
My proposal:
Reduce OKW and OST Vet 2 P4's armor from 234 to 215, to bring it in line with Sherman E8, but increase hitpoints from 640 to 720 and increase fuel from 140 to 150. That would make a huge difference and could help P4 to better compete in late game and would also give you a real choice.
Because of low response in the official forum, I hope to get a nice disucussion here instead. Since hearing from Relics' next CoH² update and their plans about updating some commanders, I am really excited and can't await winter! So I made some thoughts about it and would like to show you them. As many of you probably know me, I play 90% Axis and therefore my thoughts focus on Axis. I also play CoH² since closed Alpha, so I can say I got a lot of experience for this purpose. In my opinion, Ostheer is in a really good spot right now and has many good commanders. That's the reason why I am only focusing on OKW. Ostheer can Imperial Dane or Helping Hans do^^ 
I try to be as short as possible. I am looking forward to you opinions!
). This would increase its usefulness. Second, this ability only lasts for a few seconds. And according to reload time your tanks can make only ~3 shots. For 45 ammo and only short duration I would highly recommend those ~3 shots to hit their target^^
]). Because of having only 3 trucks and not beeing able to put more on the same territory at the same time, this would be balanced by itself without any costs.
VonManteuffel
Smartie
Relic Entertainment
