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Comparing them to ppsh conscripts isn't very accurate as thompsons deal more damage both up close, and at long ranges. With that said the LMG upgrade is probably the better choice in most situations simply because by the time paras are hitting the field there's a lot of stuff that can punish CQC charges. |
Same as coh developers team, you now not much about Soviet WW2 history. Penal battalions were consisted of junior and middle-class officers(rare, even with majors or leutenant colonels), who at one time disobeyed the stupid/deadly orders of higher-ranking officers. whole battalions could consist of excellent officers and usually such battalions, at the expense of the composition, were much more trained than ordinary soldiers.
You right, they were the lowest priority in supply chain, but, they were sent to death missions, and they were adequately equipped for such tasks.
So yes, not in a general sense, but they were elite troops of society army
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtrafbat gives a 1-3 month life expectancy for penal soldiers. The very first (officer) penal battalion lost 600 of it's 900 men in only 3 days of fighting at Stalingrad. While very skilled officers might of ended up in a penal battalion, the high turn-over would dramatically hinder the unit's ability to organize and act coherently. It's hard to do a good job when you're working with someone you've only known for a few days.
The soviets might have been hasty in applying punishments, but I think it's safe to say that they weren't completely brain-dead idiots, and were more often than not sending their poorest preforming officers and soldiers instead of elites that disobeyed an order.
3)Switching units serves no purpose and solves nothing, because now you have differently named mainline T0 infantry with exact same problems(actually even more, because they are now even more useless then cons for the same price), you're fixing semantics, not problem. Increasing upkeep and bleed for shit squad adds more problems as well.
As mentioned in the OP, pop and reinforcement costs would be modified by the upgrade to prevent further bleed. Keeping "to the last man" on the new penal, but applying it to the now larger squad size would give a significant boost to the squads fighting ability on top of whatever weapons come with the commissar upgrade, and extra models for tanking damage. It also deepens the utility of the merge ability, and helps differentiate the role of soviet support weapons without making them clones of the other armies.
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I've seen quite a few comments about conscripts being "worthless" on this and various community boards. While personally I think that they do fine for their price point, it's hard to say that a soviet player shouldn't immediately go for the more elite penal battalions since they are so low in the tech tree.
Speaking of penal battalions, why are they the soviet "elite" infantry? Historically they were staffed by disgraced soldiers, civil prisoners, and prisoners of war. I think it's safe to say that they were the lowest priority in the supply chain, and weren't assigned SVTs over a group of regular conscripts.
In the game's meta the soviets seem to also have a "missing" AI upgrade for their mainline troops. Their only real upgrades are doctrinal PPSH's. Meanwhile all the other armies have quite a large variety of weapon upgrades that play an essential part of their decision making over course of the game . It's not uncommon for a soviet player to be floating hundreds of munitions in the mid-game with only off-maps to spend it on, or by laying a somewhat "unfun" number of multipurpose mines, meanwhile everyone else is fretting over their lmg and infantry AT ratios.
In recognition of the historically odd hierarchy of infantry roles, the complaints about soviet T0 infantry being useless, and a missing munitions sink/ mainline AI upgrade I think the following should happen to make the soviet army a more interestingly played army:
-Conscripts and penals swap tech positions.
-Conscripts take the current penal SVT's, PTRS's, and demo's, but keep the molotov's and doctrinal PPSH's.
-Penals take the current conscript Mosin Nagants, sandbag construction, and merge ability.
***-Penals have an X munition "commissar" upgrade. The commissar would replace one penal model or more with a commissar and guards that are equipped with whatever weapon makes sense. More importantly the commissar would increase the squad's model count limit by 2-3 models. The extra models would not carry weapons, but would tank damage for the squad, and would also be prioritized for merging whereupon they'd equip the crew-member weapon. The squad's popcap/reinforcement costs would be adjusted some to compensate for the unarmed extra models.***
This commissar upgrade gives the soviet players a munitions sink that upgrades their mainline infantry, but without the problems of an lmg upgrade on a six man squad, and sameness of gameplay. The commissar would also more emphasize the armie's design style of a high manpower but short supply early war russian army. Crew weapons and such might have to go through a slight power re-balancing due to the increased merge capacity, but overall would see a greater and more unique importance in soviet gameplay as they'd spend much longer times on the field if skilled players are able to constantly top them off with spare penal models. |
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This a supporter only thing? I don't see anything for your discord... |
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You realize that four-man squads are 100% unviable and can accomplish absolutely nothing, right?
Also, unlike USF blobs, Ostheer blobs instantly get suppressed by MGs and instantly wiped by mortars, even on the move.
So anyone blobbing Ostheer units isn't going to get far.
The single biggest weakness Ostheer has is still there: the units lose models at a 3x higher rate than any Allied squads do.
So five men helps a little but still doesn't address the main issue: how Ostheer infantry can't stay in battle long enough to actually perform the "defensive" tactics the faction is supposed to employ.
The 4 man gren squad is completely viable, but is less forgiving in execution. The major difference between the 4 man grenadiers and their allied counterparts is that, once the shooting starts, you have much less time to position your squad. Grenadiers have roughly 2/3 the health pool of a 6 man squad, but the target size is only about 1/6 smaller. To even out the relatively higher incoming damage their weapons are also about 1/6 higher in damage. How does this give you less time to position your squad? Moving negates more of the smaller squads damage bonus much in the same way as the famous math question: would you rather a 25% raise in your pay followed by a 15% decrease, or a 15% raise in your pay followed by a 25% decrease?
The veteran squad leader buff is largely a defensive one. While it does upgrade damage a bit, the other upgrades offer higher initial DPS for the resources invested. The main benefit is in having the extra hitpoints which can be exchanged for a bit more time to spend moving into a better position, or being caught in a bad position. |
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- OST demanded Brit mortar pit range be reduced.
To balance things, everyone's mortar (inc OST) range was reduced.
- OST/OKW demanded Allied TDs be nerfed. They were nerfed and Panther's armor and Hulldown and
Command tank were all nerfed.
- StuG could eat allied heavies solo (while being cheaper than a T34) and as such was nerfed.
- You asking StuG to NOW be buffed...
Do you want StuG range buffed to 60 so that allied TD range be buffed to 80?
Do you want StuG power buffed so that ALL allied vehicle armor be buffed?
Allies have X, so axis should have it too.
... Do you want all axis and allies to have the same unit stats? For the entire game to be mirror stats?
Units are supposed to have pros and cons. If they're all pros, then it no longer is a game.
It falls into non-brainer.
If STUG have same cost, but AT of Panther, range of Jackson and HE of Sturmtiger, with a turret and
3x MGs of Pz4 but with front armor of Brummbarr...
... Would anyone do anything else?
Your comment is like hey : Scissors rock vs paper, but if you make it immune to rock and able
to rape other scissors AND rocks, then it'd feel just right. Oh, and keep it cheaper than enemy
units also
... Bias, anyone?
I'm happy with things they way they are TBH. The point of my post is that spotting scopes are there to hedge the asymmetrical range disadvantages OST faces. Maybe I should have pointed out I was being sarcastic with the buffs as I do enjoy the asymmetry. |
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Sure, but buff Stug range so it can trade max range shots with allied TD without having to move closer to the battle line. Also buff armor and HP on the half-track and scout car to compensate for the extra exposure to hostile fire.
E: also buff mortar range.
Ostheer is outranged on all fronts by the allies which forces them to attack standoff players. Being able to see what you *have* to assault beforehand is the major reason scopes are the way they are. |
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