Profile of Hannibal

It really doesn't take much for them to get some more money out of this game. They could literally come out with another 3 commanders for each faction. At 5 bucks per faction and reusing abilities they could make a decent return with virtually no work on their part. Most would complain but buy it anyway just to try something new and balance wouldn't even be that important since Overwatch and other commanders haven't been toned down.

I know I would throw down for:
Soviets - Assguard commander with KV2/Mother Russia, Airborne/IS2, maybe another commissar commander
Ost - VSL, AssG with Ele, another P4J commander
OKW - Falls/WStuka barrage so it is more anti emplacement, VG SMG with Command Panther for sight and buffs, Ostwind/tank commander or heat shells
USF - Pershing/AssE, Rangers/EZ8 maybe with WC51, 105 Sherman/Rocket Strafe with Rifle mines

That is true. But I am not sure this would keep Relic really afloat. PR wise also suicide unless this signifies a long term commitment to the game, especially if many fans are already pissed off after the fail of CoH3 in this scenario. As a last ditch effort to avoid bancrupcy sure, otherwise probably no.
I still don't think they will come back to a game that will be 10+ years old by then.

Storm Troopers are criminally underpowered. I am not saying they should have stealth grenades but Storm Troopers as a doctrinal call in suck ass compared to things like Fallschirmjägers, Panzerfusiliers, JLI, Shock Troops and Paratroopers. Easily the worst infantry call in besides Partisans.

They need a rework for sure, even if they had to cost 400 manpower with 100 Ammo Upgrade, I would like to see StormTroopers given some love and have alternatives to just making 4 Grenadiers to counter all allied infantry.

I find Stormtroopers quite good. They're not the type of unit you'd buy 2 of, but they do deal heavy even without tactical advance. This ability roughly doubles their DPS and gives them also a bit more middle range DPS, although it obviously is a muni dump even if it is not super expensive. We also shouldn't forget that they cost 1 less population. If you normalize DPS to population cost, they are equal to slightly better than commandos.

They definitely have their weaknesses, also compared to commandos, but calling them "criminally underpowered" ist quite a hyperbole.

Regarding the light gammon bomb on them I am divided. It is stupid to have little counter play involved. On the other hand UKF already lacks burst damage via indirect so that moving this potential to some infantry squads might actually be reasonable. Overall the light gammon bomb of commandos should probably get replaced by something else. At the very least by a standard grenade in exchange for a small price buff.

Unfortunately, I don't have a good idea.
The allowIncompatibleReplays command worked fine for me, maybe just make sure that all it has been entered correctly. It is actually the intended "fix" for seeing replays from older versions

It all started from these claims:


That create the impression that garrand's long range performance can be ignored because it a "close range" weapon so it does not work with well with LMGs.

It not even the first, the second or even the third time that user has described gareands as "close range weapons".

The claim is simply false (but it seems that some people like to disagree with person that makes a post and not with what it has actually been posted).

It is false in the sense that Garands are not a pure close range weapon in the sense of SMGs, yes.
In what it is true though is that Rifles should close in whenever possible against Volks, Grens and even Obers. That's what the Garand profile dictates them to do. PGrens are the only exception here, but also a rather rare occurrence.
LMG Rifles have a quite odd profile of having no real benefit of closing in between ranges 35 and ~15, but then still have quite a DPS growth below range 15 despite having an LMG.
Some numbers on that:
LMG Rifles deal about 51% of their max damage at range 35, 67% at 15 (+16%) and peak at range 6 with 100%.
For comparison, Grenadiers deal 69% of damage at range 35, 83% at 15 (+14%) and peak at range 0 with 100%.

Combine this with the fact that LMG Rifles and LMG Grens have similar DPS until range ~18, at least against Ostheer it puts Rifles into an odd position.
Staying at far range makes you only trade evenly and is a suboptimal use of your squad (only 51% of max damage, other long range squads deal significantly more).
Closing in from far is not worth it since you gain little DPS in the first place and will even lose your short range models.
Closing in from mid MIGHT be worth it if you don't lose too many of your Garand models.
Staying close is absolutely worth it, but for that you can just buy a BAR.

Against OKW it might look different again, I have not thought it through in detail. Against Volks, I however see that the weird Rifle+LMG profile leads to having better DPS roughly above range 20 and below range 10, in between it is pretty even. So you'll get a better squad, but the behaviour is odd.
But I also did not find the LMGs really worth it in team games. The commander ability technically allows you to skip the rack upgrade, but also this is suboptimal. If you don't buy racks, your rifles still will have a free, unused weapon slot and your echelons stay pretty useless since they can't get zooks.

The upgrade is not super bad on paper, but does not offer that much benefit either. Other weapon upgrades that mix different weapons do it in a way that the whole profile of the squad gets changed, but the LMG upgrade on Rifles doesn't. It creates an odd hybrid.

I fully understand everything you and Vipper are saying. My issue is that according to vipper only SMG/Pistol count as short range weapons. I am saying that is to narrow minded. He is stating that Rifleman are not a short/mid favoring squad when they follow same damage as G43 which per Relics words a short/mid range upgrade. And your conscript example is what I am talking about, just because a weapon falls under an archetype doesn’t mean it has to follow the design 100% it can be changed as needed per balance needs. As such you cannot state only SMG are close range squad since Thompsons are also mid range.

I couldn't really follow everything that has been claimed here.
If the statement was that Panzerfusilier-G43 and Riflemen Garand or even that upgrades PFusies have a different profile than Riflemen or they were not "mid range squads", I don't agree with it. They are very similar in their profile, even despite PFusies having mixed weapons.
The classification of short/mid/long range squads does not come from a 1on1 comparison, but from "sorting" all squads and comparing every squad with all others. Usually, there is no reason to push into an SMG squad, because you will only improve their performance, not yours. The same goes for LMG squads and long ranges. Carbines and other mid ranged weapons/squads are sorted based on these extremes, stay away from SMG, but close into LMG squads.
Obviously this doesn't mean that you should stick to mid range at all cost. Close range fighting with PFusies makes sense against infantry sections with Bren guns, despite PFusies being a "mid range" squad. It is a guideline what your squad can do and what it can't. E.g. if you can't really leave your cover, you can still stick around with Riflemen at mid to long range to deal at least some damage. If it is an SMG squad, there is no reason to do that, since you won't deal any significant damage in the first place. That's how I think the classifications should be understood. In that sense, SMGs (and maybe pistols, didn't check) are short range weapons. Thompsons are an exception to SMGs, definitely. For all other SMGs, the rule of thumb is still correct. Although Thompsons have mid range DPS, they don't follow a classical carbine profile. Their damage still goes to near 0 at max range, and if possible you still benefit from closing in as quickly as possible in basically all circumstances. They still don't falsify the statement that SMGs are close range weapons, just because - as an exception to the rule - they are still okay at mid range.

As a side note, what I said about mosins was with the old Conscript/Gren match up in mind, which is probably also the main reason for their special long range DPS drop. In the late game, using Conscripts at long range can still be benefitial, their gain for closing in is despite everything still comparatively small. You probably just want to push them in 5m further than you would any other bolt action rifle squad, meaning, you stick around at 25-30 meters instead of 30-35. You can still summarize them as bolt action profile and the general guideline still makes sense for Conscripts and all other similar squads.

Of course weapon profiles can be changed anytime, but just for improving intuition, at some point it makes more sense to upgrade to hand out different weapon types instead of the same looking weapon with a completely different profile.