Profile of rumartinez89

From the start it felt like they were a team, they seemed to dig in and work together a decent bit. Team mate made halftrack which we used to contest middle but they seemed to be able to keep pressure up. At one point it was looking bleak and one wanted to surrender but we kept pushing. Eventually they got Pak43/JT but they seemed to have to much pop located to defensive play and we invested heavly in arty which allowed us to force them to react. Eventually we beat up the JT as it got stuck in a tank blob with KT an P4J and as it started to get away my heavy plane pass from Terror Tactics got the last bit of health and we got the kill. At that point we started to overwhelm there defenses and eventually caught KT out of position. The ost player was holding on but a few well placed RAMs followed by my allies Su85 and Zis got the kill.

As far as I can remember As. Gu. would beat Rangers once vetted (before the M1 changes) and they probably still do.

They are also CP 2 instead of CP 3 and come with grenade barrage.

As for Penals vet 1 bonus it is actually a weird buff since it work better in prolonged fights. One should can gain the most of it from long range cover to cover fights where where is there is less RNG.

Completely forgot about the CP2 vs CP3. That makes perfect sense. AssGuards winning sounds a little weird. The massive damage increase from the 4th thompson should negate the extra durability from the AssGu 6thman. I would expect Pathfinders to outright win then since they are 6 man plus 4 thompson and if all else fails they got tactical advance.

Yea the penal bonus is a hard one to use since soviets can only put down green cover with Cons. I think thats the main reason they can get outblobed by G43 Fussies. They on paper match up well but since the G43 blob can keep chasing without stopping it makes a prolonged fight pointless unless you have green cover available beforehand.

Well you do not need to get closer...They have good DPS at mid range.

But they have better DPS at short range along with a short range nade. I think most would assume Assaulting means to move up close and attack. However the point of the question was more in comparison to Rangers and Paratroopers that get 4 Thompsons. I know they are different factions by why the difference upgrade? At close range, the Assault Guards are no better than Airborne while lacking the ability to move in or hide. Yes they are better at mid range but out of all Soviet elites they seem to have the least upside. Shocks can assault better, Reg Guards have more versatility and better long range, Airborne are better short range and long range.

I think Hannibal was comparing mp40 volks and ppsh penals. In that instance volks start out with .93 target size once they get the mp40 upgrade, and they end with .72 after vet. So it is sightly better than penals

Not that an extra man and "to the last man" doesn't help penals too, but I think mp40 volks are still a little better cqc w/ the smoke nade

I know Serealia hasn't been updated in a while but they still show the target size to be 1, not sure if the data should be the MP40 or MP44. Now OST AssG have target size of .95 maybe that is what your talking about?
On a similar note PPSH seem to have better stats than AssG SMG by quite a bit. The only downside is the ready aim time which seems to be made up for with superior near burst/moving acc/cooldown.

Trying to get back on topic.

Damage is increased by about 4,5%. This means that you lose about 12,9% damage if the first model drops instead of the 16,6%. Really nothing huge, but okay. Not enough by far for saving PPSh Penals from being UP.

PPSh Penals just show how important RA, stealth and sprint are to CQC squads. MP40 Volks are the only second CQC unit lacking all three, but at the very least they come with smoke on top of the normal Faust and incendiary that Volks carry and better RA when vetted.

PPSh Penals sit somewhere in the middle.
Too large RA for being good at assaulting, no real utility, no ATG backup so you'd still need PTRS Penals at some point. They even come with a commander that gives you PPSh Guards if you want, that do everything PPSh Penals can do but better.

Dont Penals and Volks have the same RA when vetted(according to march 2021 patch notes), both come out to a target size of .77.
Cost from 300 to 290
Reinforce time from 5.4 to 4.5
Veterancy 3 weapon accuracy from +30% to +20%
Veterancy 2 Received accuracy from -15% to -23%

So at VET1 VG is slightly better, VET2 Penals become a beast and VET3 Penals are still better due to increased ACC. Like you said the biggest difference is lack of utility, adding OORAH or smoke nade would make it an actual useful upgrade.
I also agree with your other point, there is no reason for this commander to give PPSH since Guards get it for free and can cloak.. Like I have said in other threads giving Penals access to the PPSH upgrade would make Penal starts viable with more commanders.

Soviet Reserve would give PPSH Penals, Commissar for field healing and AT/MG without backtech.
Advanced warfare would give you radio intercept so you can hold off on PTRS upgrade as long as possible, PPSH Penals, T3485 and the ability to repair them with your penals.
Finally Conscript Support could be renamed to Infantry support with PPSh, KV1 with Penals able to repair and Rapid conscription to keep up with the Assaulting theme of the commander/Penals.

Each commander also has an ability arty/offmap/skill planes to make them attractive for team games. I know there wont be a patch but hell it would be a nice MOD to play so it isn't the exact same commanders everytime.