I've heard his squad total dps is just like that on a vanilla gren squad.
I always have him out when available, his smoke and aura ability is great.
And if you got a panzerwerfer, he can make it shoot almost continually with no cooldown between barrages, very good on maps with a lot of munitions, like Pripyat Winter
But it's true, the first sound was so much more awesome
Crazy idea: maybe swap around P4 and Panzerwerfer?
That way T3 has StuG for AT, Ostwind for AI and the Panzerwerfer.
T4 has Sturmpanzer for AI, Panther for AT and P4 for all-round.
This'll give a reason to get a StuG and might even make T-34 more useful!