Profile of Neo

Pros

- 5 men vs. 4 gives them more survivability
- All 5 men have SMGs that do good damage to non-armored units at close range
- They have grenades which are excellent at clearing buildings, often killing 4-5 men
- They have cheap sprint ability which makes them excellent for flanking static defensive positions and then clearing them out with their SMGs
- Don't require T1 and can be deployed immediately
- Comes in a doctrine with other excellent abilities (Stug E is incredible vs. infantry, you still get a Tiger, Light Artillery Barrage and the mechanised pgrens can be excellent as a counter to T2 Soviet play or as a mobile shreck platform).

Cons
- no AT whatsoever makes them extremely vulnerable to enemy vehicles, including M3
- no armor means they don't stand a chance vs. shocks, even if they have a 1-2 level Vet advantage, and this usually means they don't scale well into late game
- cannot fire while sprinting
- their grenades do very little damage to units that are NOT in buildings so are largely a waste of munitions


How to use them:

Build no more than 2 squads and use them for early game domination over conscripts/combat engineers. Support them with ordinary grenadiers and later the Armored Car/Halftrack.

Only use them on maps with lots of flanking, shot blockers and green cover (Semoisky Summer, Road to Kharkov).

In late game, use them to fight on the flanks vs. enemy solo cappers. You can also use them to flank enemy MGs, mortars, Zis guns etc., provided other units are doing the frontline fighting.

Don't send them to go toe to toe with enemy frontline infantry (Shocks, Vetted PPSH cons etc.)

In 3v3/4v4 they can be very powerful if you work together with someone who goes heavy support weapons.

I think the issue in this patch is survivability. Lethality is in a good place, they just need to survive tank and tank MG fire for a bit longer, that's all.

Wouldn't AOE changes affect mine performance?

We will look into this issue Neo. Thanks for bringing it up.

Thanks Peter. From what I can tell, tanks do a lot of damage to infantry in this patch and this seems to be causing them to kill 2-3 AT gun crew members per shot sometimes. Perhaps AT guns need a little more resistance to tank weapons and mgs given that they have that small metal guard to protect them?

@ Katitof: I hope that popcorn is still as sweet as it was...

@ Burts: the knowledge that you're upset is reward enough for all my efforts

If that's intended, I don't have a problem with it. I'm just asking if it IS intended. No need for Katitof's usual insult-fest.