Ranger weapon choices

I was watching an interesting game where Jesulin was upgrading one of his Ranger squads with two Bazookas and one BAR. It seemed like a powerful, if expensive, way to upgrade Rangers. The double Bazookas with the Ranger’s bazooka expert trait combined with a single BAR let the Rangers contest infantry and really hammer medium tanks.

Of course, it isn’t as good as THREE Bazookas for tank killing nor as good as Thompsons for anti infantry work.

What do you guys think, how do you like your Rangers? Thompsons all the way? Triple Bazookas? Triple BARs? Mix and match Bazookas with BARs? 2 Bazookas and a BAR? Two BARs and a single bazooka? Thompsons and a bazooka? Thompsons and a BAR?

Lots of options that can work in all kinds of different scenarios, so there’s really no wrong answers here.

Cheers!

Thompsons or go home

BARs are bad on Rangers; it's only a 50% DPS improvement over their carbines.
At the same time, BAR DPS is 100% better than Rifleman Garand DPS.

Just Thompsons or 3x zook are the most cost-effective upgrades.

Thompsons.

Then another squad with all bazookas.

Slingshots on my rangers worked out great for me last game.

Thompson,but we need 5x Thompson

My frend often go for a squad with 3 Bar and 2 squad with 3 zook.

It would be intresting if paras and rangers would get better stats for their bars like commandos on brens.

Two Bazookas one BAR is actually a pretty clever idea.

When you think about it, a four BAR Ranger Squad isn't that much of an improvement over a three BAR Ranger squad. It'll still win the fight, the enemy squad will retreat and you'll take the territory.

Similarly, a tank's going to retreat from a 2 Bazooka Ranger Squad just as surely as it'll retreat from a 3 Bazooka Ranger Squad.

Going two bazookas one BAR lets your Ranger squad fill its AT duties and contest enemy infantry. It won't be as good as a Thompson Squad or a Triple Zook Squad at either role, but there's a lot of value in versatility in 1v1.

Anyone else miss the old COH1 days where rangers would come with 2 free zooks?

Thompsons or go home

+1 purely for style points. Thompsons are awesome.

That being said 3x zooks is kinda viable in teamgames for strictly AT purposes but I'd theoretically personally stay away from mixing in 1s just because I'd want to maximize their efficiency at their given role. I'd rather beat infantry as hard as I can with my rangers to keep bleed down from infantry engagements and maybe give them more wiping potential and support them with some other form of AT like RE zooks or jacksons but it's probably just personal preference tbh.

Ironically I really like the Recon Support paras with zooks and camo because they can still kinda contest infantry with 4 carbines and grenades too. A lot of the reason I like them is the camo and mines as well though.

+1 purely for style points. Thompsons are awesome.

That being said 3x zooks is kinda viable in teamgames for strictly AT purposes but I'd theoretically personally stay away from mixing in 1s just because I'd want to maximize their efficiency at their given role. I'd rather beat infantry as hard as I can with my rangers to keep bleed down from infantry engagements and maybe give them more wiping potential and support them with some other form of AT like RE zooks or jacksons but it's probably just personal preference tbh.

Ironically I really like the Recon Support paras with zooks and camo because they can still kinda contest infantry with 4 carbines and grenades too. A lot of the reason I like them is the camo and mines as well though.

Two Bazookas one BAR is actually a pretty clever idea.

When you think about it, a four BAR Ranger Squad isn't that much of an improvement over a three BAR Ranger squad. It'll still win the fight, the enemy squad will retreat and you'll take the territory.

Similarly, a tank's going to retreat from a 2 Bazooka Ranger Squad just as surely as it'll retreat from a 3 Bazooka Ranger Squad.

Going two bazookas one BAR lets your Ranger squad fill its AT duties and contest enemy infantry. It won't be as good as a Thompson Squad or a Triple Zook Squad at either role, but there's a lot of value in versatility in 1v1.

That’s pretty much what I was thinking. A mixed role squad can contest a point and win vs a weaker squad like Ostruppen or an injured squad and at the very least make it harder to take. In the game I mentioned there was a point where US squads had overran two PaK 40s with a Major, a RE squad and two ranger squads. All were fully equipped with Bazookas except for one BAR on one of the ranger squads. In spite of being overran by four squads, only one PaK40 got decrewed. This prompted me to think about how important that one BAR had been in that fight and how much more damage could’ve been done with just one more BAR on the other squad of Rangers.

The idea of Paratrooper Bazookas is interesting too. 6 men with 2 super Bazookas and 4 Paratrooper Carbines is still about as strong as a vanilla rifleman squad against infantry. A 5 man ranger squad with 2 Bazookas, 1 BAR and 2 Carbines gives you a similar option but without the camouflage, mine laying and costs a bit more munitions. The mixed Ranger squad is probably only better because of coming in the Heavy Cavalry Company which is by far the most common pick by USF players today.

Thoughts?