They bitchslap infantry sections HARD and can easily burst models down due to very high accuracy(over 80% at FAR range with 16 dmg) and just murderfuck any unvetted infantry in game.
There is a reason they come so late you know, allowing them into early game means 100% light vehicle play against OKW being forced upon allies, which then is hardcountered by puma.
Penals, even at their absolutely strongest at least bled menpower, Obers don't due to target size of 0.7 (PGs have 0.8).
Or, to put it differently, imagine that we're getting old soviet indistry passive and T-70 arrives in 4th minute instead of 7th. That is the level of impact early game obers would have on infantry play.
You basically would have to butcher their stats into bit stronger volks to make them reasonable before their current timing and suggesting they would come at 3rd minute is a sheer ignorance of their stats.
Unit / MP Cost / Popcap / HP / Dmg10 / Dmg20 / Dmg 35
Obers 340 9 457 25,7 20,8 14,8
Penal 300 8 480 26,4 18,6 10,8
Falls 340 9 386 33,6 25,6 18
Pgren 340 8 400 47,2 28 4
Falls are probably stronger than current k98 Obers and they dont make OKW an unstoppable force. The performance between vet0 volks and vet0 5 men sections is probably bigger than the difference between vet0 Obers and vet 0 5men section. Still people say its fine and ignore how OKW get dumpstered in 1vs1.
And yeah if they are too strong at that timing just adjust their vet0 rec acc from 0,7 to ~0,80-0,85 and move it to vet 4-5. The current timing is unreasonable for an unit that dies way to fast against explosives, has not at and still doesnt outperform other elite inf that arrives at cp 2-3. Playing heavy light vehicle build (and thats meta in 2vs2 atleast) feels really bad without JLI/Falls.