And a panther IS SUPPOSED TO COUNTER A PERSHING
I chuckled.
Pershing does not compete with Jackons or Shermans, just like Tiger doesn't compete with Panzers and Panthers. It's a heavy, and as such you expect it to perform these roles, which mediums simply cannot:
- Provide staying power, the ability to directly remain in a fight for longer periods of time before resorting to hit/reverse strategy.
- Converting recuperation costs from resources (manpower, fuel) into repair time, thus helping to spread resource/repair economy more evenly across your composition and generally saving resources in the long run.
- Frontload DPS into big blasts, resulting in more wipes.
- Fitting multiple roles (damage sponge, AI, AT) into relatively small amount of pop, making your overall composition more efficient in relation to popcap.
Tiger can do all of that in accordance with its price. IS-2 too, but being more clunky and less dangerous at that, hence its lower popularity. Pershing kinda does fit these roles too, but does so at a very high price despite having comparably low durability, which is the key stat if you want it to perform well at #1, #2 and #4. As such it's simply not so desirable at its price, especially considering that sticking to the baseline composition is goood enough and leaving you with the option to pick the best possible doctrine.
Which is why Pershing needs a buff. Easiest way to do that would be making it into a faster Tiger with less armour if people want to preserve US faction's flavour or whatever.