Mainline Infantry

I have a big question about mainline infantry. Please explain to me, without being sarcastic, and without being an Ally or Axis fanboy, and being absolutelly realistic, why:

- 7men Cons squads are considered balanced.
- 5men IS squads, with double Bren, are considered balanced.
- 5men RM squads, with BAR or 1919, are considered balanced.
- 5men Volks, with STG or MP40, are considered balanced.
- Hypothetically 5men Gren squads are considered OP as hell and will break the entire game.

I have a big question about mainline infantry. Please explain to me, without being sarcastic, and without being an Ally or Axis fanboy, and being absolutelly realistic, why:

- 7men Cons squads are considered balanced.

Arrives late game or with additional costs, weak supporting units, no focused long range damage.

- 5men IS squads, with double Bren, are considered balanced.

They are not, this is why they received so many nerfs to the point they had to be re-buffed. High manpower, fuel and muni costs to get to that point, high pop requierment, static, easily counterable forward reinforcement, high squad cost.

- 5men RM squads, with BAR or 1919, are considered balanced.

Delayed and limited access to support weapon units, lack of reliable forward reinforcement, high squad cost.

- 5men Volks, with STG or MP40, are considered balanced.

Very strong early game, peak at mid game, require elite infantry supplement to stay relevant in late game, limited or no forward reinforcement, unless you pick a doctrine, average vet.

- Hypothetically 5men Gren squads are considered OP as hell and will break the entire game.

Low initial cost, early mobile reinforcement, strongest support weapon units with no access limit what so ever, extra tier of AI and AT units to support them in late game, DPS highly focused on 1 model, there already is doctrine with 5 man grens and it was batshit insanely OP up until recently, so concept already tried and proven to be broken in context of army.

Because 5man Grens were a 270mp 60muni squad that could beat every single mainline 1v1, had great on the move DPS thanks to the squad leader G43, was extremely survivable, had free medkits at vet 1, techless 19 range snare, techless rifle grenade that’s bugged half the time and doesn’t produce animation or sometimes warning, and were supported by the cheap 251 for forward reinforcing and healing.

To call whoever put this disgusting unit in the game incompetent is an understatement.

Because 5man Grens were a 270mp 60muni squad that could beat every single mainline 1v1, had great on the move DPS thanks to the squad leader G43, was extremely survivable, had free medkits at vet 1, techless 19 range snare, techless rifle grenade that’s bugged half the time and doesn’t produce animation or sometimes warning, and were supported by the cheap 251 for forward reinforcing and healing.

To call whoever put this disgusting unit in the game incompetent is an understatement.

Many thing are incorrect in this post but I point the obvious:

Rifle-grenade is not "techless" since it requires BP1
The DPS of grenadier on the move is simply not "great" with a singe G43


I addition the argument does not really hold much water because the majority of the things on the OP list where available before veteran squad leader become available.

Many of those upgrades are doctrinal or locked behind tech

Many thing are incorrect in this post but I point the obvious:

Rifle-grenade is not "techless" since it requires BP1
The DPS of grenadier on the move is simply not "great" with a singe G43


I addition the argument does not really hold much water because the majority of the things on the OP list where available before veteran squad leader become available.

Every single thing I said is the truth. You should read it carefully and educate yourself, it will be very useful for your skill in coh2.

quite simply- factional design is the reason. ost has been designed entierly with the idea of squishy infantry. you cant simply remove that and expect there not to be waves. look at how much salt comes from an extra man on cons, who are SUPPOSED to be durable, and imagine that on a squad that isnt. an extra model is a MASSIVE change and part of the reason the brits will never be balanced. you cant just slap an extra man on and call it a day. especially not when the entire identity and balance of a faction is based around specifically NOT having extra men to slap on

quite simply- factional design is the reason. ost has been designed entierly with the idea of squishy infantry. you cant simply remove that and expect there not to be waves. look at how much salt comes from an extra man on cons, who are SUPPOSED to be durable, and imagine that on a squad that isnt. an extra model is a MASSIVE change and part of the reason the brits will never be balanced. you cant just slap an extra man on and call it a day. especially not when the entire identity and balance of a faction is based around specifically NOT having extra men to slap on

They're not even squishy, until the Brits they had the lowest target size, their cost is reletively cheap. If you look at them model-by-model their Kar 98's are almost as good as Semi-Automatic Rifles as well, they're certainly competent units. It's only their squad size which keeps them down.

I have a big question about mainline infantry. Please explain to me, without being sarcastic, and without being an Ally or Axis fanboy, and being absolutelly realistic, why:

- 7men Cons squads are considered balanced.
- 5men IS squads, with double Bren, are considered balanced.
- 5men RM squads, with BAR or 1919, are considered balanced.
- 5men Volks, with STG or MP40, are considered balanced.
- Hypothetically 5men Gren squads are considered OP as hell and will break the entire game.

These guys have 1 thing in common that the old 5 man gren don't. That they can't deal with elite infantry.

old 5 man gren could 1v1 every type of elite infantry and win.
Long range elites, they could just push up and win.
short range elites, they could hold their ground and cut em to ribbons.

Let me give you an example, 2x bar rifles(vetted) can't deal with lmg grens(vetted) at long range at all. They can't stop Ass Gren(vetted) either because of sprint and insane ra bonuses.

5 man IS are still powerful though.

techless rifle grenade

Sorry you are damn wrong. Still required BP1.

To call whoever put this disgusting unit in the game incompetent is an understatement.

I bet you'd perfectly balance game if you could just get into the balance team right???

Explain how a 270mp+60mu unit loosing at long range to 5 man section is now is balanced????

Well 5man Grens do not really have a definite situation where they win and where they lose. This is how mainlines are should be balanced.

Almost always, you will have the same number of squads as your enemy. But each player needs a skill based way to out play their oppponent.

So each mainline has a situation where they win and where they lose, and players have to work on putting them in situations where they win

For IS and Cons, it’s being behind the cover they build
For volks and Rifles, it’s closing the distance
For grenadiers, it’s staying at range
(These are generalization to illustrate a point they are not always true)

But 5man Grens just performed well in all situations, because they were all around better
But now they are bad, because that all around better turned to all around worse.
Like, what situation should the ostheer player be putting their VLS Grens in where they will win?

Close range? Long range? Behind cover?
Now, They don’t have good enough long range dps to win reliably there, and don’t have goood enough short range dps to win there either, and they can’t build cover

Maybe make them a cover displacemt unit and give them incendiary grenades? IDK

Because 5man Grens were a 270mp 60muni squad that could beat every single mainline 1v1, had great on the move DPS thanks to the squad leader G43, was extremely survivable, had free medkits at vet 1, techless 19 range snare, techless rifle grenade that’s bugged half the time and doesn’t produce animation or sometimes warning, and were supported by the cheap 251 for forward reinforcing and healing.

To call whoever put this disgusting unit in the game incompetent is an understatement.

Sorry but I never was talking about the Squad Leader upgrade, which in fact was very good before the last patch, now is bad.

I was talking about a "bolster" like ability for OST, like the Brit or Sov one, with a vanilla gren model add. The only thing this will do is making the squad more resistant in the late game, which is full of arty, tanky shells, call in arty, etc. I think it wont break anything.

I was talking about a "bolster" like ability for OST, like the Brit or Sov one, with a vanilla gren model add. The only thing this will do is making the squad more resistant in the late game, which is full of arty, tanky shells, call in arty, etc. I think it wont break anything.

Feel free to play a faction with 5man squads or use VSL/Osttruppen commander for Ost.

These guys have 1 thing in common that the old 5 man gren don't. That they can't deal with elite infantry.

old 5 man gren could 1v1 every type of elite infantry and win.
Long range elites, they could just push up and win.
short range elites, they could hold their ground and cut em to ribbons.

They cut shock troops to ribbons? I'm also pretty sure they didn't fare that well against paras and rangers. Saying 5 man grens are/were too good is one thing, saying they clobber elite infantry is another.

They cut shock troops to ribbons? I'm also pretty sure they didn't fare that well against m1919 paras. Saying 5 man grens are/were too good is one thing, saying they clobber elite infantry is another.

1 no 2 would definitely be too much for shocks and lmg paras.

1 no 2 would definitely be too much for shocks and lmg paras.

You said "old 5 man gren could 1v1 every type of elite infantry and win."

1 no 2 would definitely be too much for shocks and lmg paras.

2 upgraded mainline squads should be able to roll pretty much any infantry squad out there tbh. Even LMG Paras/Commandos/Shocks/Pick your poison usually lose to 2 StG volk squads

You said "old 5 man gren could 1v1 every type of elite infantry and win."

well they can't deal with every thing. But it's not like 1v1 ing these and getting a favorable result would be out of the question.

well they can't deal with every thing. But it's not like 1v1 ing these and getting a favorable result would be out of the question.

Assuming both were full health and equal vet, it absolutely would be out of the question.
In a 1v1 standing fight if panzergrenadiers or 6 man PFs couldn't deal enough damage to shocks on approach to result in a win, neither could 5 man grens who sported lower damage output.

Also consider that paratrooper M1 carbines are almost identical in damage curve and very close in damage output to grenadier g43s, except that stock paras get x6 and lmg paras get x4 of them while 5 man grens get x1 and 4 man grens get x2.

I'm not saying that paras/shocks are broken or that 5 man grens is/was ok but there is no comparison between them and elite infantry 1v1.

Assuming both were full health and equal vet, it absolutely would be out of the question.
In a 1v1 standing fight if panzergrenadiers or 6 man PFs couldn't deal enough damage to shocks on approach to result in a win, neither could 5 man grens who sported lower damage output.

I see you are unaware of what the problem was. Each weapon from Grens did 16 damage per shot. 16*5=80. There are often occasions when Units like Rangers/Paras/shocks charge in they have a leading model this mean all 5 gren models target that one model and in 1 volley kills it. Even if you think these guys have lower damage this is what caused them to be able to take down much stronger squads. This problem was prevalent when sections used to be OP. There are some fundamental mechanics that goes beyond dps numbers. Like let me give you a FPS example. In CS GO the m4a4 has a dps of 366 while the awp(sniper) has only 79 dps. But people will tell you that awp is a lot stronger than the m4a4. DPS means nothing if get insta killed.