Concerns about Airborne weapon drops

M1 57mm ATGun – drop: 3CPs / 125MP / 60MU
50.cal HMG - drop: 2CPs / 125MP / 50MU

I wonder about this two abilities. This is not about replacing them because the other Airborne abilities are quite good and the commander gets picked often. But still this abilities are strangely implemented and need some tweaking.

1) The advantages
First of all they give you nothing new, but the ability to get both if you go for either Captain or LT with the additional tech in that tier.
Secondly they give you the ability to drop them near the front where you might need them.

First advantage is only worth it at all because USF tech is just artificial constructed, second advantage is situational since you need Echelons and Ambulance nearby if you want to use your dropped weapons somehow cost effective. Otherwise it is only a last measure to get an AT-Gun fast if you made the mistake of having no AT countermeasures at the time you should have it already.


2) The timing
Overall stock USF team weapons come pretty late (with exception of mortar), but MG and AT-Gun have the same timing. Not so at the drops, there it is 2 CPs and 3 CPs.
Imo it looks rather odd and artificial, that you have the MG/AT-Gun combo earlier if going for Captain instead of going for LT.


3) The costs
They cost you 125 MP and 50MU respectively 60MU at the allied faction that is the most mun starved of all three. Fully crewed it costs you between 217MP and 245MP and 50MU / 60MU and watch out for that reinforcement costs if you crew with units that have 30MP reinforcement cost. Overall they are just way more expensive than building them. 60MU for AT-Gun hurts especially since this thing will consume more MU on a regular basis.

Compare it with UKF Air Supply Operation or Ostheer Supply Drop, both give you two weapon drops plus either medicaments or FU/MU for a way fairer price.
Compare it with Soviet DShK HMG drop for a very similar price which gives the option of playing T1 with MG plus adding a new unit to the Soviet roster (superior to maxim). On top of that Soviets are the least mun starved allied faction and you have cheaper engineers for crewing.


4) The conclusion: I do think both drops should be at the same timing at 2 CPs and both drops need a MU price reduction or at least a shift from MU cost to MP cost to reflect the high MU dependence of USF forces. At the timing of 2 or 3 CPs you need that Bars, grenades, smoke grenades and one or two zooks instead, maybe even saving up some MU for first LMG Airborne squad. You just don't have 50 / 60 Mu to spare.

Nah, the weapon drops are very powerful. They let you get easy double M1s with Stuart builds, along with LMG Paras, which shores up 2 huge issues for USF.

Nah, the weapon drops are very powerful. They let you get easy double M1s with Stuart builds, along with LMG Paras, which shores up 2 huge issues for USF.

You get double ZIS plus T70 or double 6pdr with AEC nondoc and without having to pay 120Mu on top (or MU for penetration). So you can choose any other elite units and abilities as combos. Where is the huge difference in balance? Is it anyhow special?

And just to be clear I don't said that the weapon drops in itself are bad, I just said they drain the ressource USF needs so desperately for other things.

Agree on the CP's, set both to match the weapondrop from Ostruppen doctrine.

These abilities were better when the LT and CPT tech was like +/- 3 years ago, but even then the CP difference was unneccesary.

Both abilities could cost +/- 30 MU in trade for a higher MP cost imo (250 MP for AT, 200 for HMG??). .

Yeah this is something that confused me when i started using Airborne commander after playing with the Osttruppen commander... I'd rather pay more MP (325 for Ostheer drop) rather than give up precious munitions.

IDK what stormjager is on about because it feels cheap to have to choose a specific commander to be able to play a combined arms build like Ostheer or Soviets. Seems silly to pay 120 mp just to get two AT guns that will guzzle up munitions and then "LMG paras" for another 120 munition a piece. Seems like we're being punished or pigeon-holed into choosing a commander due to poor faction design.

The issue isn't that Stormjager isn't wrong, just that the reasoning points to a more fundamental issue.

Agree on the CP's, set both to match the weapondrop from Ostruppen doctrine.

No, the weapondrops from Ostruppen and UKF should come later. Reason: They give additional benefits.

At Ostruppen for example you get not only two weapons for 325MP, but 10FU and 25MU in addition. If you convert the gained FU in a ratio of maybe 1:4 and MU in a ratio of maybe 1:2 into manpower you'll see how dirt cheap this weapon drop really is. Each wepaon only costs about 120 Manpower without any further costs. Manned with pioneers it is cheaper than to build it.
UKF weapon drop is harder to calculate because i don't know what to calculate for each of the three medical crates. But it is still a better bundle than USF one of course and gives you a mobile mortar on top (okay this is just a solution for an artifical and selfmade problem).

The issue isn't that Stormjager isn't wrong, just that the reasoning points to a more fundamental issue.

Yeah the fundamental issue is the artifical tech tree of USF. You have to decide between mainline units at teching, leaving some of them out unless you go for a backtech. Mainline units should always be in a linar tech with sidetechs for situational/optional units and situational/optional abilities.
UKF is a good example for a linear tech with many sidetech decisions and an endtech decision.