The perspective I’m coming from in this post is that, to me, it would be non-sensical for Relic to develop another sequel to Coh, as the release of Coh3 has demonstrated that you have to compete directly with the predecessors, leading to schisms in the playerbase. Moving to Coh3 made a lot of sense, as the technology required updating, but now that that is done, I feel doubling down on DLC for Coh3 in terms of new factions, battlegroups and content is the way to go, unless some fundamental technology leap happens in the next 10 years. Coh3 should be treated as the ‘platform’ on which Coh is developed. Even if we have to wait another 5 years for another faction, this probably makes the most sense. This way, the effort that would go to porting functionality to a new game, can be spent on creating new content and new features for the already existing game.
In terms of the design of the battlegroups, I wanted to make them thematic, different from existing battlegroups, unique and mostly historically accurate. The interesting aspect of DAK battlegroups is that you have a limited pool of units to work with.
Without further ado, here are my battlegroup ideas:
Central Idea: Logistics, augmenting Halftrack Deployment System. The battlegroup focuses on mobility and efficient resource expenditure.
Opel Blitz Fuel Truck: The Opel Blitz Fuel Truck should have two effects with the lockdown, when locked down on fuel, it should increase the rate of fuel supply, probably by more than a normal cache, however when locked down in base, it should reduce fuel cost of the vehicles in the selected structure, so kind of like officer supervision. This would encourage more active micro management of the unit. When it dies it should have a large AOE explosion, meaning friendly units should avoid it and also that it can be driven towards enemy units, kinda like a less efficient Goliath that you can't manually detonate, I can’t see this being anything but ludicrously fun. You really could go nuts with the audio design on that. Top Up Vehicle should be an ability that can be targeted on friendly vehicles. Once done, the target vehicle has faster speed, acceleration and deceleration for a fixed distance. Note this is a fixed distance, instead of time, so if the vehicle doesn't move, it won't 'expend' the ability.
Recharge Halftrack Deployment: This feeds into DAK’s tempo playstyle by allowing you to muster units rapidly. The situations where I see this being useful are early in the game when you want to get double call ins early to build out your composition at a discount or later in the game where you’re trying to mass late game armour quickly. For instance, calling in a P4 as a stopgap measure before calling in a Tiger 90 seconds later, especially if you build up a bank in the lategame.
Panzer III Munitions Supply Vehicle: Largely self explanatory, its like the Munitions Store for US, except mobile and provides different buffs. I could see this unit being coupled with ATGs and LeIGs being strong, as well as recharging snares faster, it compliments that infantry and support weapon playstyle nicely. The unit also can drop MG42s and Mortars, which give DAK manpower efficient access to more team weapons, diversifying potential builds.
Vehicle ROF Ability: Self explanatory. Could see it being strong on Marders, Tigers and Stug Ds. You could make this a global ability but here I’ve stuck with a unit ability.
Ability/Upgrades Discount: This essentially makes Unit Upgrades and Unit Abilities 50% cheaper for the duration. Its thematically appropriate and potentially a strong ability. If you could pair this with the Panzer III Muntions Vehicle, grenades would be cheaper but also recharge faster, although this combination could apply to a whole bunch of different things. Strategies where you rush this ability to ‘mass upgrade’ MG34s on the PGs could be a thing, although you’d need a fair bit of munitions banked up. One thing that could be experimented with is applying this to mines, where you could pop this to spam out mines, depending on how expensive the ability is, the calculus might add up.
Panzer I Command Tank: Feeding into that tempo style again, this early game vehicle would have roughly the potency against infantry as a 250, albeit with better armour. However, the main appeals are the capping and mobility bonuses, these would allow you to rapidly gain map control and would give you an edge when switching sides of the map. For flanking manoeuvres, this would also come in handy, one combination that would be strong would be your vehicles ‘Topped Up’ with the mobility bonuses from the Opel Blitz Fuel Truck and your infantry buffed by the Pzr I Command Tank, meaning your forces can get off flanks or respond to threats much faster.
Withdraw & Refit: Again interacting with the Halftrack Deployment System, this allows you to trade in vehicles that are not needed for resources, exactly like with Brits. I could see this being useful when you want to get rid of 250s that you have spare.
Panzer III S-Mine Launchers: This would be an ability on the Panzer III that allows it to launch S-Mines. I could see this being implemented in 2 ways, either exactly like the Tiger S-Mine launcher ability, which would be really strong for flanking AT Guns or chasing down squads, or if that’s too strong, more like the grenade ability on the Sturmtiger in Coh2. Again, this synergises with the Panzer III Munitions Vehicle and the Ability/Upgrades Discount ability.
Panzer III Side Skirts: Self explanatory, improves the armour and health of your Panzer IIIs after a unit upgrade is purchased. I wouldn’t be in favour of this being an instant upgrade to all units. This would again synergise with the Ability/Upgrades Discount ability.
Lorraine Schlepper Mobile Artillery: Finally, mobile artillery, not unlike the Wespe, giving DAK another tool in the box at their disposal.
Central Idea: Fire, anti-cover. It would be strong against team weapon camp gameplay.
Incendiary Grenade Assault: Its essentially the exact same as the Assault Gren grenade assault, except Panzer Grens have access to it and its better at denying cover. So I see this being useful when you want to dislodge infantry in cover or make a Team Weapon move, as they won’t be able to jump back into cover or move back.
Detonating Shot: This ability is available for; Paks, Marders, P3s, Tigers, P4s, Stugs, Flak 36s. While active, if you land a kill shot on a vehicle, that vehicle will blow up causing AOE damage to nearby units. How good this should be will need to be tested. The basic counter play would be just to split up your units, but that requires micro. On the flip side, using the ability well also requires micro and good timing, so there’s a skill factor involved. This ability can also be used on ATGs and Indirect fire units (including emplacements), and if you land the kill shot on these units while the ability is active, it not only explodes but also, importantly, destroys the weapon outright. So you wouldn’t need to focus the decrewed weapon afterwards. This is pretty strong against team weapon play.
Indirect Incendiary Rounds: Exactly like it was in Coh2 for the same units. It also applies to the 254 Artillery observer. All of these barrages are good for area denial and also killing off emplacements.
21cm Nebelwerfer 42: A heavier version of the Nebelwerfer, relative to Wehr’s one. This would have higher alpha damage on it’s shells and the flame dot damage to boot. Only 5 rockets though.
Incendiary Creeping Barrage: Self-explanatory, area denial tool, good against team weapons and emplacements. Strong for denying VPs.
Double Flamethrower Panzer Pios: Strong upgrade naturally, but expensive. In order to get the double flamethrowers you need to buy each flamethrower for 50 munitions. It makes the squad a massive target.
Flammpanzer I Assault Group: This is very much a shock callin, you’d get this to drive your opponent off the map in the early stages of the game. Relative to the L6/40 with the flamethrower upgrade, this would be more potent as it retains the coaxial MG. Relative to the Flammpanzer III, it would have less health but come earlier. Combined with the Panzer Pios, it’s a strong power spike which would be especially good on urban maps.
Inspired Assault: Exactly like it was in Coh1, it was an interesting ability.
Sd. Kfz. 233 Armoured Car: In the great pantheon of DAK light vehicles, where does the 233 fit? It would be most comparable to the Stummel and the Scott, being effective against Team Weapons and Camp playstyle. Unlike the Stummel, it would be more effective at short range, as it retains an MG42 and has the canister round, as well as having more health. Relative to the 8 Rad, it would be worse at chasing infantry on retreat (although you already have the Flammpanzer I), but it would be far more proficient against units at range, units in cover and team weapons. Relative to the StuG D, it would be faster, cheaper and require less teching, but would have worse armour.
Heavy Incendiary Bomb Drop: Extremely good against team weapon camp, emplacements and units capping VPs. Could potentially neutralise points like the Dive Bomb in Coh2?
Central Idea: Heavy Team weapon play, this battlegroup is the only one that ‘goes against the grain’ of the DAK traditional playstyle by offering you more of a camp based strategy.
250 Reinforce: Essentially a utility ability that congeals with the rest of the battlegroup. Although I could see it being useful in combination with Assault Grens as well.
Pak 36 ATG: Light ATG, effective against Light Vehicles. Unlike the Pak 38, it requires no tech, so you can get it early and allows you to tech T2 while still having ATG support. The Stielgranate 41 shot improves it’s penetration against vehicles, although at the cost of munitions.
Tobruk Bunkers: Variety of emplacements, lots of photos of the DAK using these in WW2, hence the origin of their name. For defence in depth, these are going to be strong, you could have one of the Panzerturms in the back to prevent light vehicles or infantry from breaking in.
Flak 37 AA: A larger and more powerful AA than the Wehr Flak 30. This would be more effective against light vehicles and infantry, although could be made slower to move around, and have slower pack up and setup times, to balance it. My thinking is something like the speed of Pak 40s in camo would be slow enough to make indirect highly effective against them. It would encourage using them in conjunction with a tow vehicle, moving them around the battlefield quickly would be impossible without a tow vehicle, although not strictly necessary.
Rapid Suppression Barrage: This is mostly a standard off-map, except that the shells also cause suppression. My thinking with this is that it should cover a broad area, with a relatively short delay between each shell, with each shell having a large AOE suppression. Perhaps the effect would be best compared to the Nebelwerfer from Coh1, minus the flame. What you essentially use it for is area denial and forcing off squads.
MG131 HMG Team: Essentially a ‘premium’ HMG team, the same way the MG42 and DSKH were considered premium in Coh2. Its suppression and damage would be far better than the MG34. It should perform relatively well against light vehicles, like the .50 Cal did in Coh2. The HE rounds ability I see performing better against units in cover, potentially even allowing you to perform cover suppression.
Sd. Ah. 52 Supply Trailer: The Supply Trailer requires some explanation. My thinking with this is that its a brand new unit type, which loosely can be defined as a support weapon. How it works is that infantry squads can crew it, push it around, vehicles can tow it, etc. When in a position, it provides an aura which in this case gives nearby units additional construction options as well as increasing pio construction speeds and giving vehicles the ability to hull down. However, the unit shouldn't require pop cap and moreover, you can actually manually decrew it and it will still provide you the benefits. So for example, let's say it spawns in your base and you want to setup a strong point, you can crew it with a squad, wheel it over to a house near the frontline and then decrew it. Units within its vicinity would still be benefiting from the aura. When you want to move it, recrew it again, or tow it, to a new location. The beauty of this dynamic is that your opponents can steal these units from you like an ATG, so while they don't take up popcap and would be relatively cheap (say 100 to 150 manpower), you're still incentivised to protect them. You can also attack move them with AT guns etc, would be interesting to play around it. I think it would make for an fun dynamic, but would need to be coded from scratch. It also indirectly makes tow yet more useful. With this trailer specifically, it’s aura will make the area around it a point where you can dig in. Multiple squads would be setting up sandbags, vehicles would be able to hulldown and it can also distribute medical supplies.
Off-map Mortar Creeping Barrage: Fairly straight forward light off-map.
Hold The Line: This allows you to hold onto territory easier. A global ability, while in capture circles, your infantry will be hardier. Moreover, they can also reverse the capping progress of your opponent when you contest the capture with your own unit, although you can’t use this to capture territory that is contested. This will be really powerful in VP wars.
15 cm sIG 33 Heavy Infantry Support Gun: The star of the battlegroup. This would be like an LeIG but dialled up to 11. It would have 110 range direct autofire (so like Free Fire Drills), but with a slower ROF. The team would be able to move it around without tow, but like the Flak 37, it would be incredibly slow, like a Pak 40 in camo. The demolition shot would have a much shorter range, like 50, but be incredible against emplacements, although if you manage to get vehicles or team weapons it would be deadly as well. The trick shot nature of this should make it easier to avoid. So kind of like a Sturmtiger but much easier to notice and dodge, while also being less powerful. Realistically you would need to use tow to get it around, but its not strictly required.
Central Idea: Vision, having awareness of the battlefield and executing flanks. Conceptually this battlegroup is the opposite of Battlefield Espionage.
Horch 108 Recon: A heavy ‘ultra light’, which sounds like an oxymoron, but to put this on a scale, it would be better than the Krad as a harassment tool, but not as good as the 250. However, the 250 can’t cap and this can, whereas the Krad is cheaper, faster and has more vision while stationary. So there are trade offs to all 3. The Flak 38 gives the Horch better scaling than the krad. Relative to the Dingo, the Dingo should win, but one would expect the fight with the US Jeep to be more even, if not slightly Horch favoured.
Forward Observation Posts: These are equivalent to the battlefield espionage beacons, except they’re focused on providing LOS. You set them up with infantry and they can be faced to an area to provide sight. I could see these being super handy on the edge of the map, overlooking a flanking route.
Sd. Kfz. 263 Panzerfunkwagen: The Panzerfunkwagen would be a solid sight tool. The MG would be roughly as good as a 250, so you might want to use it aggressively early on, but you’d mostly be using it as a mobile sight platform. With cautious movement, you would be able to spot your opponents forces from camo and the Mark infantry ability should have a short cooldown and be free. You’d mark several units and they would make they more vulnerable to small arms. This would reward active micro management.
Timed Infantry Sight: Amazing for executing flanks, you can detect enemy units before they see you. This should make getting around MGs and picking your engagements far easier.
Panzer Commander Upgrade: Exactly like Coh2.
Suppressive Fire: Gives various units access to a suppressive fire ability. Coupled with the sight abilities, you can trigger this before an opponent’s unit comes into range.
Sd.Kfz.6/3 AT Halftrack: Weaker than the Marder in terms of health, the ATHT has the benefit of providing mobile AT without needing to tech T2. The ranged shot works well in conjunction with the sight tools allowing you to get off shots against more powerful vehicles without taking shots in return.
Temporary 222 Recon Group: Double 222s arrive off-map, they are in your control and you can use them how you please. However, after 75 seconds, they turn to AI control and leave the battlefield. By the time they reach the front, you’ll have roughly 60 seconds to ‘go nuts’ and do as much damage as possible. They don’t require manpower, fuel or popcap. This feeds into DAK’s tempo, all-in playstyle. So I could see a player building an 8-Rad and then using this ability, using the sight tools to determine where the ATGs are and then going all in, the 222s are relatively expendable. The 222s should benefit from the armoury upgrades, so in the lategame you could use this ability to jam captures or sneak off to grab a VP. As an opposing player, mines, hand held AT and snares are your friends. 222s should basically require 1 snare to cause engine damage.
Bf 110 Autocannon Heavy Strafing Run: A heavy anti infantry strafing run, akin to the IL-2 strafe in Coh2. It would also be of variable length. Let's say X is your first click and Y is your second, which marks the end and direction of the run, the default run is diagram A, but you can drag the cursor of point Y as far as you want, with a maximum of either 35 range or when you don't have enough munitions banked up for the run. This gives you the flexibility of deciding how much you want to spend and where it will land. A well placed strafe on retreat could be devastating. The cursor should highlight the munitions cost as you drag from point x to point y.
Me 210 Light (SC50) Bombing Run: This is a much lighter bombing run than the US carpet bombing. It should be single line and relatively fast, the damage of the shells should be roughly equivalent to 5.5 inch artillery shells.
Central Idea: Map presence, retaining position. The battlegroup was inspired by the invasion of Crete.
Luftwaffe Ground Forces: Somewhat similar to the Coh1 equivalent, they would be a fairly weak combat squad with lots of utility. In this case, they would have various construction options as well as being able to heal squads. L.P.Z. Light AT Mines would be more spamable than your standard mines, would be cheaper and only detonate on vehicles. If the vehicle is on less than 80% health, it would cause an engine crit. As an alpha damage, probably 75% of the standard mine would be sufficient. It would require 2 of these mines to detonate on a full health vehicle to engine crit it basically. Dosenmines are essentially like S-Mines and would be planted in patches. The M30 Drilling Shotgun Shot ability would be targeted on a squad and would have short range of about 5. You’d more or less use it like you would a grenade, except it like a throwing knife and the Sniper Shot ability, it can’t be dodged. More than likely, you’d get just one of these squads to augment your composition, with PGs as the mainline.
DFS 230 Glider HQ: Essentially a standard glider, you can drop it in to provide in field reinforcement. However, this glider can also heal nearby squads and recrew team weapons. In addition, the DFS 230 has roof top MG15 upgrade, which turns it into something akin to a light MG emplacement. So there are a few ways I see this being useful. One would be to drop the glider so that it covers your cut off, upgrade the MG and it will make it much harder for your opponent to cut you off and you’ll get infield reinforcement with healing. Maps like Famonville and Road to Tunis, this would be immensely useful. Another use would be in intense VP wars, at the end of the game you want to secure a flank VP, you drop the glider in and upgrade the MG, in many ways its like an auto build, quick deploy MG emplacement, that can also reinforce. Great for map control.
250 W/ Flak 38: Fairly vanilla, like the other 250 callins except with a Flak 38. The Flak 38 would have identical performance to the Flak 30 of Wehr, one way to differentiate them would be to give the gun shield heavy cover properties, but reduce the unit to 4 men to compensate.
Ju-87 Multi Vector MG Strafes: Essentially 3 separate strafes that you call in one after the other. The difference between this and a standard MG strafe is that these strafes give you what is essentially a ‘bulk buy discount’, but also, since they can be targeted in 3 totally separate places within LOS, your opponent has to react quickly to dodge all 3 of them. Its acts as a micro spike test, where you quickly throw them down and they quickly have to dodge. The skill of placing them all fast and accurately needs to be matched by the skill in dodging them all. Moreover, when combined with an attack with units, it can create an overwhelming set of threats.
Bomb Drop Overwatch: The most comparable ability to this would be sector artillery. However, in this case, its planes dropping bombs on units that come into the territory. Its not exactly a loiter though as the planes wait off map, they can still be shot down however. In terms of how strong the bombs should be, it would require testing but somewhere between a 5.5 inch shell and the US Dive Bomb would be a good place to start. Ideally a broad AOE, with only a small zone of full damage. This tool would essentially be used for area denial and be really strong in VP wars.
Ready Reinforcements: A fairly straight forward ability that speeds up reinforcement and allows quick return to the battlefield, again allowing you to retain field presence. Another feature of this ability is that it speeds up in field reinforcement and allows infantry to sprint in friendly territory outside of combat, being able to react to hot spots faster.
Junkers Ju 52 Reinforcement Pass: This is most comparable to the Paradrop Reinforcements of US, except where that ability is a stream of reinforcements over a long duration, this ability is more geared towards a burst of reinforcements all at once. There’s an element of skill in its deployment, as you’re incentivised to line up as many squads lengthwise as possible to maximise reinforcements dropped per munitions expenditure. Since its substantially longer than wide, you could have several squads in different engagements all ‘caught’ in the line and all benefiting from the ability. I could see this happening when you have multiple squads spread across the centre of the map and all located within the area of effect. The ability can be used to swing engagements and keep units in the field.
Paradrop 4.2cm Pak 41 Team: Self-explanatory, the performance of the Pak would be better than both the Pak 36 and the 38, as well as being more mobile than the 38. Useful to quickly deploy AT to a trouble spot.
Temporary Bolster: During the duration of the ability, squads can get an extra man. So Panzer grenadiers can go from 5 to 6 (or from 6 to 7), MG34s go from 4 to 5, Paks likewise etc. This applies to all infantry and support weapons. Once the ability ends, the extra model doesn’t leave, but when the squad drops back to normal numbers of models, it won’t return to the bolstered level until the ability is reactivated. What this ability allows you to do is augment the heath and DPS of your squads temporarily, making them more survivable in the field. Obviously though, the extra models are not free, costing both manpower and munitions.
Temporary Fallschirmjägers Assignment: Like the 222 assignment in the previous battlegroup, this involves you taking control of 2 squads which leave the battlefield after a period of time. In this case, 2 squads of MP40 Falls are dropped where you like and then can be used to sow carnage for 75 seconds from when they touch the ground. Their MP40s make them ideal for flanking team weapons, they have smoke grenades and the can throw short range snares. So you could potentially drop them in behind the lines with the intention of catching a vehicle trying to back up from the front line. One massive use of this ability will be in VP wars, where you drop them onto a VP in the lategame to swing the match in your favour. They don’t cost manpower, population or upkeep, but require a lot of munitions.
Historical Accuracy Notes
A few notes on what is inaccurate or anachronistic. The Panzer III Munitions Vehicle, as far as I know, wasn’t used in Africa but on the Eastern Front. There was another, the Lorraine Schlepper Munitions Vehicle, that was used in Africa for the exact same purpose and this could be used instead, but the benefits of the P3 are reduced development cost as some of the voice lines and the vehicle sounds can be reused. I’m also not so sure whether Side Skirts were used on P3s in North Africa, I haven’t seen photo evidence in any case.
The MG131, while used in a ground HMG role, I haven’t seen evidence of it being used by the DAK in North Africa. About ten Sd.Kfz.6/3 AT Halftracks were used, some people might object to that unit on these grounds. I haven’t seen evidence of the Pak 41 being used in North Africa, I’m also fairly sure they didn’t paradrop them. The M30 Drilling Shotgun was used in North Africa…but only by downed pilots. The Madsen Belt Fed MG was a Luftwaffe contract gun, but I haven’t seen evidence of it being used in North Africa. Likewise with the Panzerhandmine 3.
Needless to say, all these are exceptions. Otherwise, to the best of my knowledge, these designs are historically congruent.
Design Notes
I deliberately avoided using Italian Units in these designs. Following from what I said about Relic doubling down on Coh3, I feel it makes sense for them to eventually create an Italian Faction, so I didn’t want to cannibalise that faction, especially when the DAK already has plenty of material to play with.
What to do with the remaining units in the files?
There are several other units in the game files that I haven’t used here. This was intentional. Several people having been calling out for the substitute vehicle feature from Coh1:
As a feature it makes a lot of sense, I feel the community would be far more interested in small and frequent content drops like these instead of cosmetics and they could be priced to be more profitable than battegroups at less development cost. They would ideally be more frequent as well, bringing players to the game. I feel games like War Thunder and WOT benefit from the sheer variety of units and I can’t see how this wouldn’t apply to Coh. Whenever they release, the units will be similar enough to the units they replace that they won’t disturb balance much, meaning less emergency balance hotfixes.
I feel this is what makes the most sense for the units already modelled, for example, the Panzer II is fundamentally serving the exact same role as the 8-Rad, they’re both 20mm autocannon light vehicles. Its hard to imagine a build where you would build both of them in the same composition and trying to make them different would be clumsy. We see this with the L6/40s, which are also similar to the 8 Rad and have been specialised to be worse against infantry and better against vehicles, to mixed results. Then there’s the 250/9. Adding another autocannon light vehicle via a battlegroup wouldn’t be that different from what we already have but as a substitute vehicle it makes a lot of sense. This logic can be applied to most of the vehicles already in the game files. The substitutions I would advise would be:
The Panzerjäger I is already in the game files and could be substituted for the Marder. It would have less health and worse pen, but could be made significantly cheaper. This would be an interesting trade off in the composition. Alternatively, there’s the Marder III H which also could be made as a substitute, it would largely have the same performance but could have an MG upgrade and have a different starting price.
The Sturmpanzer II would have a much larger up front damage, closer to a Brummbär, but would have a lot less health and far worse frontal armour. You wouldn’t be tanking Bazooka shots like you do with the StuG D but it would be significantly more deadly.
For the Opel Blitz Flak 38, it would be cool if this worked more like the Flak HT in Coh2, with the set up time and suppression. So this unit could be made cheaper and have the same role as the Flakvierling, but be more finicky to use.
Others:
There’s one other model I haven’t listed here and that’s the Panzer III E. I feel this unit should just be added to the base faction directly, specifically to the Support Armour Elements position in the tech tree, beside the StuG D. This unit I could see being essentially a mobile light AT unit, not unlike the Chaffee in role. This will allow you to diversify your builds away from relying exclusively on Marders for AT, as the P3E would be less flankable, more robust but not scale as well. The number of strategies this unit would open up in base tech to my mind outweighs the benefit of using it in a battlegroup.
Finally, there’s the 250/10. This isn’t located anywhere in the game files and the suggestion is more so coincidental, but to me it feels quite natural for a 250/10 Light ATHT upgrade to be locked behind the Combat Halftracks upgrade. Like the P3E, I feel this would reduce reliance on Panzerjägers in the early game, giving you a mobile light vehicle counter and yet another use for 250s from the callins. Panzerjägers seem to be a bit of a no brainer right now, given their mobility and accuracy at range, having this alternative will shake up builds and make Combat Halftracks more attractive.
Conclusion
This is what I would do with the remaining DAK content, short of a rework. The battlegroups are unique, fairly historically accurate, thematic and interesting. The concepts can at least be stolen and repurposed elsewhere. If there’s anything clearly broken or so amazing that it needs a shout out, feel free to let me know.
Relic Entertainment
cblanco ★ 
보드카 중대 
VonManteuffel 
Heartless Jäger 
