This isn't a whine about OP Soviet units.
I played a 2 v 2 yesterday versus two Soviets. They both went with doctrines that gave them specialist infantry (Shocks / Guards) and 120mm mortars. This allowed them to go T2 support weapon spam, lots of MGs and 3 x ZiS on the field.
We were playing Rails and Metal. When I saw shocks I decided to go for a flame halfie, which was promptly brewed up by lurking guards with AT rifles, and of course the homing AT nades of the 'scripts.
The synergy of doctrines in 2 v 2 seems very powerful, especially the specialist infantry options that allow support unit spam (srsly, the amount of mortar fire raining down was incredible). I chose assgrens to try and counter shocks and got my ass handed to me.
Any ideas as how to manage this problem?
In the spirit of this forum assume I've L2P etc.
If you loss your flamer ht to gaurds right away you used it wrong. you should always screen troops infront of your flamer ht to see what is in the area and then hit the weakest point, where there is little AT to kill you.
Assgrens are a horrible choice vs. shocks. From an infantry stand point you should use grens with g-43's or lmgs and probably an mg to deal with shocks as well as a t2 vechile as germans. To deal with guards just get pgrens.
If you got your FHT at a reasonable time they shouldn't be able to have both gaurds and shocks all over the map espically on a map as big as Rails and metal which is the kind of map you generally have one player in charge of one side with minor help from the other player (othwerwise they just gave you a side from free). So there should be some place you can push with it that won't die to AT.
If he is getting a lot of 120 mortars you can counter with the mortar ht or simply just infantry since each player shouldn't have more then 1 and each player has to control both sides and if has more then one just flank him. late game you should have atleast one of you go t4 and get panzerwherfers that will deal with all the support weapons.
If they are getting a lot of maxims then you need an mg42 to slow them done and some mortar fire, and possibly a sniper to deal with them.
1 cp shocks and gaurds are not op, what your describing is a combined arms soviet army you need to respond in kind with one of your own. If they are bunching up then that means that they are weak some place else and you or your ally should exploit that and prevent them from being able to just leave one unit or so to lock down a side.