This is a pretty huge nerf for the Soviets without as large a nerf to the Germans. If you did this artillery should not be destroyable by a single off map hit (aka stuka dive bomb).
The on-map artillery is good right now, but shelling bases is annoying. We might consider reducing number of shells by one or two and increasing cool down a bit. Cool downs are very short right now. Honestly though I have no sympathy for OKW. If you build your trucks far forward and mass retreat frequently, guess what, allies now have a counter to that. This is especially true in team games.
Played against howitzers as OKW in a long 3v3 game. Ultimately I was able to bleed them of MP by using Stuka. Since he invested heavily in static units and lightly armored SU76's to protect the guns, I invested heavily in Stukas. They gained vet quickly from weapon teams and fired rapidly so I never was in danger of getting them destroyed. When they got range extensions I was able to hit the actual guns and at that point the game was over.
Forward trucks being punished by artillery has been in the game since WFA release; that isn't what the problem is here. The problem is that OKW has
zero counters to base artillery and the OKW can't build his trucks
anywhere on most maps including his own base without still being shelled by the enemy.
It puts a hard cap on how long you have to win the game as OKW. If you don't win before howitzers become a factor you will be slowly pushed all the way off the map. In 3v3 and 4v4 the maps are so big a howitzer in your own base can't reach the enemies. On most 2v2 and 1v1 maps a howitzer can easily reach
the entire map.
The ML-20 would be fine if:
A. OKW had a reliable counter (seriously I used scavenge artillery 3 times on 1 howitzer and it took like half health off and nothing else, that's 540 munitions right there)
B. It did less damage so it's AoE 1 shot radius wasn't so insanely huge
C. It could not be build in base sectors.
Iv suggested it before. Make the new OKW commanders come with counters and make Luftwaffe Ground Troops come with a ME-262 bombing strike instead of the Air Attack ability and ME-262 recon sweep instead of valiant assault.