Rifle sight range from 35 to 38

I honestly see this as more of a boon against the OKW Volks and Sturms that doesn't impact the Ostheer meta, because the Ost meta is Sniper screened by Grens. I also understand the soft retreat with pinned/flank concept that defines rifle play so I agree that it might hurt the balance against HMG play because that is currently fine. Really I just want some non doctrinal early game los because against OKW stumbling into a Volks squad in green cover gives you HP losses that can snowball into MP bleed.

the pio pay for that sight. slow repair speed and weak combat capability. At least the RE repair fast.

RET repair rate has 0 effect before t1/2, which is the time period during which USF is boring as fuck to play and has few options.

pios also do not "pay" for the sight, it was a buff given with no draw backs a couple months ago and it servers a different role than RETs, who have their own combat utility in the form of fighting position grenades. fighting position grenades are insignificant in countering HMGs though.

If we are assuming the enemy has pios supporting the HMG then we can also assume REs supporting the rifles so you can use them to scout. Also, sight on non combat units is different than on terminator riflemen.

better yet we can assume you have two rifle squads and no RETs. the HMG still wins that though because the first riflemen "find" the HMG, get suppressed and are now contributing bleed and the spios can then engage the first riflemen squad to keep them suppressed while the HMG refaces to deal with the second riflemen squad.

now on one hand there's nothing at all wrong with this because HMGs are designed to counter infantry and the pio has particularly strong synergy with HMGs. the problem is that USF only has one counter to HMGs (smoke/flank) and pios can "counter" that.

with OKH or USSR if you run into an entrenched HMG position you can always build a mortar and wear them down overtime. UKF is worse off but can still get a wasp, use base artillery, or build a mortar emplacement. OKW is again worse off than UKF but can still get a leig faster than USF can get a pack (also a better unit) and if they get a successful flank off with volks an incendiary nade will for the HMG to move and/or retreat.

USF has smoke and/or flank. both are soft counters. in terms of flanking, the pio lets the OKH player controls the situation due to vastly superior sight. smoke will allow the USF player to approach but the range of smoke is less than the standard sight range, which is less than pio sight range and thus the first rifle squad will get suppressed unless able to fire over a shot blocker. additionally smoke costs 15mun and an attentive HMG user will have ample time to back the HMG up a bit and reset up before infantry are able to move up from behind the pio's sight, through the smoke and threaten the HMG again. again, the OKH player is at least on par, if not ahead, initiative wise.

furthermore, the USF player is likely to suffer mp bleed in any situation where the HMG successfully engages one or more squads, whether they ultimately force the HMG off or not. in a best case situation involving smoke the USF player pays 15 mun and forces the HMG off. in a worst case situation they suffer 15mun (or more for multiple smoke grenades) of bleed plus any infantry models lost and don't gain any ground. this means they not only payed in mun and mp for nothing but could also lose ground because they must spend time retreating, reinforcing and healing, and then returning to the field, giving the OKH player ample time to move up and refortify their position.

the above also applies to OKW with the caveats that the MG34 is worse than the MG42 and OKW will not capture an HMG from the USF player during this time. additionally they do not have the pio sight range advantage although they can still use volks or spios to scout and volks can build heavy cover.

how this situation plays out also depends a lot on the map and whether or not this is a team game. allies with indirect fire or light vehicles can force off the HMG and let riflemen overrun weaker squads without their HMG support. dense urban maps can also allow riflemen squads to appear in grenade range without warning.

to reiterate my point: assuming equal timing and resources, every faction should have a solid counter to anything another faction can put forth at a given point. USF has a very limited start that does not allow this and this is both boring and unbalanced. just because this can be considered a map issue doesn't mean that USF should be screwed on those maps.