M42 AT gun, brainstorm and solutions

This thing needs to be fixed, its about time. It can be used in 2 commanders Soviet Defensive Tactics and Urban Defense Tactics both of them can be somewhat underwhelming, or at least sub par compared to other soviet commanders. Fixing this unit supposes one less nail in the coffin for this two well known commanders, improving the soviet roster adding choice and variety.

I can come up with 3 solutions:

Buf it or add already tested features like a soviet raketenwerfer or similar (in my opinion the most boring of the solutions, and maybe not enough to make the commanders worth it)

Redesign the unit, it could be redesign to feet other roles like a poor's man static t70 AI unit.

Add special useful abilities. In real life the thing was produced until 1945 it used the following munitions:

Armor-piercing
Fragmentation
Canister
Smoke

Any of those are good excuses for abilities for the unit, what about one ammo expensive AI shot, or smoke rounds for a period of time like mg ap rounds/incendiary. it was reported to be able to pen the panther sides, what about special bonus against rear armour or deployable from buildings like partisans.

All of those are just ideas, some of them sound crazy but if you think twice, those commanders are not particularly good, and anything can be balanced with pop cap, cost, man power bleed, ammo ...

I also thought about the idea of fragmentation shells for the M42. This would increase its usefulness and would make it overall a good infantry support against other infantry (which was a real use). The smoke rounds would be great too.

I think there are two ways of adding this. The easy mode implementation would be to give the M42 the properties of the T70 main gun and increase its cost to 400 MP or something like this. The hard mode implementation would be to add a button (like the Sherman) to switch between rounds, which would be nice, but the cost shouldn't be as high because it would require some micro (300 MP, maybe).

give it tread break break or twp +/or AI sniper.

double tap. the second shoot at the same target always pen and deal 160 damage
"the trained at gun crew can hit the same spot twice"
passive
maybe even hit 1 infarty model every 2 shoot at the smae target

inside house like reketen

I'm definitely a fan of making it like a T70 cannon on wheels.

Increasing AI might be too big a change though, given the commanders they are in and how that might affect the usefulness of other units. I suggest a vet0 tread shot ability at the least, that way you'd want to use them in any game for a temporary snare so your conscripts go in for AT grenade, or at least your field gun can dish out some more damage before the tank escapes.
That or just copy the T-70 gun stats. It is not like it will be buffed that much since it is a directional crew weapon.

I would like it to have a much wider arc of fire like the USF anti tank gun.

As it stands it has a good rate of fire but small arc so vehicles rarely get hit more than twice before leaving. On anti tank guns that do 160 damage that isn't a big issue but it is here.

He/Ap toggle

I see even better solution for M-42:

1. M-42 out.

2. BS-3 in.

3. ???

4. Profit!

He/Ap toggle

I thought about that at first, but then people would just use it for anti-infantry role and just get regular AT gun which would do more damage, plus has barrage.

inside house like reketen

Hehe

Or you know, maybe just increase its damage, so if it penetrate it actually hurt something bigger than kubel

I see even better solution for M-42:

1. M-42 out.

2. BS-3 in.

3. ???

4. Profit!

for christs sake. NO. stop it

for christs sake. NO. stop it

And why not? Static heavy AT defenses would work very good for USSR. Such as static AI defenses.

I'm all for making it a Soviet raketen but the infantry support gun route doesn't seem bad either.

It's just... it's a small AT gun and you see it garrisoned almost always in documentaries about the Eastern Front and it bugs me that it can't in this game while the raketen is still in, like what the fuck the ability is already available, just freakin' use it.

Just remove this unit and replace with something, no one need it.

How about this?

Did this unit get nerfed with the DMG reduction vs infantry?, since it basically could snipe infantry with lucky RNG rolls due to its 80dmg and fast fire-rate