Saying that Elefant & Brummbar is OP, whereas dual-wielding Vet3 Riflemen is not, reeks of double standards.
If Elefant & Brummbar is OK, then we should have never banned dual-wielding LMGs. Instead, we should have added a 3rd slot to the Riflemen to pick up a 3rd LMG, but increase price-per-LMG to 90MU. That's precisely what it is like to face Elefant & Brummbar; and that's the fault of the Elefant.
The whole point is that there are only 2 VPs you need to defend, and the Elefant negates all action on one of them. Then, there 3 teammates left to defend the VP closest to the Elefant. GGWP.
If one guy picking the Elefant is forcing the entire enemy team to go try-hard to even have a chance to counter it, then something terribly wrong. This kills strategic diversity for the team that has to face OP Elefants day in/day out, and that will eventually kill the replayability of the game, when there's no OP stuff left to counter the wunderwaffe.
If you think this is OK for 1 guy picking a doctrine to force a doctrine-pick on 4 other guys, then there's something wrong with your reasoning. That's because when the Elefant is backed by 3 other teammates, the match is extremely uneven.
This is no different from Comet spam or Artillery cover bullshit or landmattress that have already been nerfed.
If you believe that the footprint of Elefant/Jagdtiger is justifiable, we should have never nerfed Landmattress/Artillery Cover; maybe just increase their price to make them unavailable for 1v1. Instead, we should have buffed ISU, Priest, B4, Tulips etc; that way there can be enough bullshit for each side to counter the bullshit on the other side.
Then, you would never see anybody pick any other doctrine, ever. Just the same bullshit day-in day-out; similar to how if you don't have a 1-2 call-in doctrines in your loadout in 1v1, you're a loser.
Now, there's obviously a few remaining shitstains that will get have to get flushed down the toilet (e.g., Crocodile, Elefant, Jagdtiger, Sturmtiger, Calliope, and other things), and then the game can be interesting. We're just waiting for those to enter scope.
First off, are we assuming 4v4s here? Are we assuming the best case scenarios for the elephant and brummbarr? Because I can think of countless maps where elephant and brummbarr are terrible.
In a head to head battle these units are unmatchable. In reality, they have many weaknesses number being poor mobility combined with a front facing turret.
In 4v4 they can seem OP because they're weaknesses can be covered by their allies. On the other hand, they're weaknesses can also be exploited by the enemy.
For example, a single player can't take out a brummbarr elephant combo on his own because if he tries to dive them he'll get taken out by the other axis players also passively defending the flanks and rear.
On the other hand, the Allies can also observe the elephant and brummbarr sitting defending one point and decide to all rush it together with one fell swoop and the elephant won't be able to retreat to safety fast enough.
Why do people never get elephant and brummbarr in 1v1s and only get elephants and brummbarr on very specific 2v2 maps? It's because the elephant is slow, cant react to the movements of the enemy and therefore requires a skinny open map with few shot blocks so that it can be easily bababay sat by the commander and his ally.
The problem here isn't the elephant or the brummbarr, it's the lack of coordination in 4v4 randoms.
My suggestion ---> coordinate with your team or play smaller game modes if elephant brummbarr combo is too rough.