Help on how to play the US vs OKW matchup

Hi fellow USF players,

I am a level 12-13 USF, have been playing automatch for about 40 games, but had a large amount of playtime with US in CoH 1 (which allows me to fight Wehr somewhat effectively in CoH 2). I am looking for help on how to play against OKW as I have no game sense against this faction.
In particular, what is the best build order and game plan to adopt? What are the key units and Commanders to have? Should I expect an early lead and snowball into victory, or is it normal to play from behind and stall until a certain tech?

Some of the Build I have tried and my experience with them:

- 3 Rifles into Lt and M20: with this build it took me too long until I get reliable AT. Usually I can't deny his fuel enough to prevent a fast Luch which will push me off the map.
- 4 Rifles into Captain and Stuart: usually this build made me bleed manpower heavily in the early game against Sturms + Volks + Kubels. Stuart prevents the Luch from pushing into my territory, but I also can't do much with the Stuart.

If stalemate until lategame, a combination of his T4 building, Infantry Support Guns, MGs and cloaked Rakenten usually allowed him to lockdown the map until PIVs + KT.

Any help is greatly appreciated guys.

Well in CoH2 forget about the notion of cutting off your opponent's fuel income without totally pushing them off the map. There are a few maps with cutoff points, but for the most part fuel income can be at best slowed, but not a significant amount without dominating the field.

OKW's HQ has infantry that scale to the endgame, an AT gun, and an HMG that comes a little late and is arguably worse than your own terrible 50 Cal MG as USF. This means you gain no strategic advantage with your tech choices: OKW already has counters ready. The only weakness OKW has is indirect fire, which is unfortunately also USF's weakness. But that is your key to victory, but it comes later in the match and with commander choice, the best choices of course are paid commanders.

This means that your plight in a WFA faction matchup is that your capacity to win is almost entirely up to you and your opponent's micro ability until the mid-late game. You are likely going to be building 3 or 4 riflemen. They are likely going to be building 3 or 4 volksgrenadiers.

If you go M20, don't rush it out onto the field immediately. Try to lay an AT mine in a likely path and keep it hidden until the Luchs. (Which honestly, won't be that far off with how long it takes to get an M20 out and lay a mine compared to OKW building a Luchs.)

Also keep in mind two Rear Echelon squads with double bazookas, albeit a 200 muni investment, is a strong defensive deterrent against a Luchs. It's not an offensive counter though.

Many OKW players tend to set up their liegs/medic truck and cover it with the schwerer (flak HQ.) This will be where you will likely win or lose the game. If you're able to kill one or both of these HQs, it will likely give you a strong enough advantage to win the game.

In my experiences, the Calliope commander is the best catch-all commander for fighting OKW. A well-timed barrage, or the threat of constant barrages onto the flakHQ/medicHQ area really taxes OKW lategame. Recrewing liegs is costly and time consuming. And very dangerous if a calliope barrage is timed well.

Sadly as it stands, OKW does everything that USF can do but better, as they are totally not dependant on their Commander to have access to basic stuff like mines, elite infantry, heavy tank and rocket artillery.

Your best option is to lock down a VP and your high resource points and try your best to avoid squad wipes while preparing for a Luch or Two, get Bazookas if you need them and always go Captain, back LT later when you need MGs as it gives you a Rifle Squad with a BAR that can soak up experience faster to bolster your numbers into the midgame.

Armor and Pershing are your best bets with both of them allowing you to skip Major, Spending 240MP and 120 fuel just to be able to buy Shermans usually means by the time you get they will have a Panther, you will often face call in Tank vs OKW, in the odd match you manage to wipe some of his units and push map advantage.
M10s vs the Ostwinds and Pershing vs the Command Panther.
After it just comes to unit perservation, so long as you don't get triple capped or pushed entirely out of the map by the Luchs, keep your rifles alive and give them one BAR then another at Vet3.

Basically what everyone before me said is true. OKW is the strongest faction atm, has the same playstyle as USF but the problem is that it has better variants of most units but not everyone.

Here are some USF strongpoints:
vanilla:
- infantry with bars (double bars preferably) give you a lot of pressure and wipe potenatial
- also m1919a6 lmg is solid for more narrow maps where you are forced to play more frontally
- grenades great for wipes if your opponent has bad micro
- movable FRP with major + ambulance combo
- jackson is a beast vs all vehicles
- m8a1 howitzer motor carriage - popularily called scott comes a bit late but has great wipe potential against axis infantry

commander baised:
- early wc51 - can be a really useful tool on some maps if done correctly you can counter kubel spam more less with them and help you secure early lead
- early m10 - but do it before FBP, after the patch it will probably be meh
- sherman bulldozer - great for oneshot wipes, really solid AI unit
- pathfinders with double bars are a cheesy strat but they have monster dps at long range
- paratroopers with lmg or thompson - lmg is more univeral, thompson paras are the strongest AI infantry in the game, unreal wipe capabilities, from what I remember they have like 97,32 dps (sturmpioneers have 65), their dps drops drastically after you lose 2 models
- rangers (85,78 dps) a solid unit but very one diemensional and good only on close quarters maps
- pershing - solid tank on par with panther but deals with infantry much better
- p-47 - I myself like them, they can sometimes get some nice hits but they are based hard on rng
- calliope - solid AI artillery, helps getting wipes on vetted infantry

Basically what you want I like to do with USF is play wide, gear up all my infantry with bars which helps me outdps my opponent and flank a lot. Standard open would be 3 rifles, mortar, cpt, stuart, ambulance, weapon racks (2 zooks on RE), atg, pak howie, mjr, jackson. Other variations might be going lt, m20, mg, weapon racks (2 zooks on RE), cpt, atg, mjr, jackson. Go sherman only if you have huge fuel advantage.

Everything depends on which game mode you are playing. In 1v1 you want good map control with infantry, mines in chokepoints etc. In 2v2s you want more indirect fire, lmgs or bars depends on how wide the map is, atgs. In 3v3/4v4s you want more heavy tanks, artillery, tank blobs, lmgs blobs.

Many thanks for all the input. I play only 1v1 btw.

So, basically Captain first should be the way to go then? Karollus, what is your rationale for getting an early Mortar instead of a 4th Rifle? I have the impression that US mortar is weak and also not particularly effective versus the mobile OKW (at least until they put their HQ trucks forward)?

Regarding commander choices, there have been 5 recommendations thus far, namely: Armor, Pershing, Calliope, WC51 Truck and Airborne. I will give each a try to see how it goes and report back.

Just speaking for myself, I only ever go LT if I know my opponent.

I don't actually have the WC51 truck commander still, but in my experiences its a commander that can be extremely useful in 2v2 with the right teamwork and coordination. But I don't think I've seen or heard of it being used in 1v1s consistently. I would chalk it up with a similar situation as how I go LT: when you know your opponent and their playstyle/preferred strat and want to try throwing off their rhythm.

I actually enjoy going lt and just relying on zooks on REs as a light vehicle deterrent simply because I find the M15 AAHT much more cost effective than the stuart. It's really squishy (2 rak hits will kill it) and only shoots backwards but it also lets your riflemen absolutely dominate the infantry battlefield, especially if you can get a .50 too. I skip the m20 because it's really expensive for what you get and takes a lot of muni too, but it's still a great unit (I hope they make it cheaper though). I also like to go mechanized on maps that allow because you end up with insane manpower float (like kubelspam levels) which is something that's very freeing as usf.

I actually enjoy going lt and just relying on zooks on REs as a light vehicle deterrent simply because I find the M15 AAHT much more cost effective than the stuart. It's really squishy (2 rak hits will kill it) and only shoots backwards but it also lets your riflemen absolutely dominate the infantry battlefield, especially if you can get a .50 too. I skip the m20 because it's really expensive for what you get and takes a lot of muni too, but it's still a great unit (I hope they make it cheaper though). I also like to go mechanized on maps that allow because you end up with insane manpower float (like kubelspam levels) which is something that's very freeing as usf.

With the Bug that doesn't let Bazookas apply Death Criticals, meaning they need an extra shot to kill something like a Luchs, I've stopped using LT unless I need the M20 to kill a Sniper.
I love the LT and the M20 + .50cal, but until that's fixed, Captain is once again the way to go.

With the Bug that doesn't let Bazookas apply Death Criticals, meaning they need an extra shot to kill something like a Luchs, I've stopped using LT unless I need the M20 to kill a Sniper.
I love the LT and the M20 + .50cal, but until that's fixed, Captain is once again the way to go.

Huh. That's an odd bug. I just find the stuart super underwhelming and not having any sort of suppression or anti infantry light vehicle really hurts.

Many thanks for all the input. I play only 1v1 btw.

So, basically Captain first should be the way to go then? Karollus, what is your rationale for getting an early Mortar instead of a 4th Rifle? I have the impression that US mortar is weak and also not particularly effective versus the mobile OKW (at least until they put their HQ trucks forward)?

Regarding commander choices, there have been 5 recommendations thus far, namely: Armor, Pershing, Calliope, WC51 Truck and Airborne. I will give each a try to see how it goes and report back.

You need mortar mainly against ost. Vs OKW you can aswell go 4th rifle if you feel the need and go mortar after they get mg. Volks will try to fight you at long distance mainly, sometimes blobbing thats why mortar might be useful against them too especially after you get bars on your rifles. After you get bars your rifles with shred any axis infantry, stg volks are no different so they will probably try to stay at long range. Mortar might help with that later on.

In 1v1 I recommend armor, airborne and pershing/callipe optional. Armor is probably the best because of assault engis having both flamer and demo charges. Most axis love to blob at some point and A move trough the map, if you place a good demo in some central point you might be able to bait them into it and get rid of the blob. Also armor provides you with m10 spam. Its a cheap and reliable counter to okw puma spam and medium axis medium tanks. Aslo sherman dozer is a fucking monster hated by axis because of the oneshot wipes. Airborne you can use their fantastic infantry, both paratrooper options and pathfinders with bars are great. Also mg and atg call ins allow you to fill missing parts of your tier choices. Mechanized isnt that good in 1v1 because you dont have to contest early the same resource points, its more useful in teamgames where you have to gain control of important resources early on.

Huh. That's an odd bug. I just find the stuart super underwhelming and not having any sort of suppression or anti infantry light vehicle really hurts.

But then you get destroyed by the Luchs, that arrives in less than one minute after you managed get a light vehicle out, if OKW hasn't ran you off the map or kept you disconnected for the entire early game through Kubels.
Until bug fix Bazookas are just not reliable, ATG is your best hope vs the Luchs, which is what OP seems to having problems against.

But then you get destroyed by the Luchs, that arrives in less than one minute after you managed get a light vehicle out, if OKW hasn't ran you off the map or kept you disconnected for the entire early game through Kubels.
Until bug fix Bazookas are just not reliable, ATG is your best hope vs the Luchs, which is what OP seems to having problems against.

That's true. Bazookas still usually force off luchs pretty easily though and the AAHT can even kill it if they're very careless. That's just my personal preference though.

Sidenote: I remember this one time I called in the m3 in mechanized because I was rolling in manpower and stuck 2 REs with double zooks into it and chased down a luchs in it. It was pretty funny, but also very risky.

That's true. Bazookas still usually force off luchs pretty easily though and the AAHT can even kill it if they're very careless. That's just my personal preference though.

Sidenote: I remember this one time I called in the m3 in mechanized because I was rolling in manpower and stuck 2 REs with double zooks into it and chased down a luchs in it. It was pretty funny, but also very risky.

Mechanized is a fun commander, but it's a YOLO strategy, high risk-high reward.

You do have a fair point surpression is the best way to force OKW to actually use tactics and not just brute force into you every time, just without the M1 ATG I am not sure how to actually kill the Luchs.

Mechanized is a fun commander, but it's a YOLO strategy, high risk-high reward.

You do have a fair point surpression is the best way to force OKW to actually use tactics and not just brute force into you every time, just without the M1 ATG I am not sure how to actually kill the Luchs.

Yeah that's the problem. You really have to catch the luchs out of position and hit it with an at nade, which usually isn't actually super hard as rifles are everywhere anyway. For some reason a lot of okw players get really greedy about trying to kill the m15 with their luchs and often badly overextend, especially if your riflemen and zooks are hidden behind a shotblocker.

The few times I've gone T2 against OKW I make a determination based on my fuel and ammo whether going for an M20 or the weapon racks would be the better decision. If I'm feeling a little short on fuel, I get weapon racks first. Then I usually equip 3-4 bazookas, which can kill the luchs really fast. He either runs away immediately, or you kill it. If you also build an M20, its nice that the squad inside comes with a zook so you can sometimes surprise the luchs, or flank it and finish it if it is damaged.

If he escapes with the Luchs, it will be a small thorn in your side, but with a zook on nearly every squad the luchs is mostly mitigated unless you get caught on red cover. Then it's just a short leap to capt or call-ins, when the Luchs gets owned.

2 RE, 2 rifle, LT, M20, .50, Racks >> Captain

Against OKW, they have the T0 advantage until you get BARs and smokes. You want to tech up ASAP, minimize your MP drain, and nullify their Kubel. 2 REs working together easily wreck a Kubel, and can split up to cap the map faster. 2 Rifles has less offensive power than 3 obviously, but saving MP is worth it so you can get a .50 cal
and M20 out immediately. Your priorities then are immediately attacking them with your T1 units, and then researching racks so your double REs can ward off the Luchs.

2 RE, 2 rifle, LT, M20, .50, Racks >> Captain

Against OKW, they have the T0 advantage until you get BARs and smokes. You want to tech up ASAP, minimize your MP drain, and nullify their Kubel. 2 REs working together easily wreck a Kubel, and can split up to cap the map faster. 2 Rifles has less offensive power than 3 obviously, but saving MP is worth it so you can get a .50 cal
and M20 out immediately. Your priorities then are immediately attacking them with your T1 units, and then researching racks so your double REs can ward off the Luchs.

They can apply so much pressure on you than going T1 may be your doom. Dual Kubel into Luch, if you go T1, you'll be helpless.

They can apply so much pressure on you than going T1 may be your doom. Dual Kubel into Luch, if you go T1, you'll be helpless.

Double REs in cover best one or two kubels, and they lose AI power meaning rifles have an easier time beating his inf.

T1 of USF hardcounters OKW T0, OKW T2 hardcounters USF T1, USF T0/T1 soft counters OKW T2.

Double REs in cover best one or two kubels, and they lose AI power meaning rifles have an easier time beating his inf.

T1 of USF hardcounters OKW T0, OKW T2 hardcounters USF T1, USF T0/T1 soft counters OKW T2.

I do 2xRE for its capping power. Unless being lucky or capitalizing on a player mistake, dual RE isn't going to give you any advantage vs a Kubel or dual Kubel on a fighting situation.
Players tend to be better after so long on the same patch and know how to manage their Kubel, It is really rare that I kill a kubel before 5 minutes only with RE and Rifles. IMO, the best use is to fast cap all territory points, they give you fuel and munition. I combine it with an early BARs unlock + ambulance and then T2 Stuart/M1

Personally, I use the mechanized commander and a WC51 as a shock unit for the first minute, catching Sturm or Kubel or Volks unprepared and getting some kill if possible. After two minutes, I only use it as a mobile support HMG.30 and to move troops faster to flank or cap. It deals reasonable damage and is easily repaired until CP2 and a refit. I usually get it vet2 before let it go.

It's nice to have an arty off map so you can easily help take down any flak HQ with help from a tank/atg/indirect fire. So that's basically mechanised or armour.

Be creative, lay some defensive M20 mines, then use a couple of Scott tanks to rape his inf, his mostly likely counter is a panther to rush them, bait it over your mines and have and atg or two waiting to finish it off