USF Weapon availability in field and Osttruppen AT rifle.

So this is gonna be a sort of 2 in 1 topic since I've been thinking about these 2 things these past few days and wanted to see what the community actually thought as well.

Without further a-do here goes, first about the USF:

The USF being one of the 2 Armies able to arm their infantry through the use of weapon racks instead of the more conventional way of upgrading this presents a problem when your unit is in the field.

Most commonly you will arm your infantry units when you retreat them back to your base but more often than not you will have enough ammo for only one weapon or you risk losing field presence if you have the ammo but can't retreat. This is also a huge problem once you get a major and set up a forward retreat point.

So to that end I propose as have other people before me these 2 suggestions:

The USF either get the WC51 by default in T0 like it is in Mechanized Company right now, comes out unarmed but can be upgraded to both the .50 cal and weapon carrier, of course the upgrades are going to be exclusive so you will need to make a choice in what you want the WC51 to do.

The Weapon carrier upgrade will provide the WC51 with the ability to set-up anywhere on the map and act as a forward assembly similar to the Brits with weapon racks which only the USF player can access. This is already also present in SnakeEye's "All Units Mod".

The other suggestion is having doctrinal weapon carriers in the form of the Mechanized WC51(with the above upgrade) and M3 and M5(from the Tactical Support Company) Halftracks being able to drop BARs and Bazookas similar to the British M3 Halftrack from the Special Weapons Regiment.

Now I have noticed that a lot of people are against vehicles dropping weapons because of abuse of arming team mates with them which might cause imbalances but I have personally never noticed this. I have done it perhaps once or twice arming my Soviet teammate but his conscripts seemed to not be doing a whole lot better even with the weapons because they kept dropping like flies.

On to the Osttruppen:

Many people have been talking about the addition of the Panzerbüchse 39 to them with which I agree with because of 2 things:

Osttruppen benefitting a lot from cover and garrisons, but since they can't fire their Panzerfausts from inside buildings (like trenches) it would make sense to arm them with Panzerbüchse 39 AT rifles instead.

My other reason is probably going to be frowned upon because it's related to historical accuracy, but looking at it from that point of view it just makes sense to have them be able to equip themselves with poor-man's weapons, plus I believe I read somewhere that the actual Osttruppen/Russian Liberation Army they're based on also used such early war poor-man's weapons due to shortages and generally not really big trust put into these units by the German High Command, apart from using them as propaganda against the Soviets.

The only problem here I see is that should the Panzerbüchse 39s replace the MG42 upgrade or be an addition to it? Of course having Panzerbüchse 39s and a Panzerfaust would be a balance issue so I thought that it would only make sense for the upgrade to just lock the ability of the squad to "snare" enemy vehicles then.

But it would be nice to keep the MG42, I actually love how they look like the Osttruppen from the Soviet Campaign defending Stalingrad:

I also thought that they would have these guys plus the StuG III E if they ever made a commander with them back then but eh, I guess you can't have everything, but perhaps it's not too late, I mean a man can dream can't he?

Anyhow this is about it, I have not included any "no" options simply because people that feel trollish just vote no and that's the end of it, I want people to actually say why they think it's a bad idea.

Cheers.

Edit: I also wanted to mention that while the exclusive AT rifle upgrade for the Osttruppen might not entirely replace the Pak 40 it wouldn't be needed to drop anymore as much in their supply drop, so it could be replaced by a raketenwerfer or a GrW 34 mortar instead as I also noticed some people had a problem with the Pak 40 dropping.

The Panzerbusche would be a nice addition, but I feel it would be more fitting to an "early war" style commander, with other things to complement the theme like the panzer III and mg34's. I also think the panzerfaust ability should be kept. Unsupported vehicles could be punished at close range by disabling them with the panzerfaust then flanking them with the rifle.

The Panzerbusche would be a nice addition, but I feel it would be more fitting to an "early war" style commander, with other things to complement the theme like the panzer III and mg34's. I also think the panzerfaust ability should be kept. Unsupported vehicles could be punished at close range by disabling them with the panzerfaust then flanking them with the rifle.

Well if we're honest, the Osttruppen do feel like an early war doctrine, apart from the air dropped Pak 40 and Railway Artillery of course, I don't even think that the Schwerer Gustav made it to the Eastern Front and even if it did the Russian railway network is in pretty bad shape for German trains to be on them, let alone to fire a 800mm gun from them.

How I imagine a revised Osttruppen doctrine together with your suggestions and a more early war/Stalingrad theme would be like this:

Everything else would be lef as it is except for:

The Osttruppen themselves would get the Panzerbusche upgrade as well talked, whether or not the Panzerfaust should be left after that is up to the devs to balance out.

The Supply drop would then no longer need to have the Pak 40 as well, I would either replace it with a GrW 34 Mortar or a Pak 36 (renamed M42, just give it the ability to garrison so it can utilize the trenches as well) which would then entirely fit in with the early war part of the commander because it already has an MG34 and it makes sense for the Luftwaffe to still be active in the earlier part of the war, suppling troops on the ground.

The Railway artillery like I said is a bit out of place and I never really find enough ammo to use it now that the Osttruppen have MG42s as well. So replacing it with a StuG III E would be more fitting and would actually have something fuel related you can also rely on.

Apart from that the Artillery officer can have some sorf of new artillery to compensate for the Railway Arty and I would really like for Entrenching Tools to become Defensive Tools and also give Pioneers tank traps but yeah...

That's about it from me for the Osttruppen doctrine, talking about it here even gave me an idea for a commander mod but I don't think I would have the time and knowledge from work now sadly.

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Well if we're honest, the Osttruppen do feel like an early war doctrine, apart from the air dropped Pak 40 and Railway Artillery of course, I don't even think that the Schwerer Gustav made it to the Eastern Front and even if it did the Russian railway network is in pretty bad shape for German trains to be on them, let alone to fire a 800mm gun from them.
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Gustav was used in siege of Sevastopol and in the siege a Leningrad. Actually it was pivotal in the siege of Sevastopol.

German train had a hard time using Soviet truck due to different with of the tracks. (4,8 and 5 inches)

I am not using that as an argument against the proposed changes, I am just mentioning.

Gustav was used in siege of Sevastopol and in the siege a Leningrad. Actually it was pivotal in the siege of Sevastopol.

Huh you're right, I only remember it being made and used on the Western Front.

And I also remember reading German reports on Soviet railways being really bad so I thought it was logical for them not to be able to use them widely on the Eastern Front.

USF Really needs a way to get bars and zooks easier than falling back to base