Grenadiers + HMG42s vs USF

No need to experiment, the numbers are there provided by Cruzz. Rifleman with 1 BAR DPS outperforms STG 44 Volks DPS at every range. Low range DPS is over 150% more. Only mid range is close, but still about 120% afaik.

Not sure how you arrived at this conclusion, does this include the other members dps with rifles?

Here are the numbers from the Cruzzie files for the upgrades:

USF Riflemen BAR (60 muni each)
DPS: 13.2 / 6.5 / 4
dists: 5 / 14 / 35

Volks gren mp44, single (30 muni each)
DPS: 7.52 / 4.5 / 2.0
dists: 7 / 23 / 35

Note that the BAR has a very short mid range, making it only really effective at closer ranges.

The double stg44 is clearly better at medium and close range, while having a better effective range than the BAR. The stg44 upgrade is the more cost effective upgrade than the BAR but USF has the option to double equip.

Edit: forgot to mention rifles not included.

However it is going to make your riflemen cost argument way less valid because USF has a huge manpower advantage with the free officer squad.

If we consider OKW and USF free advantages are equal, then Volks while being cheaper and still as good as Riflemen till minute 15 is a balance issue.

Then also come the point (and this is exclusively an USF matter) of design. OKW and Ostheer get full support tools from their respective early teching and "free stuff" while USF is still running on one leg, or HMG or Atgun even considering their "free stuff".
Riflemen are supposed to be stronger and USF is supposed to dominate the early because the faction is designed around lack of half of your support tools. Versatile Riflemen is a "compensation" for lacking some crucial elements of your army composition or the opposite if you prefer: because RM are strong and versatile, USF player only get access to half of the tools.

Today Riflemen aren't that strong anymore. So the question is what Relic wants to do with it, making riflemen great again or giving USF player access to all the tools, or nothing.

My biggest concern is, after all, Relic. We don't know what they think of the situation what are their plan. If they think USF faction is still fine and we have to deal with it, tell us so we can close the topic and only play Soviet. If they think the faction need an overhaul, tell us and how they want to correct the issue.

the best way to play usf vs ostheer imo is to go 2x rifle -> nades -> rifle -> ambo or 3x rifle -> nades -> ambo

2x rifle into nades will insure you have a nade ready for the first engagement, where as 3x rifle will give you more flanking opportunities but you wont have a nade ready for the first engagement unless you delay fighting.

the entire first engagement should revolve identifying where the enemy mg42 is, and getting a squad around to nuke it and steal it. in the most ideal scenario you nuke it and steal it, and easy game becomes a breeze for you. this is actually not as hard as it seems, but it does require you to have some game IQ in predicting MG positions.

try to prioritize double muni over double fuel, you want to starve ostheer of LMG42s and riflenades, while at the same time enabling your own nades and BARs/zooks. with munitions control, youll win the infantry fight, which snowballs into controlling fuel/rest of the map as well. the next big threat is flame HT, so i like to go captain and zook up me RE before i start handing out BARs to insure i have good deterrence.

USF really does require you to be able to multitask really well, if you can pop good smoke, and nade multiple firefights at the same time, use On Me effectively, etc etc, you can really easily overwhelm ostheer players that are dependent on their weapon teams.

Hmmm... let me think.

I wish there was a place in which you could upload your Replay and ask people and pro players to comment on your Strategy... oh wait a second...

...
Note that the BAR has a very short mid range, making it only really effective at closer ranges.

...

Think he is referring to the squad DPS and not a single BAR or ST44.

On the other hand BAR itself increases the DPS of a riflemen FAR by allot (around x200%) so it is effective long range.

Squad DPS yes, Riflemen have about 40,2 DPS close range with 1x BAR while Volks double STG have 29,1 DPS so about 133% (misguessed that number previously). Mid and long range are about equal but then Rifleman can go ahead and equip a second BAR.

Anyway I've always supported a USF tech rebalance to fix the entire faction and a manpower reduction for Riflemen (with the saved MP going into weapon racks tech) to help their early game. But otherwise Riflemen are fine as they are right now.

I ran the numbers for the full squad DPS for both volks and riflemen out of curiosity. DPS was taken at set ranges, chosen based on weapon profiles and typical distances.

Here are the results:

Dists: 5 / 7 / 14 / 20 / 23 / 30 / 34

Full squad DPS
Volks with 2x stg44: 27.07 / 26.35 / 22.11 / 17.62 / 16.55 / 12.02 / 9.35
Riflemen with 1xBAR: 36.76 / 32.67 / 21.03 / 17.24 / 15.72 / 12.20 / 10.62

Riflemen with BAR DPS gain over Volks with stg44
135.8% / 124.0% / 95.1% / 97.84% / 94.98% / 101.5% / 113.6%

Squad DPS gained after adding upgrade
Volks: 135.1% / 139.9% / 141.9% / 130.5% / 130.8% / 115.6% / 103.3%
Riflemen: 124.8% / 126.1% / 116.8% / 121.4% / 123.3% / 122.0% / 124.9%

Commets:
- Riflemen with BAR have a clear advantage over volks at close ranges (<7) but volks have the edge (barely) at the mid ranges.
- Volks get larger dps boost at close and midranges with stg44 upgrade.
- Riflemen get a roughly constant DPS boost across all ranges.
- Moving accuracy is not taken into account.

Anyway I've always supported a USF tech rebalance to fix the entire faction and a manpower reduction for Riflemen (with the saved MP going into weapon racks tech) to help their early game. But otherwise Riflemen are fine as they are right now.

Yeah give Axis mp cost reduction too while you are at it. USF is pretty balanced at this point in time, just need micro like every faction in this game need.

Not sure how you arrived at this conclusion, does this include the other members dps with rifles?

Here are the numbers from the Cruzzie files for the upgrades:

USF Riflemen BAR (60 muni each)
DPS: 13.2 / 6.5 / 4
dists: 5 / 14 / 35

Volks gren mp44, single (30 muni each)
DPS: 7.52 / 4.5 / 2.0
dists: 7 / 23 / 35

Note that the BAR has a very short mid range, making it only really effective at closer ranges.

The double stg44 is clearly better at medium and close range, while having a better effective range than the BAR. The stg44 upgrade is the more cost effective upgrade than the BAR but USF has the option to double equip.

Edit: forgot to mention rifles not included.

It's weird that people don't realise that weapon upgrades are weapon upgrades.

The STGs remove 2 rifles, so the incremental dps of the squad is accounted for by +2 stgs -2 KAR98s. The BAR only replaces 1 Garand, so a BAR vs STG comparison is flawed - it has to be a squad vs squad comparison. Statistically a Rifle squad with a BAR is superior to a Volks squad with STGs, just as an unupgraded Rifle squad has greater dps at mid and close range than a vanilla Volks squad.

...
Squad DPS gained after adding upgrade
Volks: 135.1% / 139.9% / 141.9% / 130.5% / 130.8% / 115.6% / 103.3%
Riflemen: 124.8% / 126.1% / 116.8% / 121.4% / 123.3% / 122.0% / 124.9%

Commets:
...

That is why ST44 upgrade is badly designed. It buff DPS across all ranges and especially at ranges the unit is "designed" to be weak making the units perform good at all ranges and reducing the effects of relative positioning. And that is why riflemen are struggling.

Weapon upgrades would be far better designed if they, either completely changed the role of the units (VG's MP40 for instance) or buffed the unit performance in the range it is "designed" to fight (LMg42 for grenadiers).

In the case of riflemen BAR could be changed have a bigger impact at mid range while reducing their cost, then riflemen could be solidified as mid range infantry.

Anyway I've always supported a USF tech rebalance to fix the entire faction and a manpower reduction for Riflemen (with the saved MP going into weapon racks tech) to help their early game.

yeah, I agree with both.

Play With friends who plays well in 1v1 in custom, usually.
Anyway, OKW is the best faction in early game, and bad in late due to lack of AT support, right? U have to build to tanks to counter.
And without Pershing, I see no point that USF could turn the tie of battle when in disadvantage against OKW in early and mid game.

OKW has enough "functional AT" that their AT support isn't really too bad. It's diverse which is its strong suit. Panther, JP4, Pz4 for lighter armor pieces, rak which is "ok" but is more cheesey than anything. The problem is, as I stated when responding to gentlementroll is that they don't have a good AI armor piece. The p4 gets shut down by anything bigger than a stock medium and the KT is a joke. Obers exist, but they arrive late and are still mediocre compared to 2x upgraded rifles/IS or DP28 guards till they hit vet2/3. The also have the 4 man squad problem where they get wiped significantly easier to ballistics and explosives.

It's not that the faction lategame is "bad", it's that it's subpar when compared to others.

OKW has enough "functional AT" that their AT support isn't really too bad. It's diverse which is its strong suit. Panther, JP4, Pz4 for lighter armor pieces, rak which is "ok" but is more cheesey than anything. The problem is, as I stated when responding to gentlementroll is that they don't have a good AI armor piece. The p4 gets shut down by anything bigger than a stock medium and the KT is a joke. Obers exist, but they arrive late and are still mediocre compared to 2x upgraded rifles/IS or DP28 guards till they hit vet2/3. The also have the 4 man squad problem where they get wiped significantly easier to ballistics and explosives.

It's not that the faction lategame is "bad", it's that it's subpar when compared to others.

I've always wondered...
A lot of OKW players complain the KT is now a joke, wether I agree or disagree is not the matter here but, I'd like to know how you would buff it to be relevant as OKW's baseline ultimate AI option.

It's not that the faction lategame is "bad", it's that it's subpar when compared to others.

Let me take your word, i do think sameways.
I had some "good" matches getting 2 or 3 Mg's as OKM (yes, really, yet now im rank >2000 so its trash) but its true that OKM has some lacking power in AI department.
Many discuss volk being OP, but dont get the whole picture.

My only word to the topic is. Diverse your strategy, pay the price of nade although they are expensive and use smoke to block the MG sight. Or use aggressive flanking. Be creative. MG42 + grens are good defense, why would you win that "easly", its hard to beat a well defended position. Find other weak spots, its almost impossible to keep constant control of all the map, in 1v1 you force a distraction and flank, in teamgames you find a corridor and rush in. If you fail, learn what happened and repeat.

I've always wondered...
A lot of OKW players complain the KT is now a joke, wether I agree or disagree is not the matter here but, I'd like to know how you would buff it to be relevant as OKW's baseline ultimate AI option.

As OKW's baseline? Honestly had to read that multiple times. I'd think you'd ask to remove it from the baseline. But if I were to balance it so it's supposed to be part of it I'd improve its scatter so its reliable and lower its OHK radius. The problem with the prenerf KT wasn't that it was "uncounterable", it's that you could get efficient damage done and it had enough HP and armor to back away safely without fear of losing it. Exact same problem with the Brummbar currently. Roll in, drop 2 or 3 shots, if TDs are present take 2-3 hits and back away. Extra points for skill tactician and blitz.

So unless your opponet overextended or missplayed, the only real way of going for the kill relied on:

• Getting off a snare
  
• Diving with tank destroyers/mediums
  
• Offmap bomb drop/mark target
  
• MAYBE ISU-152, but prenerf KT was around when JT/Ele were picked 99% of all games in doctrines so you'd set yourself up to get bullied.
  

Similar problem when OKW engages the IS2. The JP4s pen isn't high enough to reliably engage the IS2 at range and go for the kill. So you're forced to either clump raks and cheese out the IS2 with some good pens, or dive in with a panther and have it brawl with it. Depending on how overly drunk the gunner in the IS2 is it can most definatly come out as a loss for the OKW player.

Alternatives to getting OKW an AI buff in the lategame on armor would be:

• Adding the Ostwind
  
• Making panther a generalist similar to comet
  

Both of these have their respective drawbacks and bonuses. We'd have to replace the ostwind slot in scavenge with something else, and the panther buff would further solidify panther spam in teamgames, which again would further solidify allied TD spam.

TL : DR

Faction design in this game sucks from a balance standpoint.

I think the last scatter nerf on the KT was too much and it could also have benifited from an armour bump to say 400 when allied TDs got their reworks. This thing should take combined arms and be a scary enemy... Not a vet pinata

Edit: the rear armour also fell dramatically since launch meaning flanking mediums is more an option, coupled with its low speed makes higher frontal armour more important.

I mean baseline as in like, that's always available no matter what Commander you go, but you still need to select a Commander to call it in right?
Like how thew Jackson became USF's lifeline in the lategame, as it fill in the Army's lack of AT, thank you for your answer.

Allies dont lack AT. What you mean is lategame AT and the got the best of that. Axis get good support fire (howitzers) but immobile. Like a rock.paper.scissors game. Infantry wise its mixed, some have better offensive others defensive

I ran the numbers for the full squad DPS for both volks and riflemen out of curiosity. DPS was taken at set ranges, chosen based on weapon profiles and typical distances.

Here are the results:

Dists: 5 / 7 / 14 / 20 / 23 / 30 / 34

Full squad DPS
Volks with 2x stg44: 27.07 / 26.35 / 22.11 / 17.62 / 16.55 / 12.02 / 9.35
Riflemen with 1xBAR: 36.76 / 32.67 / 21.03 / 17.24 / 15.72 / 12.20 / 10.62

Riflemen with BAR DPS gain over Volks with stg44
135.8% / 124.0% / 95.1% / 97.84% / 94.98% / 101.5% / 113.6%

Squad DPS gained after adding upgrade
Volks: 135.1% / 139.9% / 141.9% / 130.5% / 130.8% / 115.6% / 103.3%
Riflemen: 124.8% / 126.1% / 116.8% / 121.4% / 123.3% / 122.0% / 124.9%

Commets:
- Riflemen with BAR have a clear advantage over volks at close ranges (<7) but volks have the edge (barely) at the mid ranges.
- Volks get larger dps boost at close and midranges with stg44 upgrade.
- Riflemen get a roughly constant DPS boost across all ranges.
- Moving accuracy is not taken into account.

This is more relevant to my experiments and experiences. I think this calculation is right. The problem is that at least 3 Riflemen squads are equipped with 2BARs needed almost 120x3 = 360 munitions. This means that the volksgrenadiers and the manpower exchange rate take about ten minutes or more when the unfavorable usf assumes that it maintains exactly half the frontline and collects the munition. This timing is already in the phase of the light tank, or the beginning of elite infantry. After all, until early-mid game, usf is hard to fight to gain as much as we thought. This problem is further accelerated by the introduction of luchs and AA half-tracks. and, USF's rigid tier structure accelerates this problem.

The problem is, as I stated when responding to gentlementroll is that they don't have a good AI armor piece. The p4 gets shut down by anything bigger than a stock medium and the KT is a joke.

Agree. I actually mean nothing in this faction could support p4, a good AI&AT medium well, either too expensive or too fragile in late games. So, P4 could easily be countered by anything bigger than nomral medium. And KT performs really bad in AI task after its scatter got nerfed. Walking stuka requires another tech, and really expensive for 1v1. If go walking stuka, u have to skip T4 and wait for command panther in order to keep pace in tech, which is too risky.