Counters to Shocks and PTRS penals as OKW?

I haven't been able to counter this at all, Shock Troops just feel too strong at the minute, I know they are easily countered by a Luchs but then the PTRS Penals can just melt them down. the MG34 is pretty lackluster and gets melted by shocks if its caught out of position.

What is your build when you see that combo? Also The commander that makes Soviet infantry sprint really fast is unbelievably frustrating to play against.

Luchs should always have infantry around it. If it’s alone, it’s vulnerable. Try to keep at least 2 volks in front of it.

Ptrs penals have shorter range than the luchs and are lucklester in anti-infantry. Try to gun them down with volks after you focus fire on the shocks.

As okw, it’s generally a good idea to keep your forces concentrated.

Well, shocks are very resilient to smgs(due to armor) and have a lot of short range dps coupled with smoke and a grenade, so mgs aren't an easy answer to them, and you need to be firing rifles/machine guns at them to deal effective damage. I'd say that you should probably have mgs, but they alone aren't enough. The way to beat them, I think, is to use their expensiveness against your enemy. Its highly unlikely that your enemy would get more than 2 shocks, otherwise he wouldn't have the mp to get all the other stuff that protects him from vehicles. This way you can outnumber them and force AT elements to constantly follow them and protect them by getting a luchs, then you can use the extra squads you have to put pressure on those AT elements, make it difficult for him to protect them while attacking your sectors. For this you probably would need 5 volks. Now you have to fight ~ 2 shocks and 3 penals, 1 or maybe 2 of which will have ptrs. Since you outnumber them, it gives you more opportunities to apply pressure to vulnerable elements that protect shocks from vehicles and expose them to luchs/p4 or overwhelm the shocks with k98s and stg44s. Of course you have to be careful and try to force the shocks to have to come at your troops while being shot at(vet3 shocks can beat 2 or even 3 volks if the battle starts at short range).

Basically, you have to outposition the shocks by flanking them and attacking their AT protection and then move in with a vehicle, if they use smoke to get to your mg, use that smoke to hide your vehicle from enemy AT and prevent the shocks from advancing while repositioning the mg, while forcing the shocks to react to your squads flanking and attacking those at guns/ptrs penals.

It mostly comes down to micro, rather than a build, I think, though it is possible that there are some specific builds that do really well against T1 soviets with shocks, I do think that getting extra infantry is helpful.


(I could be incorrect, since I'm not a top-tier coh2 player and haven't really faced this build as OKW)

Ptrs penals have shorter range than the luchs and are lucklester in anti-infantry. Try to gun them down with volks after you focus fire on the shocks.

That’s incorrect. Ptrs have equal range as the Luchs. And even with ptrs, penials still have a crapload of dps.

OT the aaht is the solution to all your life’s problems. Keep enough muni for smoke and switch targets once a unit is suppressed. You won’t have to worry about sprint for some time, and mines are always good to stop the sprint rishes

keep ur volks at mid range as they deal the most damage there, uses mgs WITH support, both tier 1 has AA half truck to suppress penal

That’s incorrect. Ptrs have equal range as the Luchs. And even with ptrs, penials still have a crapload of dps.

Fair. In that case you can still kite them with the luchs.

As for ptrs penals, they lose a lot of anti infantry and the worst part is that they keep the ptrs rifles as they drop models, so at 2 models left they have no anti infantry power left.

Thanks for the detailed responses. I think going battlegroup and getting out a half track might be the answer as it could suppress everything before it can do too much damage. Only issue is getting rolled over by a T70

Adding to the list of stuff:

223 (Elite Armor) is very effective at protecting your HMGs from Shocktroopers or just driving around and straight up killing them (due to its 1.3 penetration on its MG). If you run into the PTRS blob, it has smoke at vet 1 to get away. The 223 can serve as a cheaper Luchs and you can directly follow up with a Puma to counter the T-70.

Another solution is to rush Obersoldaten.
Either get IR STG44 Obersoldaten (Special Operations) which counter Shocktroopers by themselves, or get them to vet 1 and use the white phosphorus grenade to trap them and prevent them from charging in. With the Shocks being incapacitated you can follow up with a bundled grenade they can't easily dodge and force them to retreat.

If you're playing team games you can also try to rush a flammenpanzer Hetzer (Feuersturm) or a Panzer IV. If the enemy is spamming Shocks and you're doing okay against them (by kiting with Volks, using mines etc.) they will have very few manpower left to get a lot of AT or tanks so you should have the advantage here. Bonus from Feuersturm is that flamer Sturmpioneers deal quite a lot of damage to Shocks because the flamer ignores their armor and Shocks like to bunch up (good for flamer AOE).

Thanks for the detailed responses. I think going battlegroup and getting out a half track might be the answer as it could suppress everything before it can do too much damage. Only issue is getting rolled over by a T70

Going aaht let’s you save money on mags letting you get 1-2 raks.

Plus aaht vs t70 isn’t as bad as you think. While yes the t70 will win in a straight up fight, it doesn’t win very fast and the AAht can put out “ok” damage to make the t70 reconsider going for the kill and possibly suffering one or two rak hits. Furthermore if it’s shooting at the HT it isn’t bleeding your infantry.

All in all when it comes out consolidate your forces and let your HT do some dps, while you rush volks and raks to save it.

If IR.stg44 rework be call in ober squad with IR.stg44 or ober can traning more early can deal with them……I think……

I second hoshis recommendation about the aaht. If they went soviet t1 and are using shocks it's gonna be a real pain for them to counter it until t3 or they decide to get t2 as well which will slow them down

they decide to get t2 as well which will slow them down

Even a AT gun isnt a surefire counter to the AAHT with its panic smoke. Plus advancing shocks will advance past the range at which the AT gun can cover them.

Even a AT gun isnt a surefire counter to the AAHT with its panic smoke. Plus advancing shocks will advance past the range at which the AT gun can cover them.

Very true but it's definitely better at countering them than ptrs squads