g43 upgrade for pgrens?

I recently saw a match where Aimstrong upgraded all his pgrens with g43 on Arnheim Checkpoint.

Does anyone know under which conditions the g43 outperforms the STG that the pgrens get out of the gate?

Aren't g43s like really really exceptionally good on the move and don't they have like a nominally better DPS curve? Because other than that I have no idea, especially on a sort of urban map like arnhem.

The fact that this question is even being asked shows just how unintuitive the weapons can be be in CoH 2. Other great examples of this are how M1 Carbines on paratroopers do more damage per shot than M1 Garands on Riflemen and how Kar98ks on VolksGrenadiers and Grenadiers have totally different stats.

Whatever CoH 3 does for weapons performance, it needs to be more intuitive and consistent.

The fact that this question is even being asked shows just how unintuitive the weapons can be be in CoH 2. Other great examples of this are how M1 Carbines on paratroopers do more damage per shot than M1 Garands on Riflemen and how Kar98ks on VolksGrenadiers and Grenadiers have totally different stats.

Whatever CoH 3 does for weapons performance, it needs to be more intuitive and consistent.

Or the 3 different types of stg44s or 2 different grease guns, 2 stens, 2 mp40s. One of the only infantry weapons that's ever on multiple squads that actually stays the same is the thompson lol.

Lelic plz.

Aren't g43s like really really exceptionally good on the move and don't they have like a nominally better DPS curve? Because other than that I have no idea, especially on a sort of urban map like arnhem.

G43s have 0.8 on the move, while StG44s have 0.75 IIRC. So they're slightly better on the move. G43s are higher damage per bullet and better at max, but weaker at close than StGs. Although Pgrens get 3 G43s and the G43s are also very powerful in close.

@OP The upgrade is ok, it is a low priority upgrade though currently since the StGs are quite similar to G43s. LMG42s should be the priority.

The benefits and drawbacks of Pgren G43's:

++ G43's have the highest moving dps in the game at ~90%, compared to ~50% of STG44's.
++ G43's get better long range dps than STG44's, starting at 27 range.
+ Panzergrenadiers get 20% bonus sight with G43's, giving them equal sight to Pioneers (42).
+ Panzergrenadiers get free interrogation once upgraded.

-- G43's have noticably less close and midrange damage than STG44's.
- STG44's do more scatter damage (a hidden dps value) and have shorter aimtime, so the G43 might comparably be worse than the dps charts would suggest.
- STG44's benefit more of the bonus accuracy with vet, widening the dps gap between ranges 0-27 and narrowing the gap between ranges 27-35, thus actually moving the dps intersection to 28 range.
- STG44's do far more damage against light vehicles.
- You can't upgrade Schrecks anymore once you've upgraded G43's.
- The upgrade costs 25 munitions.

I personally don't find the upgrade worth it. G43 pgrens are nowhere near as effective as LMG Grens at long range and the high moving dps is hard to fully utilize with how vulnerable Pgrens are. Your mileage may vary however, I know Jae43 uses the upgrade quite extensively with T1 skip. The earlier timing of Pgrens, their new vet ability and the decreased cost of the upgrade have certainly helped this strategy.

...I know Jae43 uses the upgrade quite extensively with T1 skip...

And now I make my entrance (saw this post before but finally got around to replying).

So everyone here, especially DerbyHat, did a good job of outlining the raw positives and negatives of the upgrade, so now I can focus purely on WHY you get the upgrade.

Something you'll notice about the panzergrenadier stg curve is that is scales up really quickly but consistently with no large DPS falloffs or spikes anywhere - it looks like it has good DPS curve. The issue here though is that while the DPS curve has a good slope, it has deceptively low far range values. Even riflemen (which have modest far DPS compared to IS and penals) have a higher DPS than panzergrenadiers from ranges 32+. It's a 3 range window, but it's there and it's actually very important, especially at Aimstrong's level of play. To get to what I mean, think about how this can manifest in a defensive situation.

If you have panzergrenadiers set up behind cover and your opponent decides to attack it, they can just attack move it. They set up a 35 range fight where panzergrenadiers have surprisingly low DPS and win with their concentration of force. This puts you into a lose-lose situation. Stay in that engagement where your panzergrenadiers perform suboptimally (but last a while since they're behind cover), or get to a range where your panzergrenadiers perform well...but give up your cover position. The key here is that you are forced into a set of bad choices.

Try the same with g43s. I should preface this next statement by letting you know that at range 35, the DPS of a g43 squad vs stg squad is 10.7 vs. 4.2. With 10.7 far DPS, your opponent can't win by a-moving into you and taking a max range fight, but they also can't win by closing in because g43s still perform well at mid and close range. You then force your opponent into a set of bad choices.

While a simple look at the positives and negatives make the stgs seem almost universally better, that kind of analysis misses a lot of the context. The g43 upgrade takes a lot of DPS from the ranges where you DON'T need it (stgs will probably beat most squads at ranges under 25 anyway) and transfers it over to the ranges where you DO need it. You'll still probably win all of those close range engagements that you would have won anyway, but now you also get to win the max range engagements that your opponent would have tried to force in order to exploit panzergrenadiers weakness. It makes your ranges less exploitable and makes it difficult for your opponent to win an engagement against your panzergrenadiers at ANY range - important at Aimstrong's level because most opponents can exploit that kind of weakness, that 30-35 range.

And yes, the increase in moving performance makes for a surprisingly wipe-y squad, and the extra 7 sight range is good for being able to pick your engagements.

Or the 3 different types of stg44s or 2 different grease guns, 2 stens, 2 mp40s. One of the only infantry weapons that's ever on multiple squads that actually stays the same is the thompson lol.

Lelic plz.

My point exactly. Lol

I’d like to see CoH 3 have a much simplified system where damage stats are consistent across the board based on caliber type. The main caliber types being pistol, intermediate, rifle and heavy. While not all pistol calibers are equal in real life when compared to each other, when you compare any pistol caliber to any full sized rifle round they might as well be the same! Because the game includes infantry weapons ranging from 9mm handguns all the way up to .50 caliber HMGs you don’t really want to split hairs between .45 ACP vs 9mm or 30-06 vs 8mm Mauser when they are effectively the same.

New damage system should be based off of a 100 hit point Soldier, so damage is easy to convert to hits to kill and works as a percentage value as well.

All pistol caliber weapons deal 10 damage per hit. All intermediate rounds deal 15 per hit. All rifle rounds deal 20 per hit and all HMG rounds deal 35 per hit. These numbers could be adjusted, but they should be universal across all weapons.

DPS of weapons is now determined by rate of fire, burst duration for automatic weapons and accuracy at various ranges. You can tweak accuracy and rate of fire from unit to unit so even though M1 Garands and K98s now do the same damage per shot, the M1 is still better at closer ranges due to a higher rate of fire, while K98s have a higher stationary accuracy at longer ranges.

This would also make telling what sort of weapon you squad has tell you directly how to use them and allow for interesting weapon profiles. For example the M1 carbine would be an intermediate round with a quick rate of fire, in veteran troops hands it’s a very powerful weapon due to veterans having higher accuracy and rate of fire values given to them, while weaker units armed with them might have a lower rate of fire, like weapon crews.

My point exactly. Lol

I’d like to see CoH 3 have a much simplified system where damage stats are consistent across the board based on caliber type. The main caliber types being pistol, intermediate, rifle and heavy. While not all pistol calibers are equal in real life when compared to each other, when you compare any pistol caliber to any full sized rifle round they might as well be the same! Because the game includes infantry weapons ranging from 9mm handguns all the way up to .50 caliber HMGs you don’t really want to split hairs between .45 ACP vs 9mm or 30-06 vs 8mm Mauser when they are effectively the same.

New damage system should be based off of a 100 hit point Soldier, so damage is easy to convert to hits to kill and works as a percentage value as well.

All pistol caliber weapons deal 10 damage per hit. All intermediate rounds deal 15 per hit. All rifle rounds deal 20 per hit and all HMG rounds deal 35 per hit. These numbers could be adjusted, but they should be universal across all weapons.

DPS of weapons is now determined by rate of fire, burst duration for automatic weapons and accuracy at various ranges. You can tweak accuracy and rate of fire from unit to unit so even though M1 Garands and K98s now do the same damage per shot, the M1 is still better at closer ranges due to a higher rate of fire, while K98s have a higher stationary accuracy at longer ranges.

This would also make telling what sort of weapon you squad has tell you directly how to use them and allow for interesting weapon profiles. For example the M1 carbine would be an intermediate round with a quick rate of fire, in veteran troops hands it’s a very powerful weapon due to veterans having higher accuracy and rate of fire values given to them, while weaker units armed with them might have a lower rate of fire, like weapon crews.

Yeah something like that would probably make a lot more sense, and it'd be a lot closer to real life. It'd be hard to balance possibly for each individual squad, but I guess your last paragraph would address that.

Although shouldn't infantry rifles and hmgs deal the same damage per bullet since it's the same round at more or less the same muzzle velocity?

All pistol caliber weapons deal 10 damage per hit. All intermediate rounds deal 15 per hit. All rifle rounds deal 20 per hit and all HMG rounds deal 35 per hit. These numbers could be adjusted, but they should be universal across all weapons.

The only games (if any?) that have even close to this level of uniformity are hardcore simulations. The vast majority of games shy away from strict caliber/round size = damage systems, and you have to wonder why that is.

Yeah something like that would probably make a lot more sense, and it'd be a lot closer to real life. It'd be hard to balance possibly for each individual squad, but I guess your last paragraph would address that.

Although shouldn't infantry rifles and hmgs deal the same damage per bullet since it's the same round at more or less the same muzzle velocity?

Yes, infantry rifles and HMGs in rifle caliber would do the same damage per shot. The “Heavy” category would be for things of a greater caliber, such as M2HBs firing 50 caliber BMG rounds and the DShK firing 12.7x108 Soviet. This would also apply to anti tank rifles such as the .51 Boys and PTRS-41 and PTRD-41.

The only games (if any?) that have even close to this level of uniformity are hardcore simulations. The vast majority of games shy away from strict caliber/round size = damage systems, and you have to wonder why that is.

If anything, this would make balancing even easier, as you would just adjust the accuracy and rate of fire of a unit, rather than having a multitude of variables at play.

CoH isn’t a simulator by any means, but I think it would benefit from some extra realism in some aspects of the game. Would anyone really be upset of CoH 3’s tanks had front, rear and side armor? Think of all of the possibilities for balancing tanks! Panthers have more vulnerability to flanking with weaker side armor, while true Heavy Tanks like Tigers have good front and side armor, being only weak in the rear.

My point by mentioning tanks is that realism can be good for gameplay, and I think my proposed small arms damage model would be good for gameplay, balance and realism.

If anything, this would make balancing even easier, as you would just adjust the accuracy and rate of fire of a unit, rather than having a multitude of variables at play.

CoH isn’t a simulator by any means, but I think it would benefit from some extra realism in some aspects of the game. Would anyone really be upset of CoH 3’s tanks had front, rear and side armor? Think of all of the possibilities for balancing tanks! Panthers have more vulnerability to flanking with weaker side armor, while true Heavy Tanks like Tigers have good front and side armor, being only weak in the rear.

My point by mentioning tanks is that realism can be good for gameplay, and I think my proposed small arms damage model would be good for gameplay, balance and realism.

By all means, realism can be good for gameplay, balance and realism. That said, clamping damage numbers to specific values cannot possibly help with balance. It can be a net neutral, or a detriment, but never a benefit. Realism can obviously help with realism, cannot possibly help with balance, and would probably lead to less gameplay. The only place where I can see it being helpful (again, besides the realism itself) is in ease of understanding/lowering weapon stat complexity slightly.

Anyway, on the gameplay side it has potential issues involving burst damage and having to make some stats absurd to compensate for the fact that you cannot touch damage. Basically, large squad sizes start to have immense potential burst (see old cons) if damage values are clamped high enough. I suppose this wouldn't pose an issue if lethality was lower though. As for having to make some stats absurdly high/low, see the osttruppen kar (where we take their innate 50% accuracy penalty as a part of the weapon itself, to simplify things) vs. the ober kar. The bottom line is that the ober kar performs over 5 times better at some ranges, so if you can't help achieve that by manipulating damage, you probably end up with a squad akin to old cons that has insane potential burst, takes forever in between shots, and barely ever hits (a direction that I think led to an unsatisfying unit), and a squad with lightning fast, laser accurate kars.

I'd like to see each variant of the same gun have the same damage (after all, no amount of training can change that), but I think even that might lead to some issues.

By all means, realism can be good for gameplay, balance and realism. That said, clamping damage numbers to specific values cannot possibly help with balance. It can be a net neutral, or a detriment, but never a benefit. Realism can obviously help with realism, cannot possibly help with balance, and would probably lead to less gameplay. The only place where I can see it being helpful (again, besides the realism itself) is in ease of understanding/lowering weapon stat complexity slightly.

Anyway, on the gameplay side it has potential issues involving burst damage and having to make some stats absurd to compensate for the fact that you cannot touch damage. Basically, large squad sizes start to have immense potential burst (see old cons) if damage values are clamped high enough. I suppose this wouldn't pose an issue if lethality was lower though. As for having to make some stats absurdly high/low, see the osttruppen kar (where we take their innate 50% accuracy penalty as a part of the weapon itself, to simplify things) vs. the ober kar. The bottom line is that the ober kar performs over 5 times better at some ranges, so if you can't help achieve that by manipulating damage, you probably end up with a squad akin to old cons that has insane potential burst, takes forever in between shots, and barely ever hits (a direction that I think led to an unsatisfying unit), and a squad with lightning fast, laser accurate kars.

I'd like to see each variant of the same gun have the same damage (after all, no amount of training can change that), but I think even that might lead to some issues.

I see what you are saying, but I also have some thoughts that might alleviate your concerns, or at least better illustrate my opinion.

First, I’d like to say that my given numbers were completely arbitrary meant to illustrate a point and should by no means be considered as the final word, but I think you understand that. I just feel like clarifying that point can’t hurt.

Secondly, while assigning values to weapon profiles based on caliber is what I originally stated, I think it should also be said that flexibility should be given to the individual stats. They are all the same as a starting point, but not set in stone per se. My view on caliber specific damage is based on inconsistencies like the Ober vs Ostruppen example that you give, but also on the matchup between Riflemen (8 damage) Volksgrenadiers (12 damage) and Grenadiers (16 damage). All of these rounds are effectively the same, yet some do twice the damage per shot, and the Grenadiers and Volks are supposedly the same rifle too! This just doesn’t make sense to me in the same way that individual soldiers had different amounts of health in vCoH.

Your example of Obers vs Ostuppen, you bring up another point I’d like to mention. You are right that it’s absurd that a unit performs up to 5 times as well as another while armed with the same exact rifle. This is not only confusing to the player who might notice the performance disparity in spite of the identical equipment, but is also easily solved. Just give them different guns. If Obers need to be so vastly better than another unit, then give them a different gun to help show that.

For example, you make all K98s do the same damage and have veteran units get a higher rate of fire and accuracy, but elite units get LMGs or StG44s or G43s that have even higher rates of fire and comparable accuracy. This faster fire rate easily tells the player that they are dealing more damage and further delineates performance from unit to unit based on equipment.

Regardless, I think it’s a topic that could use further discussion dedicated to it. Cheers.

Your example of Obers vs Ostuppen, you bring up another point I’d like to mention. You are right that it’s absurd that a unit performs up to 5 times as well as another while armed with the same exact rifle.

I... never said that at all...?

This is not only confusing to the player who might notice the performance disparity in spite of the identical equipment, but is also easily solved. Just give them different guns. If Obers need to be so vastly better than another unit, then give them a different gun to help show that.

Like which gun? Im not that well versed in ww2 firearms or firearms in general, so im not sure what other options are out there that could fit.

For example, you make all K98s do the same damage and have veteran units get a higher rate of fire and accuracy, but elite units get LMGs or StG44s or G43s that have even higher rates of fire and comparable accuracy. This faster fire rate easily tells the player that they are dealing more damage and further delineates performance from unit to unit based on equipment.

Regardless, I think it’s a topic that could use further discussion dedicated to it. Cheers.

But about rates of fire, do you know what coh2 weapon has the highest rate of fire? If it really were that well communicated to the player (since a high rate of fire "easily tells" the player a weapon has high damage output), then I imagine you would be able to tell me.

And while I do think it's a discussion worth having, it's hard for it to be a productive one since realism vs. workable/malleable mechanics is essentially about preference/opinion.

As for having to make some stats absurdly high/low, see the osttruppen kar (where we take their innate 50% accuracy penalty as a part of the weapon itself, to simplify things) vs. the ober kar. The bottom line is that the ober kar performs over 5 times better at some ranges, so if you can't help achieve that by manipulating damage, you probably end up with a squad akin to old cons that has insane potential burst, takes forever in between shots, and barely ever hits (a direction that I think led to an unsatisfying unit), and a squad with lightning fast, laser accurate kars..

That’s what I was referring to about the 5x more powerful version of the Obersoldaten K98 vs the Ostruppen K98

I... never said that at all...?

Like which gun? Im not that well versed in ww2 firearms or firearms in general, so im not sure what other options are out there that could fit.


But about rates of fire, do you know what coh2 weapon has the highest rate of fire? If it really were that well communicated to the player (since a high rate of fire "easily tells" the player a weapon has high damage output), then I imagine you would be able to tell me.
.

Rate of fire vs accuracy vs caliber should help the player determine how the weapon performs.

Let’s take the example of long to mid range infantry units of varying performance. We obviously want to have some infantry perform better than others, while still fitting the same general weapon profile, and the example of Obers vs Ostruppen is a great example of that. Both are long range specialists with vastly different cost and performance.

Military grade bolt action rifles are only marginally more accurate than comparable military grade semi automatic rifles of the WWII era, so an easy way to delineate between more powerful long range infantry and less powerful long range infantry is to give them semi automatic rifles instead of bolt action ones. This dynamic is already present in the Riflemen vs Volks matchup, where at max range they perform similarly at vet 0, but the semi automatic M1 Garands give Riflemen better performance as range decreases. An elite unit armed with semi automatic rifles in full rifle caliber (such as G43s, M1 Garands, SVT-40s, M-1941 Johnson Rifles or the rarer but still present G41 Walter and Mauser variants or the SVT-38), should perform equal to or better than bolt action armed infantry at any range.

LMGs are another obvious way to do this, and is already implemented in game for many units.

So if you want a German long range elite squad that doesn’t have an LMG, give them G43s, or G41(w)s, or G41(m)s, or captured SVT-40s as those were the most commonly used semi automatic rifles used by the Germans.

That’s what I was referring to about the 5x more powerful version of the Obersoldaten K98 vs the Ostruppen K98

Right, but I think you misunderstood me. I wasn't saying it was absurd that a unit performs 5 times better with the same weapon. I was saying that this unit performs 5 times better with the same weapon, and in order to get that same effect while keeping their damages the same, we would have to make their accuracy/rof absurd (absurdly high for obers, or absurdly low for osttruppen).

Rate of fire vs accuracy vs caliber should help the player determine how the weapon performs.

Let’s take the example of long to mid range infantry units of varying performance. We obviously want to have some infantry perform better than others, while still fitting the same general weapon profile, and the example of Obers vs Ostruppen is a great example of that. Both are long range specialists with vastly different cost and performance.

Military grade bolt action rifles are only marginally more accurate than comparable military grade semi automatic rifles of the WWII era, so an easy way to delineate between more powerful long range infantry and less powerful long range infantry is to give them semi automatic rifles instead of bolt action ones. This dynamic is already present in the Riflemen vs Volks matchup, where at max range they perform similarly at vet 0, but the semi automatic M1 Garands give Riflemen better performance as range decreases. An elite unit armed with semi automatic rifles in full rifle caliber (such as G43s, M1 Garands, SVT-40s, M-1941 Johnson Rifles or the rarer but still present G41 Walter and Mauser variants or the SVT-38), should perform equal to or better than bolt action armed infantry at any range.

LMGs are another obvious way to do this, and is already implemented in game for many units.

So if you want a German long range elite squad that doesn’t have an LMG, give them G43s, or G41(w)s, or G41(m)s, or captured SVT-40s as those were the most commonly used semi automatic rifles used by the Germans.

So then you give obers g43s. Well now what weapon do you replace gren g43s with...or pgren g43s...or panzerfusilier g43s with...or JLI g43s with? Maybe you give grens a g41 upgrade instead of their g43 upgrade then.

Then firstly, with how visually similar they are, wouldn't players be just as confused with its difference in performance compared to the g43 anyway - if you're going to have an extremely similar rifle with noticeably different performance, you might as well have the literal same rifle with a noticeably different performance depending on the squad that uses it....just like coh2? To state it simply, if you're going to make a weapon that looks almost indistinguishable from a g43 but give it different stats, you might as well just have a g43 with different stats, right?

And secondly, the issue still remains of how you replace the other g43s. Pgrens, pfusis, jlis, they all use different performing weapons (signified by a single real life weapon). Are there 3 other meaningfully distinct rifles that you could give to them?

Not to mention all the different kars, of which I believe there are 8 or so. Are there 8 or so distinct weapons you could give to them?

Edit: maybe you could keep 4 of those units using the same weapon and chalk it up to differences in experience and training and express that in accuracy and rate of fire differences...but coh2 more or less does that anyway, with only a relatively limited number of small arms having different damage values within the same IRL weapon.

1. Right, but I think you misunderstood me. I wasn't saying it was absurd that a unit performs 5 times better with the same weapon. I was saying that this unit performs 5 times better with the same weapon, and in order to get that same effect while keeping their damages the same, we would have to make their accuracy/rof absurd (absurdly high for obers, or absurdly low for osttruppen).


2. And secondly, the issue still remains of how you replace the other g43s. Pgrens, pfusis, jlis, they all use different performing weapons (signified by a single real life weapon). Are there 3 other meaningfully distinct rifles that you could give to them?

Not to mention all the different kars, of which I believe there are 8 or so. Are there 8 or so distinct weapons you could give to them?

Edit: maybe you could keep 4 of those units using the same weapon and chalk it up to differences in experience and training and express that in accuracy and rate of fire differences...but coh2 more or less does that anyway, with only a relatively limited number of small arms having different damage values within the same IRL weapon.

1. Ok, got it. I see your point, but my point was that if you want to keep the dynamic and damage rates the same with Obers being 5 times better performers, then they absolutely should have a different gun in order to convey that better performance to the player easily. Additionally there just isn’t that much range of performance on a real bolt action rifle for a trained soldier. It maxes out at a point where no matter how good you are you just can’t work the bolt any faster or hit any more often. Conversely, if you are in the military whether a conscript or a veteran of 10 years, you still will have some basic fundamentals on how to use the rifle you are issued. So for Obers and Ostruppen to have such a disparity of performance, they should have a disparity of equipment.

2. This part really illustrates my point that CoH2 has gotten very convoluted in its damage system and it can’t be fixed in an easy way. My argument for a standard caliber oriented damage system would be to make future CoH games better. An example of which could be that all rifle caliber weapons have the same damage, but different accuracy values and rates of fire, so you have room to play with DPS values as veterancy applies to a unit, but it’s maximum and minimum potential is dictated by what type of full powered rifle they have.

For example, baseline German troops have K98 bolt action rifles, elite units have G43s. A vetted up core unit would have a good rate of fire and great accuracy with the K98, and possibly even equal a vet 0 elite unit armed with G43s, but the mechanical advantage of the G43 will tell the player that with veterancy, the G43 equipped unit will have a higher potential than the ones with K98s.

You can even take it a step farther by sprinkling in LMGs of various types to units as upgrades that allow a bolt action equipped unit to make up the difference and close the DPS gap with elite semi auto wielding units.

As for replacing the current system? No. It can’t be done. CoH 2 has waaaaay too many unique types of infantry units, especially German ones, that make this type of weapon system very difficult to implement. I am hopeful that this discussion will fuel debate on how CoH 3 should handle it’s small arms balance system.

On 1. The issue is how much that limits the design space. G43s are a close range + moving performance upgrade for grens. How would you handle something similar without a weapon switch? Id imagine with that approach you either intentionally limit variety, or you run out of weapons to use. Also, I dont think its unimaginable that one unit performs 5 times better with the same rifle. Osttruppen are (to my limited understanding) the conscripted people of axis conquered nations, and obers are the literal best trained infantry in the game. Im pretty sure a trained marksman could fire a bolt action rifle over twice as fast and twice as accurately as I could. Not to mention the, apparently, fairly well documented phenomenon where most soldiers didnt even shoot to kill (which i imagine wouldnt include the hardened veterans like obers), and that 5x performance gap is easily believable to me. My point is not that the performance gap is unrealistic, but that in order to replicate that effect without damage differences will probably lead to a unit that is unsatisfying to use (a low acc, low rof unit). That said, I do agree with you. With the performance gap being that big, obers probably could have done with using a different weapon.

On 2. I think you said it yourself, coh2 has way too many different types of infantry units for this model to work. My issue is that this seems to imply you think coh3 should have less variety. I like how certain weapons (in game unique, not irl unique) perform well on the move, some perform well at close, or mid, or long with some quirks in what ranges they spike at. I do think there should be more reason to these things, but I like that level of variety and complexity. As you kind of implied (or maybe you didnt mean to...), this system probably cant offer that, and thats my main issue with it.

By all means, realism can be good for gameplay, balance and realism. That said, clamping damage numbers to specific values cannot possibly help with balance. It can be a net neutral, or a detriment, but never a benefit. Realism can obviously help with realism, cannot possibly help with balance, and would probably lead to less gameplay. The only place where I can see it being helpful (again, besides the realism itself) is in ease of understanding/lowering weapon stat complexity slightly.

Anyway, on the gameplay side it has potential issues involving burst damage and having to make some stats absurd to compensate for the fact that you cannot touch damage. Basically, large squad sizes start to have immense potential burst (see old cons) if damage values are clamped high enough. I suppose this wouldn't pose an issue if lethality was lower though. As for having to make some stats absurdly high/low, see the osttruppen kar (where we take their innate 50% accuracy penalty as a part of the weapon itself, to simplify things) vs. the ober kar. The bottom line is that the ober kar performs over 5 times better at some ranges, so if you can't help achieve that by manipulating damage, you probably end up with a squad akin to old cons that has insane potential burst, takes forever in between shots, and barely ever hits (a direction that I think led to an unsatisfying unit), and a squad with lightning fast, laser accurate kars.

I'd like to see each variant of the same gun have the same damage (after all, no amount of training can change that), but I think even that might lead to some issues.

What pops to mind is conscript mosins before they got more accurate and took a damage nerf in return. Sometimes you'd knock a model off a sturm in the first volley, and sometimes every shot would miss and you'd lose the engagement from there. Not a great gameplay mechanic, and the current situation is loads better.