Rifles overperforming?

It’s not really that Officers aren’t just as good as Riflemen, it’s that you probably already have three Riflemen in your starting build which makes getting more than one officer one too many and definitely makes getting any special call in infantry too many infantry unless you lose a squad or two (never a good thing).

Plus no one likes to play against a blob either. Especially not a blob that can upgrade with BARs that can de-crew an HMG from the front.

Diverse units are locked behind Officer tech, so you’re forced to start with Riflemen and then also get Officers on top of that. This doesn’t force you to blob them all together, but it does force you to have a lot of infantry squads and that can lead to blobbing very easily and gets even more likely the more squads you have. This makes USF probably the most likely to end up with a blob if you have a composition of 1 RE, 3 Riflemen, Lieutenant, Captain and Major. Throw in a squad of Rangers or Paratroopers and a tank and you’re almost at Pop Cap and all you have is basic infantry squads and a tank. That’s just not good faction design for a game that’s supposed to be about integrating team weapons and combined arms play.

That's all true, what I believe would help is the cost and time shift of USF teching:
LT & CPT: build time from 1m10s -> 30s, cost from 200M 35F -> 280M 30F
Vehicle unlock: build time from 20s -> 1m, cost from 50M 20F -> 0M 25F

This will help maintain current vehicle timing for USF. Currently Rifle squad builds in ~27s and LT or CPT build for 1m10s, this is a huge downtime on infantry so everyone builds the 3rd group of Riflemen because one can't allow him/herself to fight for the first 3 minutes with just 2xRifles and 1xRE. Also the HMG and AT gun are essential in most games so both officers are required which leaves us with RE, 3xRifles, LT and CPT (+Major later on).

Changing timing and cost would allow fitting 1 of the officers instead of 1 Rifle squad in the early game. USF player would have less squads overall (due to increased MP requirements), but LT or CPT would arrive earlier and these squads are marginally stronger than an average Riflemen squad due to having 1 non-transferable Thompson, so power level should more or less stay the same. Timing of the light vehicles would be unchanged. This would also leave some space in USF roster for the doctrinal infantry.

What do you think?

Also new pak howie is a lotto-cannon.

This is not a brummbar or OST thread guys, we talking rifles here.