Profile of drChengele

Yesterday I was chasing a vet3 comet with a Panther and the comet threw a grenade which stuck to the Panther, with the countdown number following the Panther movement (vCoH sticky bomb style).

On a separate occasion in the same game the comet threw a grenade and my Panther passing over it got a "crew shocked" critical.

Because OKW special snowflake forever

Fair is fair, it's not like they have a free durable non-doctrinal zero micro repair sta... Oh

The first thing I checked when I booted up CoH2 beta 3 years ago was to see if vehicles were able to provide green cover. They could and I was overjoyed at the possibilities this opened. Then I promptly forgot about it and never used the fact. Not only are the infantry "spots" bugged and unusable, but you also never want your tank to stand still in this game.

But if there is one tank where it might work it would be the Churchill.

Instead of grenades, I would like to see (vanilla) Churchill have an ability to take a "Defensive Position":
- immobile (8ish seconds cooldown before it can be cancelled )
- 1.25 armour, 0.8 received damage to the tank only
- create green cover spots (maybe massage the hitbox to be a bit larger for purpose of this green cover)
- any Brit infantry hugging this green cover (no aura, no radius, only infantry literally touching the cover) get some extra bonus, like immunity to suppression or something.

Approach enemy strongpoint, click defensive position, place infantry behind the Churchill. It would emphasize the Churchill's infantry support nature better than YOLOing a PaK wall to throw grenades at them from the hatch.

Yeah tank taking a "posture" is silly but so is magical bullet absorption aura just because there is a captain in a special Panzer IV 20 meters away, or a Jagdpanzer phase-shifting.

Some people think a Churchill doesn't melt fast enough to the Panther's gun? Yeah, sorry, sometimes even an allied tank should be able to survive against Krupp steel (What heresy! What hubris!) What the hell do you think a Churchill should do? Does it have speed? A good gun? No? Good. Keep calm and if you have a Panther, farm the Churchill for vet until you hit the best vet2 bonus in the entire game, bar none.

Nevertheless the Ostheer Panther also needed something. It´s incredible niche for the cost. A Panzer IV and especially a StuG have way more damage output in any realistic scenario due to sufficient penetration and better rate of fire. This isn´t going to be fixed by cheaper T4.

It's not the P5's fault it was stuck at the top of the most linear teching tree in the game in a relatively useless tier. I think more accessible T4 is the way to go, actually. At any rate I wouldn't call the Panther an incredible niche, it's probably the best tank in the game. The Panther's strength lies in the fact there is literally not a tank in the game that can handle it 1v1 except maybe a hyper-expensive call-in, and if both tanks are supported, well, guess which faction has the better AT support.

The P5 outranges Churchills (and mediums), if both are unsupported you can't use the range advantage, but you're doing it wrong.

It can also react to flanks, and has a good enough armour and health pool to react and tie down an opponent until other AT support (of which Ostheer and OKW have plenty) can arrive.
It can close the distance to Jacksons, Fireflies and SUs easily if unsupported (again, if both are supported, you still have the upper hand).

The fact that the StuG happens to be insanely good against armour does not warrant a Panther buff. The fact the Panther overpenetrates (as someone else stated in the thread) is also not magically a downside that warrants a buff. Faction strengths cannot be listed as weaknesses in order to justify buffs, that's not how it works.

Any Panther buffs would completely destroy teamgame meta starting from 2v2s onward. I realize this is not important to some people.

The problem here is that you're losing the in-direct fire support capability, and making a player choose between that and a more effective 360 area of denial unit/emplacement is... well, I won't say it but you can guess the word

A reasonable tradeoff?

I don't see how giving no indirect fire if you go Bofors would be viable.

So you don't really want just indirect fire (if that was the case you would just unlock the mortar pit). No, you want indirect fire AND the Bofors.

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Why are people acting as if having indirect fire is some sort of a God-given right for every faction? Yes, other 4 factions all have 2 separate units capable of indirect fire, but then, those factions also do not get access to the hands-down best defensive position in the game.

The word of the day is tradeoff. People act as if Bofors is a thing you should definitely have access to in a faction. Well, no, there is nothing like the Bofors in the entire game, so I don't need to somehow justify the tech restrictions and tradeoffs I propose as counterbalance. You need to justify what you would give up to get the access to a Bofors. No other faction has anything that comes even near in 360 degree area denial for infantry, light vehicles, and aircraft alike (just compare it to the Luftwaffe emplacements, a commander ability, and weep).

Oh, the match dictates you need indirect fire? Well what the hell are you doing unlocking and building a static emplacement for short range defense for, then? If I go for triple Ostwinds when the enemy has nothing but tanks, should I get to the balance forums and complain about overpowered Allied factions? Your build choices should be dictated by the match and the circumstances, you don't get to build a Bofors and then expect the game is balanced around your sacrosanct right to have this ultra emplacement no matter what, and just let the enemy think about things like unit composition and react to your build choices.

And with my proposal you can get your AEC too. So, a player going for an AEC and mortar pit would be no worse off than any players currently researching the AEC unlock.

Or, you can opt for this incredibly sturdy defensive emplacement that the enemy will have to invest significant micro and resources to dislodge, but lose the option of indirect fire in the process. Suddenly a Bofors is not a no-brainer, but a choice.

It's not gonna eradicate sim cities, but you can either have a mortar-wiping machine with a long range and zero micro requirements, or a shorter range defensive position that will kill anything short of a tank, but can now be safely chipped away from a distance by LeIGs, mortars and AT guns without fear of nuclear mortar shells annihilating them.