Profile of The Silver Sage

Obersoldaten, a 4 man squad consisting of 3 kar98s and 1 mg34. Now that thing kills a man with every burst which is what every 5-7 or so seconds?

Russian sniper is a 2 man team that kills a man in a similar amount of time but has the disadvantage of having to be immobile, more susceptible to wipes due to no incoming accuracy bonuses and 2 man squad, they have the advantage of range and camo.

I put forth that Obers are the OKW's ''sniper'' which consists of the sniper and 3 spotters who do decent damage themselves.... Think about it.

Give suppression to a more heavily armoured, faster and more agile scout vehicle with more vision than the Kubel? Is it that you have so much trouble early game that you want both axis sides to have mobile suppression, learn to micro your mg42.

Why not give Volks different upgradeable antitank weapon? Some antitank rifle more in line with allied handheld antitank weapons. Schrecks upgrade for them is really a no-brainer and I don't personally think blobbing up cheap infantry against decent medium tanks should be a viable tactic. Ofcourse there should be adjustments for puppchen to compensate. Schrecks on panzergrens are fine IMO.

I'm leaning towards reducing panzerschreck accuracy at range.

Pak40: Dmg 160 Pene: 210/200/190/Reload: 3.5-4.1 Range:60
Zis-3: Dmg 160 Pene: 200/190/180/Reload: 4.425 Range: 60
Raketen: Dmg 160 Pene: 200/190/180/Reload: 3.0-3.6 Range: 50

As you can see the only difference between the Zis-3 and Raketenwerfer is Zis has 10 more range and 2 extra men but Raketen fires faster. I also think raketen doesn't get auto green cover but they can garrison buildings and retreat.

How would you like to alter the raketen?

I agree with you. Currently the allied factions don't have much if any advantage in AT over the axis factions. I feel like I need better micro, have better prediction and a lot of mines to break the Axis steel tide.

So what justifies the handheld AT disparity in this build? Nothing. On paper, Allies were supposed to have superior numbers and somehow that never materialized in the actual game.

What could justify it is if Allied dedicated AT was actually good. That's why I brought up allied AT guns in my previous post.

Why would this work? The short answer is, vCoh did it that way, it was satisfying and it worked.

The long answer:
For USF:
Riflemen are already strong AI units. Allowing them to upgrade with reliable AT weaponry would just create another Volks generalist monster. Generalist units in strategy games, suck. They require nothing more than a right-click-to-win mentality.

If they're introduced in a game, they need to be weak otherwise they end up spammed, like Volks.

Currently, rifles are very strong AI units and a potential soft AT deterrent. That means they need support to tackle armor (combined arms). That's a good design principle if you ask me.

If the USF AT-gun could be made to reliably penetrate super heavies (ie. better AP rounds) then:
-The AT gun would actually become useful throughout all stages of the game.
-Generalist Axis heavies (Tigers, KT and Panthers to a lesser extent) will have a reliable counter and require some combined arms of their own.

For Soviets:
As far as guards are concerned, the answer is similar to that of the riflemen. If they were better, they would be spammed because you would need less of other units. The PTRS does ok. It could see its DPS increased, but very little.

I would rather increase the Zis penetration values so they can counter heavies more reliably.

I would also increase the SU-85 turn rate.

So to conclude, I don't think handheld AT should be improved for the Allied factions because it would create strong generalist units. Improving support AT would be more beneficial to overall gameplay and balance because it promotes combined arms.

Volks with shreks are a problem that should be addressed by adjusting the DPS of Volks with shreks.

Yeah I don't want to turn Rifles or Guards into infantry that negate vehicles. I agree with Romeo and you in that I want less blobbing with all-round generalist infantry.
In one of my previous posts I made a comparison of the panzerschreck to the dedicated anti-tank guns, if you look at it you will be surprised by the similarity between damage and penetration values.

I was thinking along the lines of it's long range accuracy, after-all when describing the Raketenwerfer in one of the bulletins it talks about the Raketen being more accurate and being able to fire further due to being mounted.

That post looks like a lot of work.

I agree with the point that the handheld AT disparity encourages the use of allied call-in units. Then again, considering asymetric balance and all that, I don't think the handheld AT gap needs to change. I feel like in terms of price, performance and availability, while also considering other AT abilities and units, Soviet and USF handheld AT is where it needs to be.

USF can potentially equip a lot more AT on its squads to even the odds.

Soviets compensate for their lack of AT with relatively cheap and spammable mines.

To me, the real problem lies with allied stationary AT which is also under-performing despite facing heavier armor.

I could also live with allied units having worse versions of everything compared to their Axis counterparts if they had the economy to make up for it. To some extent that's how vCoh struck balance between US and Ost. Replicating that model could work.

Currently though, Allied armor and AT performance is poorly reflected in their cost and their pop-cap.

This buzz word from Relic ''asymmetrical balance'' is used a lot on these forums. What justifies the disparity in handheld AT between the factions? What advantage in terms of dealing with tanks do the Allies have in comparison? What disadvantages do the Axis have?

USF can equip more AT but at a higher cost (more zooks are needed to get similar AT capability) and you will be giving up anti-infantry capability for this either in munitions that could be used for BARs or just giving up a rifle for a bazooka. Either way as USF you will have to spend more munitions to get comparable AT.

In regards to the Soviets, I agree to an extent. Yes mines are very useful against Axis armour but what about when you are pushing forward? Once that Axis heavy sets up in an area it will be very hard to shift it, think about as Soviet AT gun is your best option against something like the Jagdtiger. If the Jagdtiger is unsupported then yes you can flank with tanks but if there are a few schrecks around let alone a pak no dice.

Basically I would just like to know what the AT advantages of the Allies are to give Axis such a huge bonus in terms of the panzerschrecks AT capability.