Profile of Planet Smasher

It should not cost more, because the P4 got alot better veterancy bonuses. Hell, the Sherman is a better tank imo and costs 110 fuel also. vet 3 P4 > vet 3 Cromwell

It's true that the PIV armor increase is pretty good, as is Blitzkrieg. The Cromwell gets a faster reload at both Vet 2 and 3 instead, giving it a reload time of 5,93*0,7*0,8=3,3208 seconds. That's a pretty massive decrease. The smoke shell is also useful, and it can get emergency war speed as well.

The Sherman has almost the same AT performance as the Cromwell, with 140/120/100 vs. 135/120/105 pen and the same accuracy and reload time. It probably has better AI performance with HE ammo. But like the PIV, it's also easier to hit and less mobile than the Cromwell. All in all, I think the Cromwell is a bit better than the Sherman.

To the OP:

I agree that the Soviets have many units that just suck, but with all the buffs you proposed, they might be way too strong. If Relic decides to do something about this (which I hope) they should really take smaller steps, in my opinion.

DshK should be moved to 1 CP (like MG34) and maybe get a buff for the AP rounds, but otherwise I think it's fine.

M-42 needs a buff to its penetration for sure, but then it might actually be alright for 200MP. I could also imagine it as a stock unit in T1, to make that a little more viable. The two commanders that have it could get AT gun camouflage instead, it fits their defensive theme pretty well.

1x DP-28 for Conscripts sounds good (40-50 Munitions?), either to be unlocked in the HQ, or automatically with T3 or T4.

Penals could just be turned into an SMG squad with 6x PPSh, weaker than Shocks, of course, and without the flamer upgrade. That way you'd actually have two infantry squads with distinct roles without any call-in units.

The T-34/76 is bad, but it's also the cheapest medium tank by far. Buffing it could lead to some serious spam. Replacing Secure Mode sounds great, though.

The KV-1 could use more HP and better veterancy. I can imagine it as a stock unit in T4, it could soak up some damage while you attack with T-34s or SU-76s.

The SU-85 is not a bad TD, but it could use a slightly lower fuel cost. I think that both the StuG and JPIV are more cost effective, currently.

I'm not sure about the KV-2, I've never used it much. And the B-4 howitzer is just an RNG wipe machine, either it vaporizes a bunch of units at once or it doesn't hit anything at all. Making it more consistent without being OP is probably pretty hard, maybe they should just turn it into an ML-20 clone with slightly higher damage and AOE but lower ROF and less shots per salvo.

Other units, like the mortars, M3, IS-2 and T-34/85 are fine, I think. Not great, but alright. Relic can't just buff every single Soviet unit at once.
I also agree that many commanders are really bad at the moment, but other factions have this problem as well, and it's been like this for a long time. Expecting them all to be changed is probably not realistic.

Why not just remove the Schreck package completely and give Volks a Panzerfaust ability when the first truck is set up? Maybe give the Raketenwerfer a slight range buff to better protect against early vehicles, but it's not like OKW is generally lacking in the AT department.

I could also imagine a StG44 upgrade, maybe for 120 Munitions, unlocked when all three trucks are set up. They obviously shouldn't have the same damage profile as PGrens, but it could help them scale better in the late game.

I did, and the pbgid did stay the same then. But if I paste in the ability_bag from the recon plane, the output shows this:

UniqueID contains an ID which is already used pbgid, c:\coh2stuff\instances\abilities\west_german\modal_ability\dispatch_ability\mg34_dispatch.xml, old 14326 new 1073741832.

Then it changes the pbgid from 14326 (MG34) to 1073741832. Recon normally has 80. And that's even though I copy-pasted only the ability_bag, not the pbgid as well.

First off, thanks for your help, as always. I tried again. First I cloned:

abilities\west_german\modal_ability\dispatch_ability\mg34_dispatch

Then I copied the ability_bag from:

abilities\german\modal_ability\commander_ability\stuka_air_recon

And pasted into the former. As before, I then changed the required_player_upgrade from recon_plane to mg34_dispatch. In-game, the MG34 ability was gone, but the recon plane was still not visible.

I then opened the XML in Notepad++ and changed the pgbid (which was copied from stuka_air_recon as well, for some reason) back to the one from mg34_dispatch. This did not help either.

Next, I changed the ui_position from 40 to 101, as another ability in OKW Luftwaffe doctrine has it set to 40 already. I also removed the required_player_upgrade entirely. It's still not showing up in-game, though.

Any ideas? Are there any other IDs still pointing to some Ostheer commanders? Do I need to create the new ability completely 'by hand', even if I actually want a straight copy?