Profile of Mr.Smith

Soviet 6-man crews OP.

Wot? The flaw IS the veterancy bug right? So if it's been in the game since launch, how has veterancy only broken 5 months ago?

What Elchino7 probably means that before the veterancy bug, we've had stacking-related bugs (merge, vehicle crews etc). Those bugs probably didn't matter much until WFA with its fancy features were released.

Then, people started noticing the Captain-on-me bugs and other nice abusable things. Relic had to react and I guess they accidentally broke offensive veterancy when fixing stacking bugs (according to Cruzz).

I'm guessing that now that they've had the time to properly inspect their code, they figured that it is impossible to fix veterancy issues (with a mod-based fix) without affecting stacking issues and vice versa. Hopefully, now that they've had their time, they can thoroughly address both issues at once.

Thus, the game was always bugged in one way or the other (either stacking issues or veterancy). This doesn't mean that Veterancy was always broken. However, Veterancy has definitely been broken for 4 months now.

Hammer definitely certainly benefits more from commanders that have 1) Crew Repairs and/or 2) Doctrinal Churchills.

Anvil works in more subtle ways. It will also keep working even if you are in the backfoot/don't have enough fuel. And it will also work even better as your armoured forces scale up in size (or teamgames).

A capture point that can spot for itself makes demo charges so much more effective; your allies also benefit from that.

Also, Heavy Engineers are (assuming 5-man vet2 Sappers)
- 2 squads can repair any damaged vehicle within seconds, and there you go; it's back in the fight. No downtime; you're fighting with your entire force all the time and that aids with unit preservation in the long-run.
- 1 squad can lay a mine within 2 seconds.
- 1 squad can also put up a Bofors emplacement in ~10 seconds. That's great for the extreme-late-game when new units don't have enough time to reach the frontline.

Currently only the repair speed bonus works. Bugfixing will make Anvil great again.

PS: Personally, I would take Comet & Anvil benefits any day over Churchill & Anvil or Comet & Hammer.

You're on point, Cabreza. However, for all the reasons I've outlined, 325 armour, 1040 would be a straight nerf to the Churchill (damage from sources with penetration bigger than 240, deflection damage, rear shots from flanking, more RNG-prone damage-soaking).

I'm pretty sure there should be a better, more straightforward way to achieve the same without tweaking the Churchill's combat capability stats. The reason I'm saying this is that:

I'm not an expert on this, but I'm 99% sure this can be achieved easily. Previously, the British Tank Commander upgrade (which now confers bonuses to accuracy and received veterancy), was actually affecting awarded veterancy to enemies.

Thus, it *should* be simple to work it out.

I could go ahead and dig up that modifier attribute myself. However my CoH2 tools stopped working, and I've no idea how to fix it

I think one of the main issues with the churchill is that it has very little impact when it arrives. The main gun is hardly special and the low armor means that all the AT your opponent currently has will penetrate it easily. Since it doesn't create any matchup mismatches your opponent doesn't have to adapt their strat to cope with the presence of a churchill. By contrast when the comet arrives it outclasses medium tanks/AT infantry and is a constant flanking threat. This in turn requires your opponent to react to the comet by placing tellers or investing in panthers/dedicated TDs. For the curchill to be successful it needs to be able to create a similar kind of mismatch when it arrives on the field.

The shock value of the Churchill comes from its enormous HP pool and its grenade throw. Past that, if you don't manage to crush the opposition on your first pass, you will bleed too much Vet to your opponent. In your second pass (when the enemy gets all-vetted paks), you may not be as lucky.

This veterancy-tweak proposal aims to address part of that issue.

Tank Durability

Now, regarding tank durability. You can (approximately) calculate the durability level of a tank as follows:
- Multiply the armor of the tank with the hit-points of the tank.
- I am saying approximately, because I gloss out on some details (deflection, attacker penetration, etc. All of these would benefit the Churchill, though. I'm really presenting the worst case for the Churchill here).

By comparing durability levels of different tanks, it can give you a sense of how many more shots (per-average) it will take for a tank to be taken down.

Now, let's say you're comparing two tanks:
- Comet, 290 armour, 800 HP (durability level = 290 * 800 = 232K)
- Churchill, 240 armour, 1400 HP (durability level = 336K)

Note:
- If the attacker's penetration is below 240 armor (the minimum of the two armour values), this means that the Churchill can withstand 336/232 = 44% more hits than the Comet.
- As the attacker's penetration increases beyond 240. Things become EVEN BETTER for the CHURCHILL.
- The formula doesn't take into account deflection damage (read the OP again; carefully, this time). This favours the Churchill even more.
- The low-armour tank will also be more predictable; there is NO chance your tank can vanish in under 9 hits from an AT gun (for Comet this is 5 unlucky hits).

Quiz

Comet attacked frontally, vs Churchill going ass-first.

Now, it's your turn. Suppose you are trying to compare the durability of a Comet when attacked frontally, and a Churchill when attacked from the rear. Which one is the more durable? (Churchill rear armour = 180)
Show Spoiler

Yes, the Comet is much faster, but the Churchill is NOT the paper-thin tank people make it out to be. This is what I am referring to as the psychological impact of low values for armour.