Profile of ADJM

Recently I've been playing a lot of skirmishes as the Soviets and I could never quite decide wether to go with conscripts or penal. With conscripts I always felt that I had a major disadvantage over the German grenadiers (let alone against Sturmpioneers and Volks) often losing entire squads against the axis infantry. So I started to get Penals thinking that they were the equivalent to Grenadiers (with Conscripts being equivalent/ slightly better than Osttruppen). But even with the expensive (270 MP !!!) so called elite anti infantry Penal Battalion I still lost to the German Counterparts.

I decided to test penals vs conscripts with the help of this mod:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=333763272

I found out that out of 10 firefights Penals lost 8 times against conscripts.

My question is that if Penals are so much more expensive than conscripts and have better rifles why are they so ineffective? Did relic just buff conscripts and forgot about Penals?

I also want to know how you guys play as the Soviets and how you counter the Axis Powers.

In my opinion the Soviets without any doctrines can barely hold up against the Wehrmacht and get completely massacred by the OKW. I get that relic wanted to portay the Soviets as weaker than the Germans but larger in numbers but having the same manpower cost like the Germans that doesn't make any sense to me.

What do you guys think?