Profile of Tiger Baron

In my, not so experienced opinion of playing the USF, their major problems which I have noticed are the following:

Tech-ing, lack of meaty/meatshield tanks (Like the Churchill for example, a direct counterpart to the of the USF would be the Sherman Jumbo) and lack of access to weapons in the field.

I'll go on my points one by one in more detail, but just as a note, I'll be making a lot of relations to the CoH US Army.

First off is Tech-ing, the USF tech is just... plain weird to say it frankly. To me it's a weird mix of the British from CoH (because of the officers) and I guess, Dawn of War 2 because you only had a single HQ building there from which you upgraded tiers to get new units and so forth, but instead of that here you research officers to "build" new structures. Now that's all fine and dandy but the problem is that the units are all over the place, in CoH you had specific buildings for specific jobs.

Those were: Barracks (Soviet T1 basically), Weapon Support Center (Soviet T2), Motor Pool (sort of Soviet T3 but not exactly) and Tank Depot (Soviet T4). Now if you wanted Riflemen you went either T1, or upgraded a building into a Forward HQ which on it's own had it's pros and cons but I won't get into that, if you wanted support weapons you built the Weapon Support Center, if you wanted light vehicles like an Armor Car, an AT gun or a Halftrack to reinforce in the field you went the Motor Pool and so forth. By this I mean that you had a choice, and you knew which building had what specifically and didn't have to sacrifice AI or AT like the current USF tech design.

Further more, you could upgrade your tanks, specifically the Sherman into a better version of it which I think was brilliant, and if I was making the USF I would go on the same route, the M10 could then but made the default TD but you would have the option to upgrade to the M36 or the Jackson could become a doctrinal unit instead or whatever makes the most sense balance and design wise.

Which gets me to my next point, lack of meaty tanks. The USF like Kharn said is a glass cannon Army, heavily reliant on micro and glass cannon units, which is obvious in their tanks. The Jackson, most Sherman variants and the M10 plus their light vehicles and the M26 Pershing all lack durability and are taken out fairly easily when compared to their counterparts in other Armies.

This is why in my opinion we see things such as the 105 Sherman getting a buff to it's HP, Mech Company's Reserve Armor also giving the regular Sherman a buff to it's HP in the form of the dozer upgrade and the Pershing as well as the E8, because they can take an extra punch. This is why I was all for a Sherman Jumbo and the M36B1 Slugger. The Jumbo acting in the same role as the Churchill does for the UKF and their Firefly and the M36B1 just being a beefier Jackson that doesn't have to over rely on the player's micro, again, like it's counterpart in other Armies such as the SU-85 for the Soviets, I get that it's turretered but fuck me, I can't take my eyes off of it for like a split second or I lose it.

And finally their access to weapons in the field, I absolutely love the weapon racks as an idea, the concept is brilliant, however I think the UKF executed it better with their Forward Assemblies and Weapons Halftrack from the Special Weapons Regiment. Every time I play USF I have to retreat my units back to base in order to arm them which just doesn't make sense for a "flexible" and "versatile" as well as mobile Army. Something like a WC51 that is able to deploy with some weapon racks just makes too much sense to me in order to help with that. And there was never such a problem in CoH where you could just globally upgrade your Riflemen with their BARs which I still consider a superior alternative to the current weapon racks being such a pain in the ass, at least for me.

That's about it for me, again this is just my personal opinion, I'm not stating any solid rock "facts" here.

Ok so I got some new ideas for some Ostheer Commanders, Foreign Support Doctrines based around Germany's lesser known Allies like Croatia, Hungary, Finland, Romania and lastly the Spanish Blau Division.

My criteria about choosing a nation to base the idea on was that they used German equipment (weapons and vehicles) and uniforms, as well as serving on the Eastern Front alongside Germany.

Italy also had a corps sized unit fighting on the Eastern Front but I think it's best if they're represented by an entire new mixed German-Italian Army than in just one single doctrine, not that the others don't deserve such a spot however like I said, they're lesser known Allies and were not officially in the Tri-pact of Germany, Italy and Japan.

Anyhow, to the point at hand -

Foreign Support Doctrine:

Foreign Infantry squad - 5/6 men, using weapon crew models all armed with K98k rifles initially, can be upgraded to MP40s at Battlephase 1, an MG34 at BP 2, and AT rifles at BP3. Also has access to Panzerfaust once BP1 is researched, sort of like the Osttruppen. They also have medical kits and can build bunkers/other defensive structures.



Supply Drop - Same as Osttruppen, drops an MG34 and a Pak 40 as well as fuel and ammo.

LeiG 18 - Foreign infantry units often had artillery attached to them, as well as pioneer detachments, Panzerjagers, logistics and so forth...

Panzer IV F1 - P4 but with a short barrel, Hungary, Finland and Croatia had some StuG IIIs and Panzer IVs lent to them by Germany, not many tho.

LefH 19 10,5cm Artillery barrage - Just ordinary fire support by a battery of LefH 19 artillery guns.

Like I said, the doctrine is based around Germany's lesser known Allies on the Eastern Front.

The Infantry squad is based mostly on the Blau Division, reference from this picture:

As for the LeIG, I saw wa great opportunity to add this unit to the Ostheer arsenal since really, most of these units had organic artillery support with them.

As for the Panzer IV F1, again I saw an opportunity to add something new since the StuG III E is getting a bit repetitive with it now being in the Defensive doctrine as well (at least in the rework mod).

The Supply Drop is again, based on the Osttruppen ability, because Germany lent a lot of weapons and supplies to it's lesser allies, plus a lot of Armies used the MG34, only a few like Hungary also had access to the MG42 or had local versions made.

The LefH 19 barrage is just some generic barrage ability I decided on, could be anything else really as well.

I also have an ideas for the OKW on adding the Osttruppen and some Ostheer weapons to them, it's basically a rework of the Ostfront Waffen doctrine (will edit the main OP) and based on the Atlantic Wall defensive force.

I respectfully disagree, I don't think emplacements or defensive sim city fortifications should have any place in CoH. Certainly not enough to build a commander around.

Other brit commanders could use a rework first, especially the one with BOYS AT rifles. The halftrack could use some adjustments to make it worth the pricetag and doctrine pick.

I mean doctrines with unique units like that should have priority, advanced emplacement didn't add a single new unit apart from stat tweaks on emplacements and some code for the base howitzers ability. Not much worth salvaging there with the limited work the community balance team can do.

And I can whole heartedly tell you that I can make it practical and not cheesy.

Can simply add ez8 to mechanized instead of making 76 sherman more like a ez8? and leave rifle companys for later revamp?
in addition, reserve amour is better fit the theme of rifle company(maybe no 76 sherman but able to upgrade 75 sherman to crocodile. In fact, I don't think it make sense to upgrade a 75 sherman if u can build a 76). exchange their ability would be fine.

A bulldozer for Rifle company would make some sense since it would be able to erect barricades which infantry could use as cover.

But sadly there is no way to make a proper moving Crocodile as SneakEye found out, that's why the OT-34 and Sherman croc are emplacements in his mod.

If there were other commanders with RE flamers they would be chosen instantly over this commander.

The problem is that the commander's name is Rifle Company, and REs are not Riflemen, they're a cheap 200 manpower builder/reserve sort of squad, and so their flamethrower doesn't really fit for a commander that's not meant to be in their support if that makes sense.

With that said, I'm not saying that the ability is bad or anything, all I'm saying is that it's out of place for the commander's theme.

That's why I suggested that the M1919A6 weapon rack unlock replace it instead, since it would serve to benefit all of your infantry units, not just RE or Rifles per se.

Apart from that there's the Assault Engineers which are 5 man now and still have their flamethrower, plus the entire Armor Company is getting a rework so it would be a much better pick for Urban maps if you ask me.

I'd still wish for a Sherman Crocodile tho, I know it would come out later than infantry flamethrowers but still, like you said, it would be good for Urban maps, especially if it can switch it's fire mode like the KV8, I'd go as far as to say that even an OT-34 would be welcome in the same sense.