Profile of JB.

Faust timing was not a good change. It was a premature change.

Faust timing should have been with light vehicle changes, which had already been thoroughly tested before they became reverted.

Cost reduction worked OK for WBP. However with Brit nerfs and Soviets going out of the window, it's no longer justifiable to give everything to the OKW.

I wasn't so much getting at the timing as the cost, OKW snares shouldn't cost more than other factions. Again, reverting good changes to compensate for overpowered munitions abilities of the faction, in order to balance them in the short term vs Soviets and Brits.

Sturm Officers don't have Vet, when all other command units in the game do.

its not like maxims don't already win all mg wars... why an ability so they win mg wars even more?

Well with its nerf to set to times and suppression, this isn't going to be the case much longer.

With abilities that are flat stat increases like; burst duration increase, reload rate increase, damage increase and suppression increases, these are not really situational as there are few scenarios where it would be a bad idea to use them. Therefore you can spam them when you have the munitions.

Not One Step Back has the advantage of being situational. You'll only use it in MG wars. Also if this patch does the job, Maxim spam won't be as common and the scenarios where MGs face MGs will be less often. It's not an ability you can spam and you'll probably use it 2/3 times a match max. It also has draw backs, it's not an ability you mindlessly click. If you use the ability and force their MG off, that's not going to be much good to you if they got around your Maxim and decrewed it during the 8 second immobility.

Not One Step Back

For 20 munitions Maxim can't be suppressed for 8~ seconds, but is immobile and can't rotate its arc. If in suppression it breaks suppression and fires normally.

It would come in useful in MG wars, when both are setting up, rushing to suppress the other or when they are already set up and you want to return fire. It's a fairly situational ability, which I'm guessing is what you want, as you you don't want to buff the Maxim by giving it an ability it uses all the time. It's also skillful, as you have to gauge before using it whether:

1. It's worth 20 munitions to suppress their MG at this moment in time and
2. If you'll be able to suppress their MG and manage not to get flanked, or worse decrewed, during the 8 second immobility.

It's not in CoH 2, it was in CoH, you knew the American force consisted of zerk tactics...

The names stood for something, now... not so much....

The USF was lacking a proper in-direct support weapon...

I mean they're a mish-mash of units and abilities...

However I will argue that the "Light" vehicles of the PE were their support weapons, I've been playing a heap of CoH lately and I've started noticing it more and more, the 250 infantry Half-track suppresses, the mortar HT truck does what it says on the tin and the 37mm HT is like I said your sniper, and I still consider the Marder as your fuel costing no-camo ability big ass PaK that can lock down to fire faster, however it does trade off mobility and firepower for defense so... And it does fit the PE motto of being aggressive and having superior mobility over your enemy, being able to appear unexpectedly out of nowhere and strike hard and retreat back to rearm and regroup, so it did make sense for MOST of their vehicles.

I agree with everything you said except the final para. Leaving my faction ideas aside, the PE light vehicles we're definitely not support weapons. I know that was the idea when PE was initially designed but it really didn't work out like that. In situations like this you have to ask yourself 'what is it about an MG that makes it an MG?'
Is it because it suppresses? I would argue no. Look at this example:

Say you have 2 squads of Grens sitting on the flanks of and an MG42. Your objective as Allies is to wipe the MG or make it retreat. You have all kinds of methods to deal with it, you could either snipe the gunner until it retreats, you could mortar it, you could flank it with cons, you could use an M20 to dislodge it. This entire scenario stays the exact same no matter what MG you use, MG34, 50 Cal, Maxim, Vickers, whatever. All these MGs have universal properties and can be substituted into different scenarios to replace one another and will have similar performance. They all cost manpower only, the can all be decrewed, they all suppress, they can all be injured by small arms, can all be sniped etc. However, let's say you put a flak HT into the MG42s place, the situation changes entirely. You can't snipe it, you can't flank it with cons unless you have AT grenades, you can't mortar it, you can't use the M20. Yes the flak HT suppresses but its not an MG, its a light vehicle. Take PE infantry HTs, same idea. Yes they suppress in pairs but they don't function as an MG.

Its the exact same with the mortar HT, Marder and AT HT, they don't substitute for Mortars, Paks and Snipers. It's as simple as that.

The way Coh is designed, factions need three basic support weapons; mortars, MGs and AT guns (and in the first Coh, snipers, but not so much in Coh2) to be balanced. That's why the USF were given the mortar, why OKW was given the MG34, why Brits most of the time go land mattress.

So IMO you can't have the PE without infringing either the original aesthetic or the balance. I'm all for keeping the PE look and feel, but designing a faction without these basic support weapons is a bad idea and impossible to balance. The original PE is a great example of this, if the changes made to OKW, US and Brits were not enough convince you. And I would much rather the aesthetic of PE being slightly changed rather than Relic releasing another broken faction.