Cons are the most utility effective infantry ingame. They have access to things many other factions mainlines do not. Cheap infantry mines that give vision, nondoc sprint, sandbags, molotovs, 6 men, merge, snares. Cons also have some of the best vet for cheapest reinforce cost ingame. They're not currently designed to be your main fighting force against OKW, penals are. If I tried to out trade a garrisoned vickers with an MG34 I'd get my ass whooped, because that isn't what the MG34 is designed to do. Use things how they're designed, not how you want them.
sandbags and molotovs is something volks do better... 6 men is paid for by having huge target sizes and anemic DPS... not to mention that 6 man is actually a disadvantage for the conscript as the huge target sizes and anemic DPS means that they BLEED manpower like crazy... volks get FREE snares with tech...
the only real advantage is the flare mine merge and oorah... but cons pay for that with vastly inferior combat ability... expensive AT nades (!!!) extremely horrendous manpower bleed and the complete lack of any nondoctrinal weapon upgrade...
conscripts as of the moment need doctrines to be BOUGHT... nobody brings conscripts out without bringing the doctrinal ppsh as they are simply a manpower sink
if penals are designed to be my main fighting force while conscripts are just glorified combat engineers... then does that mean that the maxim is T2s main fighting force? can i have my 240 mp super fast maxim back?