Profile of GI John 412

I like the idea proposed by GI John but recently I read another proposal on this forum that I think deserves a second look.

1 man officer squads that can merge with other infantry squads. If I remember correctly they keep there individual abilities and Thompson and get a merger abities like conscript. This means the individual manpower requirements are lowered significantly but the fuel price stays the same. This also means there can be more varied build order openings cause you are not locked into 2 pseudo "rifle squad" and less popcap burden.

First, thanks I feel like a lot of folks are just jumping on the 4 man Major aspect of my proposal, which is something I just threw in at the last second and I now regret considering how much it has taken away from any talk of my proposed modifications to the LT and Capt.

I like your idea a lot though, but I don’t know if it can be implemented for two main reasons.

1. The change is pretty radical and will probably get a lot of push back from those who would prefer to see no change or only minor changes.

2. I’m not sure if it can be done mechanically in the game. Because of the nature of how units merge the unit doing the merge is normally “eaten up” by the unit they are merging into, not the other way around. The Captain and Lieutenant doing the merge would also end up making a +1 man version of the regular squad. 6 man Riflemen? Powerful but not too strong if you can only get 1 or 2. But 7 man Paratroopers with 5 Thompsons or 2 M1919A6s or 6 man Rangers with 5 Thompsons or 3 Bazookas. The solution would be to limit the officers to merging with only Riflemen or Rear Echelon squads, but now you’re pretty much back to where you started.

I dunno, it sounds really cool and I’d love to see if it could be done, but I think it would be harder to balance.

It doesn’t frickin matter the dps would be the same. There are way better things to fix

Not trying to “fix” anything. This discussion was supposed to be about CoH 3 and how that game could be done. It’s almost as though no one read the title....

So the common thing here is that everyone who hates the way tommies are now hates the five man squad bolster upgrade and blames that for tommies being op. Meanwhile no one who is in favor of tommies can make an argument as to why tommies need to have the five men to have effective offensive power, but still want it in order to have better staying power in the late game.

My suggestion. Nerf the Tommy’s rate of fire by 10% and reduce damage from 16 to 14 per shot but make them, and all UKF infantry units 5 man squads from the start. This results in a slight buff to Infantry Sections in the early game by giving them 5 men’s worth of hit points, but taking a slight reduction in outgoing firepower and it gives them a major nerf in the late game where they cannot get the bolstered squad to upgrade both damage and durability. The end result should be that Tommies are still very good infantry that can benefit from upgrades, but are more consistent throughout the game and have less of massive power spike when the bolstered infantry sections come out.

Basically, Tommies start out as a five man squad but with the firepower of the current four man squads.

Edit: probably should also add a slight fuel cost to British teching in order to account for the fuel that would normally be spent on the bolster upgrade.

I’ve been doing a study on WWII infantry tables of organization and equipment for the US, British and German forces. Real US infantry platoons had one sniper rifle that was unallocated to a specific man and kept as part of the Platoon Headquarters section with the Lieutenant. Additionally, there were no Thompsons at the platoon level and the Lieutenant himself would’ve had an M1 carbine.

At the Company level, the Captain has access to six unallocated Thompsons, six unallocated BARs and five unallocated Bazookas. He would also have been armed with an M1 carbine as would several other members of the Company Headquarters element unlike the Platoon HQ which would’ve all had M1 Garand rifles. Additionally, support elements in the weapons platoon of the company had M1919A4 or M1919A6 Machineguns and would be dispatched at the discrediting of the company commander (the Captain).

Considering all of that, here is how I would rework the USF officers.

Lieutenant: 5 man squad with 3 M1 Garands on Riflemen models, 1 M1 paratrooper carbine on the Lieutenant himself and 1 M1C sniper rifle on a Rifleman model. The squad has better vision than a regular Riflemen squad and has access to regular grenades and smoke grenades when teched and starts with an AT rifle grenade shot at Vet 0. No upgrades are available but can still take up to two weapons from the weapon racks. No changes to abilities or veterancy. This unit functions like a superior rifleman squad that can snipe at long range like a pathfinder squad, but with only one sniper rifle. It would also have less overlap with dedicated SMG units like Rangers and Paratroopers.

Captain: 5 man squad with 2 Riflemen models with M1 Garands, 1 Captain model with a Paratrooper stat M1 Carbine and 2 Rear Echelon models with the weaker Rear Echelon M1 Carbines. Abilities stay the same but has two mutually exclusive upgrade options. An M1919A6 upgrade for 70 munitions where one of the Rear Echelon models gains the LMG making the squad a dedicated long range squad that is good at supporting against infantry and a double bazooka upgrade for 100 munitions that gives the two Riflemen the Bazookas making the squad a good bazooka support squad but has almost no anti infantry ability. Squad abilities and veterancy remains the same. The squad can still upgrade with weapons from the weapon racks and still gains smoke grenades from the grenade tech.

Major: 4 man squad of three Rear echelon models with rear echelon M1 Carbines and 1 Major model with his trusty pistol. No other changes to abilities, but now he can be used to recrew weapons and is slightly less easy to wipe out, which should encourage using him more aggressively rather than just throwing him away.

I think these changes would make USF officers more unique and have better defined roles as well as encourage side teching to both LT and Captain and also better reflects the real US table of organization and equipment.

But as given said. Sp are overworked and very expensive. To give them more utility is also a nerf. Because there is no way you can keep your sp functional and alive

That’s exactly the point that I was making above.

OKW gets the best engineer/starting unit. The trade off for having the strongest starting squad that is also the best engineer with the most utility is that it forces you to choose what route to go with them. You can’t have it all, but with Sturmpioneers you can do anything, you just have to pick which part of “it all” that you want to have. Opportunity cost is a major factor in how they are balanced. If you reduce the punishment for upgrading a specific route by allowing you to get all of the upgrades then you no longer have that opportunity cost.

Now if you wanted to roll the support package together with the minesweeper then that’s probably ok, at a slight cost increase. The panzershreck upgrade however must remain as a separate upgrade that has truely negative side effects as it’s opportunity cost.

If an OKW player really wants a dedicated panzershreck squad they should just get PanzerFussiliers and get their double panzershreck upgrade. (But then you’re forced to pick a commander that has them and oh no another opportunity cost because now you’re locked into a doctrine! Opportunity costs are my favorite way the game is balanced. )