Profile of GI John 412

1. Right, but I think you misunderstood me. I wasn't saying it was absurd that a unit performs 5 times better with the same weapon. I was saying that this unit performs 5 times better with the same weapon, and in order to get that same effect while keeping their damages the same, we would have to make their accuracy/rof absurd (absurdly high for obers, or absurdly low for osttruppen).


2. And secondly, the issue still remains of how you replace the other g43s. Pgrens, pfusis, jlis, they all use different performing weapons (signified by a single real life weapon). Are there 3 other meaningfully distinct rifles that you could give to them?

Not to mention all the different kars, of which I believe there are 8 or so. Are there 8 or so distinct weapons you could give to them?

Edit: maybe you could keep 4 of those units using the same weapon and chalk it up to differences in experience and training and express that in accuracy and rate of fire differences...but coh2 more or less does that anyway, with only a relatively limited number of small arms having different damage values within the same IRL weapon.

1. Ok, got it. I see your point, but my point was that if you want to keep the dynamic and damage rates the same with Obers being 5 times better performers, then they absolutely should have a different gun in order to convey that better performance to the player easily. Additionally there just isn’t that much range of performance on a real bolt action rifle for a trained soldier. It maxes out at a point where no matter how good you are you just can’t work the bolt any faster or hit any more often. Conversely, if you are in the military whether a conscript or a veteran of 10 years, you still will have some basic fundamentals on how to use the rifle you are issued. So for Obers and Ostruppen to have such a disparity of performance, they should have a disparity of equipment.

2. This part really illustrates my point that CoH2 has gotten very convoluted in its damage system and it can’t be fixed in an easy way. My argument for a standard caliber oriented damage system would be to make future CoH games better. An example of which could be that all rifle caliber weapons have the same damage, but different accuracy values and rates of fire, so you have room to play with DPS values as veterancy applies to a unit, but it’s maximum and minimum potential is dictated by what type of full powered rifle they have.

For example, baseline German troops have K98 bolt action rifles, elite units have G43s. A vetted up core unit would have a good rate of fire and great accuracy with the K98, and possibly even equal a vet 0 elite unit armed with G43s, but the mechanical advantage of the G43 will tell the player that with veterancy, the G43 equipped unit will have a higher potential than the ones with K98s.

You can even take it a step farther by sprinkling in LMGs of various types to units as upgrades that allow a bolt action equipped unit to make up the difference and close the DPS gap with elite semi auto wielding units.

As for replacing the current system? No. It can’t be done. CoH 2 has waaaaay too many unique types of infantry units, especially German ones, that make this type of weapon system very difficult to implement. I am hopeful that this discussion will fuel debate on how CoH 3 should handle it’s small arms balance system.

As for having to make some stats absurdly high/low, see the osttruppen kar (where we take their innate 50% accuracy penalty as a part of the weapon itself, to simplify things) vs. the ober kar. The bottom line is that the ober kar performs over 5 times better at some ranges, so if you can't help achieve that by manipulating damage, you probably end up with a squad akin to old cons that has insane potential burst, takes forever in between shots, and barely ever hits (a direction that I think led to an unsatisfying unit), and a squad with lightning fast, laser accurate kars..

That’s what I was referring to about the 5x more powerful version of the Obersoldaten K98 vs the Ostruppen K98

I... never said that at all...?

Like which gun? Im not that well versed in ww2 firearms or firearms in general, so im not sure what other options are out there that could fit.


But about rates of fire, do you know what coh2 weapon has the highest rate of fire? If it really were that well communicated to the player (since a high rate of fire "easily tells" the player a weapon has high damage output), then I imagine you would be able to tell me.
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Rate of fire vs accuracy vs caliber should help the player determine how the weapon performs.

Let’s take the example of long to mid range infantry units of varying performance. We obviously want to have some infantry perform better than others, while still fitting the same general weapon profile, and the example of Obers vs Ostruppen is a great example of that. Both are long range specialists with vastly different cost and performance.

Military grade bolt action rifles are only marginally more accurate than comparable military grade semi automatic rifles of the WWII era, so an easy way to delineate between more powerful long range infantry and less powerful long range infantry is to give them semi automatic rifles instead of bolt action ones. This dynamic is already present in the Riflemen vs Volks matchup, where at max range they perform similarly at vet 0, but the semi automatic M1 Garands give Riflemen better performance as range decreases. An elite unit armed with semi automatic rifles in full rifle caliber (such as G43s, M1 Garands, SVT-40s, M-1941 Johnson Rifles or the rarer but still present G41 Walter and Mauser variants or the SVT-38), should perform equal to or better than bolt action armed infantry at any range.

LMGs are another obvious way to do this, and is already implemented in game for many units.

So if you want a German long range elite squad that doesn’t have an LMG, give them G43s, or G41(w)s, or G41(m)s, or captured SVT-40s as those were the most commonly used semi automatic rifles used by the Germans.

An additional benefit of the PPSh upgrade for Penal Troops could be considered in that if you were to choose the Airborne commander after you already went with a Tier 1 Penal Troops start.

For example, if you find yourself up against MP40 Volksgrenadiers or Assault Grenadiers after you already committed to Penal Troops and you want to have an SMG equipped unit to counter them, you could use the weapon drop to convert a squad of mid-long range Penal Troops into a CQB PPSh equipped squad by spending munitions. Of course you could also call in Guards Airborne to do the same thing, but that would cost manpower, which might not be available to you.

PPSh Penal Troops are probably not the best choice for a CQB squad for Soviets, but they do fit a niche role that can be advantageous under some circumstances.

Agreed, but would like to mention (as a guy, who served in the Russian Army), that russian regular regiments mainly equipped with AK-74/AKS-74/AK-74M and AKS-74U with 5.45, because they were produced in marvelous numbers. AKM/AKMS/AK-103 with 7.62x39 are only for SpecOps and sometimes for some elite regiments (airborne for sure and possible marines).

IIRC it was an issue with number of produced AK-74M, because Russian Army has millions of them in storage and that was a reason to be against new mainline AR for Russian Army, but it was 10 years ago or so.

5.45 is an excellent round, but I would be remiss to not mention that it is highly inspired by the US 5.56 M193 round used in Vietnam.

Which brings me back to one of my earlier points about the StG vs the AK. The StG pioneered the concept of a intermediate round assault rifle, with a full diameter round, the 8mm kurz (7.92x33). The AK took the concept for the round and then applied other, frankly better, operating systems with the rotating bolt and long stroke gas piston.

Then comes along the M16 with its small caliber, high velocity round, which is a different take on the intermediate round concept. The idea of a 22 caliber bullet being thrown at very high velocity caught on and the Russians updated the AK to use the same concept by creating the 5.45x39.

So while the StG May have started the intermediate cartridge assault rifle revolution, it no longer has anything directly in common with the modern AK-74M.

Yeah something like that would probably make a lot more sense, and it'd be a lot closer to real life. It'd be hard to balance possibly for each individual squad, but I guess your last paragraph would address that.

Although shouldn't infantry rifles and hmgs deal the same damage per bullet since it's the same round at more or less the same muzzle velocity?

Yes, infantry rifles and HMGs in rifle caliber would do the same damage per shot. The “Heavy” category would be for things of a greater caliber, such as M2HBs firing 50 caliber BMG rounds and the DShK firing 12.7x108 Soviet. This would also apply to anti tank rifles such as the .51 Boys and PTRS-41 and PTRD-41.