Profile of GI John 412

Could it be as simple as making them cp1 but locking weapon upgrades behind the same requirement to unlock major? Either both officers or the fully teching LT/Cpt?

I think the 380 pricepoint keeps them being able to be spammed early on

0 CPs is too early, and would take away from using Pathfinders as your early scouting unit thematically.

But you are spot on about the price. 3 squads of Paratroopers are about the same cost as 4 squads of Riflemen, so the cost alone prevents any additional nerfs being needed except locking the weapon upgrade behind something. Either lock it behind weapon racks or behind 3cps would be good. I’d prefer it to be locked behind weapon racks so you don’t get them for free if you wait, but you can also rush them if you choose to. Player choice is usually good.

But no other changes are necessary for early game paratroopers, their cost already prevents them from being spammed or being op.

So I propose this solution similar to the British assault section upgrade. Make it a upgrade for rifleman called the cavalry upgrade costing 60 munitions. With the Thompson being a separate upgrade afterwards for a small price to prevent early game dominance.

I like the idea of it being an upgrade for regular Riflemen, but it would need a few tweaks to make it work.

Double upgrading is odd and overly complicated. So if Cavalry Riflemen is an upgrade from regular Riflemen, then the Thompsons either need to come with that upgrade or not at all. I would do a slightly adjusted upgrade and call it “Mechanized Infantry Package/Training” or “Assault Package/Training” or something similar. In the adjusted upgrade I would give the squad a mix of Thompsons and M1 Garands or M1 Carbines, so that it reflects the Riflemen picking up Thompsons and Carbines from vehicle crews and maybe keeping some of their Garands. The upgrade would also unlock the satchel charge and covering fire ability.

Per the TO&E, US infantry were issued very few Thompsons (only 6 per company) while almost every vehicle driver was issued a submachine gun, usually a Thompson, while others got M1 Carbines. It was thought that the SMGs would be more compact and easy to “spray and pray” with in case of an ambush and the driver needed to break contact. In the hands of a well trained Rifleman, an M1 Garand is better at almost every range except extremely close. Historically this is why very few GIs actually preferred Thompsons over their M1 rifles. But in the few cases they did get Thompsons for close quarters fighting, they usually took them from drivers who didn’t want them anyways.

Mostly I like your proposal, but double upgrading is not a good choice for any unit.

I just afraid that maxim will be good only when you use ability. Because right now, if you turn on supression fire ability - maxim is ok. But if don't - trash. No one want babysitting mg that work only with active ability.

Precisely why it’s ability should offer some sort of utility, not just a buff to its base stats.

Buff it’s burst length, so it is more likely to fire a long burst that will suppress more consistently, but drop it’s long range accuracy slightly so it’s less likely to drop models at long range, but will still have really good damage at closer ranges. Make it’s tear down time much faster so it will “death loop” less often.

Now it should be a good suppression platform at longer ranges, but not do too much damage.

With the suppression being better, you can remove the suppressing fire ability and replace it with a new ability. A few ideas I have are listed below.

“Button” acts just like Guards DP-28 button ability. The MG sprays a long burst at the target vehicles vision slits, slowing and blinding the unit, but deals no damage to the target and no suppression to nearby infantry. This mirrors the Zis guns barrage so the AT gun has some anti infantry utility and the MG has some anti tank utility.

“Traversing Fire” starts by reloading the gun, and then fires a long continuous burst while the gun sweeps from side to side, covering the entirety of its arc dealing damage to all units in the arc. This ability would cause only moderate suppression, but more damage to units that don’t leave the arc fast. This ability would also damage friendly units in the arc, making it dangerous to use in some situations. The ability would also deal significantly reduced damage to units in heavy cover or in garrison cover, further preventing it from being abused against units in cover. The ability should punish players that attempt to rush up to an MG team and throw smoke to bypass the suppression allowing the Maxim to shoot through the smoke or light cover and deny an area to all players for a few seconds dealing heavy damage to anyone who doesn’t leave the arc.

I think either the Vickers or Maxim could use a new ability to separate them from the rest of the HMGs.

They are the two oldest designs in the game, both being pre-WWI designs, so I think their use should reflect that old philosophy.

An early MG tactic was to use them as light artillery, firing in an arc at long ranges to barrage and harass enemy units. This could be done as an ability for either unit that allows them at Vet 1 to fire a “suppressing barrage” that does light AoE damage and suppression in the target area.

Another ability idea could be like the strafing fire ability that the Centaur has. The MG fires a long burst sweeping from side to side damaging and suppressing everything in a cone in front of the gun.

Rather than worrying about historical accuracy....

This commander could be turned into a good commander for city fighting.

Ability 1: Keep Flamethrowers
Ability 2: Riflemen assault package - Thompsons like Para's get, plus the OKW infiltration grenades
Ability 3: Either keep Riflemen flares or add a mutually exclusive observation package to riflemen which gives them a scoped rifle and acts like a G43 upgrade.
Ability 4: Replace White Phos with the Time on Target offmap from Infantry company
Ability 5: Keep Easy Eight

1. Specifically about the historical accuracy thing, I really only went off on that because that other guy was wrong about Thompsons being MORE historically accurate. If they’re better for gameplay that’s great, but in this case they were worse for gameplay and can’t be defended by his inaccurate historical accuracy claim.

That aside, your suggestion is pretty good, but I would say that it has a lot of overlap with Mechanized Company.

Rifle Company should have some sort of buff for Riflemen that is unique to it, but doesn’t fundamentally change the role of Riflemen as a medium range generalist. That’s why I suggested the Veteran Sergeant upgrade with the M1 Carbine. It would make Riflemen better at their intended role of frontline combatant, but not just be some flat DPS boost. Hence the 6th man with a carbine. Thompsons on Riflemen would be too much like Cavalry Riflemen and the Easy Eight is already quite similar to the 76mm Sherman, so it’s best to keep Mechanized Company similarities to a minimum.

In my mind, Rifle Company should offer things to USF that other factions get non-doctrinally, but not gift them with anything too OP. The real basic US companies were called Rifle Companies, so I think the generalist nature of this name sharing should be reflected by the doctrine being very much a general purpose doctrine that fills gaps in the USF roster, but doesn’t do anything better than the more specialized USF doctrines.

Flamethrowers on REs is good, it adds a flamethrower USF was missing to its engineer unit.
Riflemen field defenses is good, it adds basic general purpose mines that USF was missing plus sandbags they were missing too.
6 man Riflemen is good, it adds durability to Riflemen without adding too much firepower. All other factions now have a way to boost their basic infantry unit up one man via either a doctrinal ability (WM 5 man Grenadiers and OKW 6 man PanzerFussiliers) or via a non doctrinal tech (5 man Tommies and 7 man Conscripts). None of these “+1” squads are super OP, but all are good and add durability to basic squads.
The WP barrage is good, but I’m open to see it changed or tweaked.
The Riflemen flare and sprint abilities are weak and I’m very open to see them combined with another ability ( like my Veteran Sergeant proposal), simply combined together in order to add another ability (like rifleman field defenses) or removed and replaced altogether.
The Easy Eight fits this same theme of being a good generalist, but it’s an OP specialist either. It’s better in every way than the stock M4A3 Sherman, except it lacks the HE shells, which in a way makes it more like other factions stock mainline medium tanks.