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(]NOTE: This thread only concerns USF Airborne Company Paratroopers. Recon Support Company Paratroopers probably require a later CP requirement to prevent an incredibly early Howitzer, and to balance out the huge discount they receive when bundled together.)
The last few updates to this game have been all about reducing CP requirements for various units, and increasing build variety. I'm here to make the case for doing the same with USF Airborne Company Paratroopers.
I'll first be giving some bullet point type reasons for this change, for those who don't like to read very much, and then a more expansive justification.
1. At CP 3, Paratroopers come too late to be relevant.
By the CP 3 mark, you should have at least one officer, one rear echelon squad, and probably between two or three rifle squads, depending on other manpower investments at this point in the game. Given you have selected Airborne, chances are there is also a Pathfinder squad on the field. At this point, both in unit count and game time, you are rapidly approaching what I would say is the efficiency cap for infantry squads. Too much infantry can be hard to micro and incur powerful bleed, particularly as USF, and MGs will have started blocking off portions of the map, making deeper infantry flanks with extra squads less viable, particularly as light vehicles should by now be entering the field.
2. Paratroopers as they exist now are not elite infantry stat-wise, and bleed worse and worse the later they are introduced.
At 100% RA (down to 97% with the Paratrooper bulletin, the same as stock riflemen), USF paratroopers will be the squishiest infantry on the field by the time they arrive at CP 3, given that any enemy Volks should be at least Veterancy 1 by this point. Damningly, Paratroopers themselves do not receive any sort of RA buff until their own Veterancy 3, at which point their received accuracy becomes 71% (0.71), about the level of a Vet 2 Riflemen squad (75% est, (0.7469)). Vet 3 Riflemen are actually superior to Paratroopers in terms of received accuracy. One would be hard pressed to find a call-in infantry unit at this command point level which is more easily killed than USF Paratroopers.
One might argue they might make up for this squishiness through sheer firepower. This, too, is flawed thinking, as these are not rangers; 360 MP 90 Mun Thompson Paratroopers will be costing you valuable manpower any time you commit them to a fight from range, given their high received accuracy. In this role, the CP1-leveled Cavalry Riflemen are most comparable, even if they can only equip two Thompsons. Cavalry Riflemen, it should be noted, are also equipped with snares and smoke grenades, as well as SMGs from the outset. Assault Grenadiers make this even more obvious, boasting a better received accuracy than either Cavalry Rifles or Paratroopers at 95% (0.95), while having access to grenades, sprint, and eventually 6-man squad size.
The M1919s ease the RA vulnerability somewhat, but are an extremely expensive investment at 120 munitions, and scale poorly compared to Rifleman BARs or Grenadier LMG42s considering the lack of any accuracy veterancy for Paratroopers.
Without any upgrades whatsoever the Paratroopers do offer a marginal DPS advantage over Riflemen at short to medium range, although at the cost of moving accuracy and while suffering from the same bleed issues mentioned before. Paratroopers also lack a snare, though this is the norm for allied call-in infantry.
For these reasons, it is highly unlikely and more than a bit risky to ever deploy more than one Paratrooper squad as late as they come now, which brings us to the final listed reason.
3. It would offer much-needed variety to USF gameplay, and make Airborne Company live up to it's name.
This is a commander with "Airborne" in the name, and yet, like every other USF commander, it quickly devolves into rifle spam, this time with the admittedly useful and admittedly airborne quality of deploying team weapons without binding the player to specific tech choices. By the time the Company's signature Paratroopers are deployable, there is no reason and no room to deploy them, and this reduces the Airborne Company in its current state to some sort of "Resupply Operation" Company, or "Airborne Logistics" Company.
USF is already perhaps one of the most monotonous of this game's factions, and one from whom there is never a shortage of complaints for the unreliability of their mainline infantry. To move Paratroopers to a more accessible CP stage would increase the gameplay variety of playing with or against the commander, without having a massive impact upon actual game balance.
Paratrooper Thompsons cost too much munitions to be anything near ubiquitous in the early game, and are comparable in practice to Panzergrenadier STG44s, a unit which is already both accessible in the early game and often spammed, but is less susceptible to bleed. Assault grenadiers are an even better comparison, being both doctrinal, six-man, and issued with high DPS MP40s as stock to boot, right from CP0.
Likewise the munitions cost of the M1919 LMGs is too high for much early game use, and in both cases the Paratrooper squads would be totally helpless versus light armor or MGs of any sort, lacking snares, any chance at AT upgrades, smoke, or sprint abilities of any sort.
Without upgrades, Paratroopers are perhaps most comparable to unupgraded and unvetted Penal infantry at best, a unit which would hit the field long before Paratroopers would, even at CP1, and which scales better into the late game.
So, an overview:
Paratroopers currently arrive too late to be relevant and there is often no reason for them to be produced at the stage in the game which they arrive at.
Paratroopers are not elite units like most other CP3 or even CP2 unlocks. If anything, they are probably less so than Cavalry Riflemen, who already arrive at CP1 and for whom there are currently calls to have their CP requirement moved to 0, and certainly less so than Assault Grenadiers, who are available from CP0 and receive continuous RA bonuses from vet and upgrades, as well as a better starting RA at 95% (0.95).
Moving Paratroopers CP requirement would allow for a more diverse playstyle for Airborne company when compared to other USF commanders, while still keeping the balance of the game intact. Paratroopers lack snares, unlike Panzerfusiliers, Cavalry Riflemen or Fallschirmjagers, and in Airborne Company cannot be upgraded with any AT capability without first paying for the weapon rack upgrade, like any other USF unit. Compared to riflemen, they would be a more expensive, slightly squishier infantry alternative that offers a substantial boost to AI dps in the midgame, at the cost of total received accuracy and snares.
(]NOTE: (AGAIN) This thread only concerns USF Airborne Company Paratroopers. Recon Support Company Paratroopers probably require a later CP requirement to prevent an incredibly early Howitzer, and to balance out the huge discount they receive when bundled together.)
Hopefully this will prompt a good discussion. At time of posting the only balance concern I can consider is that early paratroopers might mean a way to sidestep the USF grenade tech, at least for frag grenades. This is a fairly easy fix, and may not even be too much of a balance issue at all, considering smoke grenades still require the tech, and the ability already costs an extra 5 munitions. Its not like CP0 techless grenades aren't already a thing anyway.
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