Profile of Retaliation

My biggest gripe is the IR pathfinder's artillery range. It is the main reason to build it, but you can't call it in without putting this fragile squad into harms way since it's the same range as their guns.

They basically need to walk into a bunker's mg to call it and will be never be able to use it against the flak HQ since it outright outranges them and will kill them before they can get close enough.

They need to increase it's range so you can use it to clear defenses. Otherwise you are better off just using the majors strike since he doesn't have to throw himself into gunfire to call it in.

The pathfinder artillery is FAR superior to the major's artillery. The range may be shorter, but the delay is short enough that you can pretty much guarantee that if a squad isn't immediately retreated it will die (especially if it's a setup team or in a building). It's honestly the one thing the doctrine has going for it.

Forward observer is good when you can get it to work. However, the conditions are too harsh that it's never practical. "In cover" seems to mean the entire squad has to be in cover.

I&R pathfinders are basically major squads. The doctrine description lies though. They come out at 3cp for some unfathomable reason. I'm also pretty sure they don't get the criticals airborne pathfinders get on their guns which is a shame.

Greyhound is an AI vehicle that can moonlight as light AT if it has buddies. It's part of why I always go captain. Either the captain squad maims the vehicle and the greyhound swoops in, or a stuart stunlocks the vehicle and the greyhound supports.

Recon sweep is recon sweep. The only thing in the entire doctrine that works as intended without any bugs imo.

Airdrooped combat group is simultaneously amazing and terrible. Recon Support Company is a very very very muntion heavy doctrine. Getting 180-240 muntions worth of squad weapons is a god send when you're up against the late game nazi horde. A discount AT gun isn't all that bad either. Paratrooper support squads have some bugs though. No veterancy description, they still only get 3 thompsons, thompsons don't give the sprint ability, and I'm pretty sure the fortification ability is different from normal paratroopers (might be intentional).

Asking which tank you would prefer to crew is exactly the wrong question that should be asked. How valuable characteristics are to a crewman is vastly different to how valuable they are on a tactical or strategic level (like how the panther's armor made it incredibly heavy and prone to breaking down).

The sherman and t34 outclass the panther in soft assets like reliability and HE preformance. It was easy enough to invalidate the panther's skewed armor layout (huzzah for 40mm turret and hull side armor!) and terrain did a lot to mitigate the how far away a panther could actually engage (and often putting it well into 76mm range).

Other flaws the panther had were side stowage of ammunition leading to explosive fires (like the sherman), the extreme velocity of the gun made it useless for anything except shooting tanks (the sherman's low velocity gun was capable of moonlighting as light artillery), the gunner only had a telescopic sight (leading to an astonishing 20-30 second delay in firing on targets!), repairing the transmission required the entire turret to be pulled off, and a whole host of other annoyances that could be forgived in isolation.

Don't even mention the final drives.

The French had a sizable force of panthers post war. They had issued a report on it in 1947 called Le Panther. It wasn't all that flattering (although they did praise a number of features) and I took most of the downsides above from excerpts.

You can read on it (along with some commentary from Wargaming resident tanker) here:
http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/21/chieftains-hatch-french-panthers/
I'd link to it directly, but doesn't seem to have been copied online (and would be in french anyway).

Greyhounds have fairly obvious tells when they're going to fire canister shot. They have to be up very close and they stop firing their main cannon. If it's fired (it likes to bug out if the enemy moves) the area of effect is pretty tight. Squad survival is basically determined by how much they bunch or blob up and a 4 man squad should not die if they're reasonably dispersed.

I feel the best counter to an m8 is a panzershcreck. Two shots is really all it takes to kill, so charging a volk squad and failing to wipe the squad will result in it's death. Panzergrenadiers kill them in one salvo.

A great game against a fantastic opponent and a much better demonstration of recon support's potential. I'm concerned that he might have taken me easy after my comment about learning how to deal with resistance to greyhound rushes. I certainly didn't expect any chance to stem the tide at that point. It was actually very informative.

Recon support doctrine ability use:
1. Occasional use of forward observer ability
2. William, John, and Louie as I&R pathfinders
3. Vet3 greyhound
4. Occasional use of recon plane flight when munitions allowed
5. Paratrooper support drop is great for reinforcing your lines (even if they don't have vet descriptions...)

The King Tiger doesn't come out anywhere near the M15. The M15 is an early-game unit, the King Tiger is a late-late game unit.

I'm aware. The thing up for discussion (since the consensus seems to be that kubel scaling is fine) is whether OKW has anything to deal with rifle blobs. Dullahan's arguing that flak HTs are a good counter because even bazooka blobs can have a hard time dealing with them (due to range).

A similar analogy to your point on how well m15 kill flak HT would be someone complaining that paks are not effective tank counters because rifles kill them.