Profile of Svalbard SD

wear

Took me some time to figure out what this meant. You people like to disfigure names, don't you.

On topic:
Ostheer infantry camo can be very useful for:

(1) Avoiding unfavourable engagements by using the Hold Fire option;
(2) Not being subject of mortar/sniper fire as your units are hidden;
(3) Having improved situational awareness as your infantry can scout around if there is enough cover to keep them in camo+hold fire;
(4) Improving survivability of HMG teams in mid/late game by hiding them in cover;
(5) Having higher damage output on units via a five-second damage bonus when coming out of camo.

Finally, the Storm doctrine -- one of the two doctrines with the ability -- comes with the universally useful Riegel mines, Tactical Movement and Stuka bombing strike abilities in addition to the LeFH, which can also be nice in certain situations.

The other doctrine (Jaeger Infantry) is also nice for upgrading infantry with even more abilities/equipment: squads receive G43s in addition to camo and Tactical Movement, while arty barrage and Stuka AT strafe help with various emergencies.

Nice work. Similar analysis of 2v2/3v3 maps would be fascinating to read.

All this weeks-long argument among the community (and potentially two more months of it) could've been avoided by making Penals a doctrinal unit.

Conscripts would work in their intended role of backbone Soviet infantry (similarly to Rifles for USF), while players would call in Shocks, Penals or Guards for specific roles depending on situation. Then we would only need to find a specific role for Penals that doesn't overlap with those of Shocks/Guards.

Readjusting the late-game of early-game vehicles (e.g., SU M3A1) through veterancy, so that even those vehicles have some utility in the late-game; when vetted

Why exclude the 250 halftrack from the list of light vehicles subject to this change?

I think most players will confirm OKW is very one-dimensional and maybe even boring (to me it certainly is). Boring to play as, and boring to play against (endless Volks blobs into KTs, duh). I have tried to make it more fun for myself by foregoing Volks altogether and relying on doctrinal infantry like Fallschirmjaeger and Jaeger Light Infantry in addition to Sturmpios, but it did not change the feeling of one-dimensional gameplay at all.

Regarding the faction's lack of smoke causing trouble against early game HMG spam, you can find many threads and comments on it so it is a universal issue too.

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Some general wishes and observations:

In Relic's place I would actually have made OKW as a faction less mobile than the Ostheer - tank destroyers making up the main non-doctrinal force to reflect the late-war Western Front German situation, and infantry relying on cover (like the British) to function at their best.

That, in addition to doctrinal specifics, would have made OKW-Ostheer play more diverse in team games, but would have also kept the historical picture of less mobile German forces on defence against Allies on the move - something that made vCoH feel so sensible and historically accurate compared to this title.