Profile of Strummingbird

All I know is that every time I steal one as Soviets it outperforms a ZIS by a mile. The penetration and range of it is amazing.

It has exactly the same penetration at point blank, and worse range until Vet 4- and because of the lower range, it has higher penetration falloff at a distance too. It's probably more effective in Soviet hands because of the 6 man crew, which coupled with the ability to retreat would make it near immune to losing veterancy. Same reason why a soviet pak 40 is so incredibly good, or really any german team weapon in soviet hands.

For those looking for numbers regarding the Rak's ready aim time, it's 1 to 1.5 seconds minimum and maximum respectively. Fire aim time min is 1 second, fire aim time maximum is 1.25 seconds. All the above values are 0.125 seconds for every other AT gun. the Rak also has a set-up time of 0.75 seconds while all other AT guns have no set-up time at all... though I'm not sure how that directly translates ingame.

On the other hand, if you don't have guards, you will probably have Shocks, who own JLI.

JLI can kite by sprinting away, then firing, for a short period of time... but you're right in that Shocks thrash JLI upside down when that runs out.

They've got deceptively high close range DPS, despite having carbines instead of assault rifles- charging JLI is pretty much the same as rushing towards Panzergrenadiers/sturmpios/Falls, and accordingly they cost about as much as panzergrens and sturms. judging from statistics, staying at mid-range would allow two conscript squads to win pretty decisively.

Making up for their high DPS is a lack of direct damage output in every other aspect- no grenades (not even infiltration nades) or fausts. Sprinting is nice against weapon teams and guards/squads with LMGs, but other than that what you see is what you get. I don't think they're particularly overpowered, especially without vet since they're quite fragile for cost.

Thanks!

I actually worked out a direct comparison between the two awhile back, with average time to kill for vet 0 jagd vs vet 0 su85, vet 2 vs vet 2, etc etc. I'll dig it up and post the numbers later.

The gist of it is, the Jagd emphasizes defence and the SU85 offense, especially through veterancy. They have the same HP- 640- but the Jagd has 230 armor vs the SU85's 140. The Jagd has a much higher base accuracy though, 0.03 to 0.06 against the SU85's 0.025 to 0.05. The SU85 has a reload of 4.25 sec on average, the Jagd 4.75. The SU85 has slightly higher penetration, 200-180 vs 200-170. Damage is the same at 160, though Jagd does 320 out of cloak at vet 5. Good luck getting it to vet 5 though. Jagd can't see behind itself, and SU85 gets a very useful focus sight ability. The Jagd gets more sight at vet 2 to make up for it. Speeds are roughly the same, as is pathfinding.

SU85 gets a very bad vet 1, while the Jagd gets a handy invisibility cloak. The Jagd gets 10% more armor and 160 more HP at vet 2, while the SU 85 gets a very significant 30% reload deduction and 30% more accuracy, and by vet 3 the su85 does huge amounts of DPS while the jagd doesn't improve offensively by much. Naturally vet 4-5 allow the Jagd to outperform the SU85.

Overall though, I think the Jagd is much better. The reason?
Tier. Virtually no tech cost for the Jagd, comes in a useful tier (and indeed, a vital building for healing). SU85 comes later, from an expensive building, with poorer companion units.

AT guns. German AT guns like the Pak, and veteran Raketens, absolutely decimate the SU85. It gets no defensive bonuses from vet so a vet 3 SU is just as weak. The Jagd has the armor and with vet, HP to operate even where the slow firing Zis and nonpenetrating 57mm are situated.

German vet. German tanks get blitz, smoke, target weakpoint, all the good stuff, that directly works against the SU. Allied tanks get nigh worthless vet.

Tank destroyers. Elegant and Jagd hardcounter any number of SU85s, end of story. Only the ISU beats the Jagd head to head, and two Jagds beat the ISU.

Veterancy. Self explanatory, Jagd gets 5 levels of vet so scales better in theory.

Handheld AT. The hardcounter to these tank destroyers, the allies have none for Soviets and poor AT for USF. Panzerschrecks, are, well, panzershrecks, and every volks squad can force away an su85 which doesn't have the armor to bounce a shreck, whereas bazookas take a long time to kill a Jagd. Double schreck panzergrenadiers, especially with tactical movement, laugh at SU85s. Vice versa, a Jagd with Schreck support is nigh impossible to flank. The same cannot be said of an SU85 with bazookas.

Edit- dammit, ninjaed by the corporal. Oh well.