Profile of Corp.Shephard

Nice :relic on the M3A1 scout car. When it doubt; over nerf it and increase the price.

It is interesting to see the M3A1 go up from 5 fuel to 15 fuel over the course of it's radical re-balancing from the March 25th patch.

I think that's exaggerating though. It's a acceleration decrease of 15%. Hard to say how big of a deal that is but I can't imagine it will be that bad.

If you watch games where Once_Ov3R uses these guys you can really see their potential.

They're really good early game as you said but they offer good utility as the game scales.

Things they offer:

• Demo charges. These require micro but US forces don't get mines. Use early munitions on Demo charges placed around the map and you can wipe squads.
  
• Their light AT mine is truly awful but if you stack like ~6 of them they can provide damage and possibly engine damage. That's only 30 munitions.
  
• Flamethrower helps them scale as an anti-building counter.
  
• Swap them out mid-game with a Vehicle Crew. The Assault Engineers will have experience and kills to their name. This means that experience transfers to the vehicle/tank in question. You can get veteran tanks early this way. They can repair as well so they do everything a Vehicle Crew does. The Vehicle Crew you get can grab Thompsons for 90 munitions and then offer even better assault power than the Assault Engineers. (just as fragile though).
  

Later on you have to use this unit as a support unit. It guards from enemy charges. It provides a bunch of strange little boosts.

ahh, forgot that the truck with flak can convert resources, but still flak can be countered by guards, obviously not in open field but in building or green cover for sure, M3's are providing a great counter to sturmpios and they are expensive to build and then to reinforce.

I'm still thinking how OKW can survive playing vs soviet windustry doctrine

I'm not saying that the balance is perfect but I think Mechanized Regimental Company offers the best options for dealing with this.

I am going to assume that before CP2 you get the tools you need to kill the M3A1. You can get 251/17 up very quickly with resource conversion.

I am also going to assume that it gets vet 1 because it is cheap and does considerable damage. 251's Vet 1 power is a Smoke Screen power that can protect it from Guards buttoning fire. 251 has greater range than Guards. It has far greater range than it has sight. With the right circumstances and with units screening and scouting for the 251/17 it can act as a good fire support weapon and still battle even when Guards are present.

The Puma also gets smoke immediately for OKW so you can escape buttoning fire from them as well. Puma wrecks the M3A1 so Guards cannot use it to chase. It's a fairly potent defense and the Puma scales up against the T-34 pretty well. You don't want to fight it 1v1 but it can easily turn a fight with support.

If you survive until CP 2-3 you now have better options for dealing with Guards as well. You've sunk fuel into your anti-tank and suppression weapons so you can sink manpower into Fallscrimjagers. Fallscimjagers can kill snipers from behind pretty well and I bet they do pretty good against Guards too. I find that Fallscrimjagers are a little inconsistent and much prefer Obersoldaten but I think the early fuel investment will push you away from them. The MG-34 would also help deal with Guards as their immobility makes them a weak flanker.

You might be able to make other doctrinal infantry work as well. I've heard good praise for G43 Panzerfusiliers but if you're converting out of munitions and probably using smoke rounds so I don't think Breakthrough Tactics will offer much aside from the Sturm Offizer.

In the Alpha Rear Echelon Volley Fire was far more reasonable. The suppression was very weak at long and medium range. It would almost never pin units at medium range unless they were in negative cover. It would almost never to suppress any troops who were using cover unless you had flanked them or were at point blank range.

It did pin units exceptionally fast at close range. Volley Fire was a 20 munitions insurance against enemy charges. Assault Grenadiers and Sturmpioneers who got overconfident and tried to rush down your troops would be pinned by Volley Fire. That was it's purpose and it was good. You could even pull some neat tricks as you got more familiar with the ability. A Rear Echelon squad that flanked an enemy MG42 team could pop the ability and suppress the squad. A suppressed MG-42 doesn't suppress Riflemen so it became useless. It cannot re-position fast enough to avoid getting flanked due to the suppression. It would force a retreat if you used it well.

There were nice applications to this power that felt reasonable at 20 munitions.

Now it feels like a ridiculous ability that one is rewarded with using at every conceivable opportunity. I basically use this power on cooldown.

I also contest that Rear Echelon troops are really supposed to anything else than Volley fire. They are for:

• Recrewing guns. They are the cheapest to reinforce at 20 manpower.
  
• Volley fire. Even if the ability is nerfed down it will still have applications against charging troops.
  
• Switching with Vehicle Crews. Good for crews like the Ambulance and M20 Utility Car that have unique crews. Good for Mechanized Company who wants to Withdraw and Refit a vehicle but doesn't want to lose experienced crews in the tank. Good for Armored Company who wants to use Vehicle Crews w/Thompsons.
  
• Offering a good platform for Bazookas.
  
• Constructing their various buildings and entrenchments.
  
• Manning Fighting Positions and using their Rifle-grenade.
  

I don't buy that RE troops lack purpose given their 160 cost.

There is a better middle ground for Volley fire than what it is right now. It is an suppression machine that makes early game battles against the US nearly impossible.

I don't think that the Kubelwagon is a good "Rear Echelon Spam" counter. Rear Echelons can easily kill Kubelwagons with a flank almost as well as Riflemen. Presumably their weakness is a lack of accuracy and the Kubelwagon is an easy target. Rear Echelon Spam fields like ~8-9 units in the first few minutes so flanking Kubelwagons and overwhelming them would be trivial.

Let me be clear: I don't actually think Rear Echelon spam is really optimal or even necessarily viable. I haven't fought it yet. This unit is entirely too effective as a support unit for Riflemen/Assault Engineers right now though.