Profile of Hannibal

On the forums, many seem to have a "Riflemen are bad and cost inefficient" attitude that I do not share. Maybe it is due to my probably relatively low player rank and the different meta that is played there compared to high rank matchups, but still I don't get why they are shittalked like that, since also in high skill play, many fights are just stand offs of squads shooting each other, which is purely rng.

Compared to Volks, Riflemen are about 10 % more expensive, but at least judging from my game play experience I'd say that they also perform at least 10 % better. In my eyes they trade reasonable well at least until Volks are upgraded. And even after that they don't get completely wreched by them. Against grenadiers, they usually win even if they lose a model while closing in.
They're 5 men, so reasonably beefy and resilient to rng wipes, have high mobility and decent stock firepower.
There are some drawbacks, such as the need to sidetech for grenades and weapon upgrades, as well as the vet1 requirement for snares that sometimes comes in too late to deter light vehicles, but in most of the games their firepower is good enough to get a tank first before side-teching. Then you can put 1-2 BARs on them which gives them good firepower, or you have the slightly off-meta possibility to give them bazookas and use them as an AT squad with five men to endure some tank shots and the potential to snare afterwards.

On a faction scale, USF has always been on the strong infantry side, which is partially caused by the "free" officer squad for teching, but also Riflemen do play a strong role in there as Riflemen have been the only infantry option for USF for very long.

So, why all the hate for Riflemen?

I'm probably late with suggestions, but had it been considered to nerf the arch when in canister shot mode?
As far as I could see it, the problem was people spamming 2-3 of these and annihilating charging infantry. A smaller arch makes it easier to just run through it quickly and dodge the damage, while it would reward good micro and a good setup for defensive positions

And fun fact:
There is one stock infantry that rips and shreds easily retreating units, because it got bonus accuracy against them - that infantry doesn't belong to allies.

Wait what? Which one?

A very small contribution could be that Allied squads have higher unit count and therefore higher maximum damage potential, even if the average DPS is the same.
A Penal model with 40 HP retreating past a gren squad will never get wiped in one salvo, since the grens can only do 4*8 = 32 damage in one salvo if every shot hits.
A Gren model running past a rilfeman squad could get wiped, since rilfeman can do 5*8 = 40 damage max, if they are super lucky to hit every shot.

thanks very much to both of you!
Ehat a shame that penetration chances that low are not calculated, my bew AT strategy got wrecked before it began.