Profile of ZombiFrancis

If that is your reasoning then how should Assault Grenadiers, AI panzergrenadiers and obersoldaten avoid these situation?

Well unfortunately nothing. Obers and assault gren have been since day 1 invitations to be abused by vehicles. Shock troopers are also in this category. Panzer grenadier at least have the threat of 2 panzerwchrecks popping out. PanzerfauSts on assault gren with t1 built and schrecks or fausts for obers shouldn't be considereal heresy. Shocks are harder to pin down. They got smoke at least.

Is the AT-satchel linked to the PTRS upgrade? If so you can skip this question.

Unfortunately so. It makes it extremely hard to use since each penal has to be upgraded individually for access using munitions to use munitions. Then the squad has a big ol beacon of a ptrs signalling axis light vehicles which unit to maintain a distance of 10 from.

Those are rather good suggestions to make the Greyhound interesting.

Recon Support could use so much love:

Forward Observers could also act as field defenses upgrade. (Field defenses +1!)

Airdrop Combat Group could also drop a 50 cal. The AT gun and 50 cal could drop with crews. The paratroopers definitely should be identical to Airborne paratroopers instead of randomly equipped.

Sort of an offmap combat group without tanks. (So still kinda worthless.)

For Soviets 160mp and 20fuel for the ZiS option as well as the maxims is always a good decision, whether its to unlock T3 or to spam maxims, or counter vehicles.

The real question when is it worth spending 160 manpower and 10 fuel and engineer buildtime to produce any of the following: sniper team, m3 scout car, or penal battalions?

Both the sniper team and m3 scout car are really only used best for trying to kill or deter an ostheer sniper. That leaves the penal battalion with the burden to carry the investment in just about any other situation. AT Satchels take that duty on very well, to the point that the PTRS is unnecessary.

However, rather than try to lure players into risking T1, if the maxim and the sniper were switched, Soviet T2 would have strong counter-play options or conscript support, and T1 would have straightforward early game strength. Both starting tiers would be strong options.

Ostheer T1 has the ability to handle both in different ways.

Each player will then have to adapt to each others' play and builds to gain an edge.

About OKW:

OKW still will struggle with maxim spam, but that's not a fault of soviet tiers. The difference though is maxims without mortars or ZiS is that all the volks and sturmpioneers that garrison to avoid suppression aren't awaiting imminent doom from ZiS barrages or mortar shells. Also, maxim spam against OKW under this tier setup gives OKW much more breathing room to get a Luchs out without facing a ZiS wall.

This arrangement also synergizes with all the soviet team weapon call-ins too.

My answers are worse than Hitler's.

Why is everyone hell bound on putting anti tank in soviet T1? German T1 doesn't have anti-tank ... why must soviet have it? If you want to spam Penals because they're boss, what's wrong with just picking Guards/M42 doctrine, building T2 for AT guns, or going for SU76? I don't get why everyone is forcing an AT option into soviet T1 ...

German T1 has panzerfausts. That's all that's necessary to make the tier effective by having at least one countermeasure. Also, Soviet T2 has both maxim and ZiS, which is more or less a more superior combination than what T1 offers.

Edit: this just came to me... why not just let Penals have access to AT grenades?

Conscript overlap, but it always is something that could work.