Profile of Pip

This +1.

Heavy howitzers are easily countered by doctrines, most noteably the be-all doctrines, but if no one picks a doctrine with an offmap heavy howi spam becomes extremely difficult to defeat, and it only gets worse as the game lengthens. This is the core reason why a lot of us were against the popcap reductions on the LeFH and the ML-20 a few patches ago. The problem wasn't the howitzers, but their counters being everywhere.

Honestly this is the main reason I'm making this suggestion. Reducing Howitzer range, while simultaneously making it less vulnerable to offmaps (through having more HP, and being able to be relocated) helps to solve both these issues. Howitzers will be more useful when the enemy has offmap "counters" to them, while being far less oppressive when they do not (due to having to be closer to the frontlines, which stops them being all but untouchable by the opponent's units)

Which makes it bad for how much muni it costs....

The same munitions as Fusiliers and Riflemen, you mean? Both Fusiliers and Riflemen get extra range at vet, of course, but the three units are very different in their roles, which makes direct comparison of their grenades in a vacuum a little silly.

Either way, it's hardly fair to call the RGD-33 "barely worth using", which was the original statement.

I don't mind replacing Counter Barrage on the LeFH18 but for the opposite reason, because it's really bad. I don't know what everyone is complaining about. It uses regular scatter and fires into the FOW so the chance to hit anything it's actually aiming at (and arty is usually not near other units either) is very small. Maybe it'll get a lucky hit on a squad passing by at best. In testing it took me over 5 counter barrage runs to kill a Katyusha and I ultimately had to bring the Katyusha really close to the LeFH for it to finally score a hit. You're way better off using the regular barrage instead.

That's strange, my experience of using it has been quite the opposite, honestly. When I build an LEFH (Which I only ever do to counter soviet howitzers/Katyusha, and the Land Mattress) it normally does really quite a good job of deleting Mortars and the Land Mattress (And ZIS). The Katyusha being killed is less guaranteed, but its an ever-present threat, and it happens with fairly good regularity. Had a game yesterday where my LEFH killed five vehicles (Several of those were likely to be the Land Mattress the enemy had being decrewed, but some were Katyusha) and reached veterancy five. Still lost that game, but that was due to restrictive popcaps preventing me from getting some of the units i desperately needed, and my teammate's insistence of walking blobs into Katyusha fire.

The main benefit of it, though, is that it's automatic. I can just leave my LEFH to its own devices at veterancy one, and focus my attention on the rest of my army (which is unfortunately a little gimped, OKW has some population issues as it is, and the LEFH is rather expensive. This is less an issue for OST, but still pronounced)

Has the Balance team considered making these units "movable" in this fashion, by the way? I realise it's a VERY big project, but I'm interested to know where you guys stand on this sort of issue. That was really the main part of this post, giving an excuse to get rid of Counter-battery on the LEFH (And absolutely on Brits) is a side-effect.

I know some commanders are picked pro activley, but then its upto you to force that battle plan to work, and upto the opponent to shrug it off and look for the weaknesses. (obvious example being getting light vehicles vs someone spamming assault grens).

I don't agree that someone "spamming" assault grenadiers being countered by a light vehicle is quite the same situation. The assault grenadiers in such a case are still entirely usable, the vehicle cannot be everywhere at once, after all, and other units can be used to support them (Such as the PAK, or simply having built one or two grenadiers for Fausts). They also still have their window of optimum use before such light vehicles arrive.

In the case of something like the Pak-43 though, one offmap or a fortunate Katyusha (or Stuka, in the case of Soviet weapons) means the end of the weapon, with effectively nothing you can reasonably be expected to do about it. I simply don't think an unit has any business being completely invalidated like this.

Brit having emplacements is an exception, because they have brace to help them deal with being immobile. So an off map on its own will never counter brits, but combined with several other things yeah it can help.

Zeroing artillery would be inclined to disagree with you.

IF, theoretically you were to have these units mobile, would probably be better if the inf pushed the gun at the speed of cloaked AT gun, so you cant just magic your really powerful static unit out of danger, even worse being able to retreat the squad! You would have units with high reward (they are powerful), and low risk.

This would, of course, be the absolute ideal scenario, yes, and I mentioned this in my OP post. The issue is that there isnt any functionality in the game to allow these units to move like a PAK-40 or other team weapon, especially not the Bofors. They simply aren't set up for that.

I'd agree that having the resultant squad move like a (non-retreatable) team weapon rather than an infantry squad would be idea, though. I don't know if there are any "non-combat" team weapons in the game that could be used as a proxy. A handcart with boxes, for example. Failing that, there's not much of a way around it other than simply disallowing retreat on that particular squad, but I don't know if that's necessary. Sufficient RA penalties would be enough to make such things quite risky, and the reasonably lengthy "pack up" and "deploy" times of these units would mean they cannot simply leave at a moment's notice, particularly if there is a nominal cost involved in them setting back up.

Again, look to the ISU/Elefant/Jagdtiger and the Sexton/Priest, they are effectively mobile versions of the PAK-43 and Howitzers, respectively. Even in the rework I'm describing, the "static" units are still much more vulnerable and immobile when compared to either of those two categories of unit.

These units are strong (in limited circumstances), because they are static, thats their trade off.

You are supposed to pick commanders that counter what your opponent is doing. So its about picking these static units when you know the enemy will have a harder time countering them, i.e. they have gone for commanders without off map bomb etc.

Also pak43 for example, would be way OP if you could move it forward as you gain ground, just pushing the enemy further and further back.

You aren't necessarily supposed to pick commanders to counter your opponent. Many commanders are picked proactively, and there's little reason a doctrinal unit should become completely worthless because an opponent "countered" it by picking one of the tens of commanders with any sort of artillery ability. Further: The Brits already have a nondoctrinal equivalent to the PAK-43 in the 17-pounder, It's hardly good design to have a faction's nondoctrinal units be completely invalidated by doctrinal abilities.

I go over the fact that these units would be able to be rebalanced if they had the ability to be repositioned. As it stands static units either need to be overpowered to be usable, or are otherwise effectively memes due to their vulnerability and complete inability to adapt to changing battlefield conditions. All signs point to complete immobility not being something fitting of CoH2's gameplay loop.

What makes the PAK-43 especially OP if it were able to be moved? Is its 10 additional range enough to force it to be entirely immobile relative to the armoured Elefant, Jagdtiger, and ISU (The ISU even having the ability to engage both heavy armour and infantry extremely effectively)? The PAK and 17 pounder may not even need 80 range if they were able to be repositioned, as especially the PAK would not need to be placed behind shotblockers/in the far back lines.

im not sure then... since arty gets extra range at vet 3 you could have it up closer to vet up then move it back to make better use of the range.

its too bad they didnt follow through with the idea of towing arty with vehicles, that woulda been choice

Veterancy would of course be rebalanced, definitely removing things like range increases, and the units simply wouldn't "need" them. Towing artillery and other units would have been a nice feature, but sadly lelic never bothered. Admittedly the scale of maps might make such things a little obsolete, there's a reason people don't generally use "transport" vehicles to simply transport units, after all, distances are too small.

It is possible to create a crew with veterancy level equal to the scuttled howitzer and have them rebuild a gun with veterancy equal to theirs. However, I'm unsure whether any "between-the-levels" experience could be retained this way.

Is it impossible for scuttling to simply eject a "Vehicle crew" and then destroy itself? (And subsequently have said crew "enter" the newly built weapon?) I suppose i can forsee bugs with the "forcing the unit to enter the 'vehicle' once built" part of the equation.

I'm fine with taking away Zis gun ability if Raketen ability to retreat and occupy house also being taken away as well. Give Zis-3 camo with 1st shot guarantee pen then.

Who mentioned taking away the ZIS gun's barrage?