Profile of Cardboard Tank

Throughout the patches the Soviet faction has been buffed for the lategame, while the Axis lategame has been made weaker.

Now Soviets have the advantage of survivable infantry (6 entities) and weapon crews early and get better tanks late game. The IS-2 is better than Tiger and King Tiger for cost, the ISU has a better use than the Elefant (barely loses to Elefant, yet can easily kill infantry).

Soviet call ins are way too strong and provide too much synergy with T-34/85s and mark target or Guards + ISU-152 etc. Added to that they are dirt cheap because no teching is required.

The worst is the ability to easily wipe any Axis infantry with expandable mines and demos, Mortars, or even lategame call ins.

Certain maps can be easily locked down with the 120mm mortars. The Soviets have the best:

- Artillery (120mm, Katjuscha, 152mm)
- Tanks (ISU-152 is more versatile than ELefant, IS-2 > Tiger and even KT for cost, etc.)
- Explosives (cheapest mos useful mines, Demos) + usually ammo available
- survivability of infantry (6 men)

Imo that´s too much. They go from early game advantage to lategame advantage.


Tl;dr: The real problems are:

1) Cheap call ins,
2) No other faction has that much of a squad wipe potential
-- a) Artillery advantage,
-- b) Mine advantage
3) Survivable units,
4) Yet a lategame on par with the Axis factions,
5) Can easily take losses, while a wiped unit as Ostheer cripples you.

This issue is especially a problem in team games, where the Soviet advantage stacks. More squad wiping, more artillery, yet equal tanks.

im not sure about the "one-piece" variant but i think the 2 piece variant needed to be lowered

It definitely had to. It´s just the Russian fan train in action again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNXiK8_mRoo#t=12m00s

they were op for 8 months, let then suffer for atleast that time

I´ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that this statement is proof you are trolling and not proof of you being totally out of your mind.

As for your JP IV vet 5 argument: That is flawed. How are you going to have a vet 5 JP IV if the first vehicle you are going to face is a Russian call in? The JP IV will definitely not be vet 5 during those engagements and straight out lose to Soviet call ins.

I hate the dependance on lackluster AT options. Schrecks are good, but will never ever be as effective as an AT gun. Neither is the Raketenwerfer. It´s more like you are totally relying on support AT until a Jagdpanzer/ Panther arrives.

OKW is very risky to play.

You can utilize the Jagdpanzer IV to great effect. You lose it and you are stuck with aforementioned lackluster AT options for quite some time. You can have great success with the Flak HT, but if you lose it, a comeback is hard - as you mentioned. You can wipe a whole army with the Stuka - or get caught without any form of AT and lose the game. Same for the King Tiger, lose it and lose the game.

In fact a single mine can destroy the whole game for OKW.

I think the Panzer IV can´t be rushed reliably any longer.

It´s good for forcing the Allied player to invest on anti tank. It´s also good to kill off infantry while the Soviet player is saving for the inevitable T-34/85 or IS-2. You can punish the Soviet call in meta in a short time window and hopefully collect some vet. The Panzer IV only becomes reliable vs vehicles at vet2 imo. But if the Soviet player then finally has his T-34/85 or IS-2 and you are stuck with only Panzer IVs and no Paks, you are going to lose.