with the possibility of facing 3 factions that has an abundance of artillery, the few artillery left to axis needs something up its sleeve to counter this, until something else of similar value is presented to axis artillery, i think counter-arty needs to be where its at.
The problem is every other faction gave up its artillery ability, its just a weird dichotomy. The leFH is just a slightly tweaked ML/20, but it kept its Vet 1 skill. Just use the barrage like all other arti does, auto-firing death shells with massively increased range is a weird quirk. Doesn't make sense relative to any near-peers.