I'm going to attach what I believe is the poster child of my position of this argument. Several units within the USF arsenal are just really ineffective. usually requiring what I consider to be a crutch in order to become effective. I've been playing this game since release, I've seen all the patches. Most of the nerfs over time could be tolerated and some were really necessary (the initial aaht was a monster).
I suppose for now I want to draw attention to rear echelon the most, but it's not just them. In the attached game I got a pretty decent flank with initial troops. Rifle men got suppressed at long range and rear echelon flanked mg42. I left them at mid range where USF is supposed to be very effective, plus the mg crew has close range weapons. It took the rear echelon so damned long that the supporting Grenadiers who initially went to take out the rifles where able to force off the rifles and then come finish off the RE, who of course died on retreat lmao.
How do you get a flank on a weapon team and be so ineffective to shoot dudes in the back that the whole squad dies on retreat?! Asymmetric balance right? That's been the key buzzword for COH longer than many of you have even known of this game. However, that meant different things throughout time. This is just asymmetric. It's not balanced. One of the fundamental principles of COH, COH2, war games, war in general, is that flanking an opponent tends to be devastating. This isn't a unique occurrence, I play a lot of USF, it happens a lot. The reason it isn't balanced, is because the opposite situation, however you set it up, never plays out like that. Whether you use okw or wm, if you flank a .50 or any other allied MG, even with a lowly pioneer squad, you're going to have devastating results and you will win, fairly quickly too. The problem isn't that axis is OP. Axis is fine. The USF is not, it's over nerfed, under powered, whatever term you want to use. To a degree in which I believe it creates imbalance. Asymmetrical imbalance.
the effect of USF just generally being weak, allows players to get away with riskier behavior. If you look at my card, which many of the numerous axis defenders will to discredit me, you will notice I play USF pretty much exclusively. The reason I do this, is because I like challenge. I have the most difficulty winning as USF. The other allied groups are not as weak. Playing as axis has been far too easy to win with (eventually it stops when I get matched against people of better skill/rank, expected).
This is reflected in numerous player behaviors. Individual allied players are much quicker to throw in the towel. To lose moral. Play a disadvantaged game out. Axis players, when facing usf opponents especially see value in risky behavior. You can see that easily in the attached game with the numerous armor dives directly into anti armor weapons.
That brings me to the other weapon I would like to highlight. AT guns, especially the USF 57mm. Once I had an opponent mock me that I was shooting tennis balls at his panther, because shot after shot was harmlessly bouncing off the front of his panther. He could play lazy. Why not? I do as axis. How hard is it to just drive through an at gun or 2? Even though something like the panther sucks at AI, the impulse buy pintle gun doesn't suck and will drop the at gun crew alone. The brumbar and the sturmtiger just fight them head on with minimal damage received. Again, not a big deal if the same were true on the other side. It's not though. It's pretty common for axis players to play really risky with their at guns. They can too, because where I can push with axis troops and focus my fire on a 57mm with my squads and drop it pretty quickly, allies can't do this. USF especially can't. So the pak and the raketenwerfer are able to be used offensively, instead of being stuck in defensive positions. It's extremely common, especially with WM players to frequently use the pak to effectively force fire at things in the fog. It works. Now the real problem isn't so much the bouncing at long range, but the bouncing at shorter ranges. This goes into real life even and the game is set up to offer additional penetration at closer ranges. However, the values set now are too low. The 57 is cheaper in MP price, but considering this game is limited in how many assets you can actually put on the field (not very asymmetric with at guns) you can not rely on cheap prices and multiple assets.
It's interesting that just about every USF tool was at some point in this games life, deemed too strong. Too strong is difficult to quantify in this game. There are so many variables. I've taken a liking to something I like to call exposure. This metric is easy to understand and I think in a cognitive sense, it's easy for a human to grasp, without a vast mathematical base.
This concept is very simple: How long can your asset be exposed to enemy forces before crossing different thresholds?
exposure differs for different situations. armies are composed differently. However typically with better players, you will face exposure to enemies with effective tools, or at least the most effective tools they have. Exposure for axis is typically high across the board. Panther being one of the best. If you decide to put it at such an exposure risk that it will be a loss, most times you can accomplish your goal. A good example, diving into enemy territory to knock out an artillery piece. The main goal for success is typically just as simple as reaching the position to provide sight for an off map attack. Sometimes it's using the panther to destroy the target and then escaping. The fact is, the panther will get the job done. All USF armor has very low exposure ratings. They cannot last very long in battle. Even an ostwind is effective on a sherman...why? It's got what...a 40mm cannon? I know around the coh community shermans are seen as tin cans, but their sloped armor was actually quite formidable, especially to a 40mm gun. The okw t4 base should not be able to penetrate a sherman. It does though.
I'm going to conclude this here, there are other units I could go on about, who's counterpart on the axis side is far more effective, but I think that's enough for now.
I also want to highlight numbers from the replay. Over time, I've noticed damage numbers from games like this go up for allies. It used to be that axis damage numbers were through the roof. You can see here the axis absorbed much more damage taking far less casualties. Some of this is skill, some of it I believe is an indicator of the imbalance I am highlighting.
United States
Relic Entertainment
보드카 중대 
