Protip : Flamers and HMGs completely ignore the shock troopers armor bonus. LMGs do this to a lesser extent as well. I really do not know what your problem with shock troops is. You are a pretty good player after all. Whenever i see shock troops on the field, i am happy its not more conscripts or gaurds.
Shocks have been like this for 8 months now.. And really they have been OP for all this time?
Why would you charge panzergrenadiers? Even at long range they do almost the same damage as LMG grens.
Pretty much 90% of soviets nowadays go gaurd motor.
I mean i guess shock troopers kind of do counter hardcore grenspam but conspam does that so well that shock troopers arent even really needed. But when the grens are together and supported by a 251 halftrack shock troops can't really do much (unlike gaurds and cons for example).
Captainsprice flamer pio spam shuts down shocks pretty bad from my experience.
You can deal with Shock Troopers fairly well with Ostheer, but with OKW it's a different story. The MG34 is doctrinal and inferior to the MG42. There are no flamers and Sturmpioneers don't have grenades nor flamethrowers and can barely deal with Shock Troopers even when they are in green cover and are able to fire from max range while the shock troopers close in. If there is any cover along the way, like a grenade crater or other forms of yellow cover, the shock troopers win. It's just a no-brainer unit that does not require good flanking or positioning to be effective and becomes extremely potent if you do actually use good flanking (unlike say, panzergrenadiers who only work well if you apply good battlefield tactics). Furthermore, Shock Troopers become laughably good with For Mother Russia and with OKW you just have to resign the entire map for 1 minute against this ability.
To counter the shock troopers you need a vehicle. However, Flak Halftracks are squishy, have poor mobility, force you into a mechanized HQ which has little utility besides the Flak HT, and are only useable on some maps because even small elevation differences just make it shoot the ground. Your only real option on most maps is the Luchs, which can turn the tides at about the 10-13 minute mark depending on your map control. However, doing the Luchs rush every game is plain boring and does now allow you to have a diverse early game (need to get trucks up fast and things like leIGs just delay them). If you want to have a more diverse early game, the easy to use shock troops just slowly push you off the field and by the time you have your delayed Luchs it's already too late because the call-ins will come soon.
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