Vehicle Extinction and AT Rifle

[Warhawks97]

What exactly was the point and the reason Wh got AT rifles?

Ive been playing over the past month quite frequently and ive never ever saw so few vehicles as i do now. Its like they have faced their Extinction.
Ive seen one jeep and one greyhound in the past 7 matches.
The biggest irony is, that people in the past used jeeps vs WH but not vs PE, now they use lots of jeeps vs PE since the meta here changed to infantry opening rather than armored cars but no more jeeps vs WH.
The thing is that WH has exchanged a defensive orientated support weapon with a highly mobile multirole AT/CQC "hunter" squad. Damn, this squad has 80 HP per model which is that of Grens and Rangers right at t1. Why?

So whats the probs?

1. Why has each model 80 HP? Thats the ammount elite assault forces have such as reg 5, grens etc and i gues they also take advantage of Terror and def doc inf boosts. Volks have 60 HP as comparision, brits tommies 70 and CW AT rifle 75 per model.
2. Why does it have Mp40? In recent games this squad got the highest inf kill score of the early stage. I managed to get over 25 kills with it (one enemie over 30) making it my second best inf killer after Puma. In Close combat it gets brutal. You can hop into a house a sec before enemie gets in and the Mp40 dude shreds the enemie squad rigt in front of it. I also saw US cqc spawning of a house killing a mortar crew but then got a grenade of this squad into the face killing/damaging models and the last got whiped in two bursts of that mp40. I saw many more crazy things. In one occassion i shred grens with cqc squad just to get then shred a second later by this squad running right behind the grens. I prevented an 10st landing behind my lines. My Puma suppressed them, they crawled arround a corner but still suppressed, my AT rifles came arround and shredded them.
3. US is super reliant on mobile vehicle usage and vehicles in general and esspecially mid game. AB needs them to hold out untill the 101st got battle ready (which takes a while as all know), armor doc is self explaining and Inf also needs them untill Rangers and jumbos come. Now its hardly possible to operate them.
4. All factions are somwehat bound at some place at the early game, usually on strategic important locations and based on that flanks can get exploited. Just WH is currently "running wild" over the map. You check out a flank with jeep/m20, you see that squad rushing to you at the egde of the fog of war and you run.... often you die due to pathfinding errors etc. Meanwhile Puma can yolo you. Puma and AT rifle squad is mid game domination.
5. The current US meta seems to be going for 7 men rifles (that more or less replace US vehicle stage), then calli jeep and then jumbo/cqc spawns. How stupid is that?
6. Why 65 range? Brits have also just 60?
7. Why is it twice as accurate than CW Boys AT (35% vs 70% at max range!)? When CW AT rifles go into lock down mode they just get 15% received accuracy but no accuracy boost!? Good joke.
The range tables are 10/30/45/60 for axis. That means at 45 range accuracy is still at 80%. CW has 15/25/35/48 The accuracy for CW at 35 range already drops to a low of 45% and to bottom low of 35% at 48 range.. The Axis one still has 80% at 45 range! Even at point blank, when the vehicle stands right in front of CW Boys, they only have 75% accuracy. Really? How much alk do brits drink or what drugs axis take?
8. The damage for Boys AT requires 3 hits to kill a Puma. The axis kills even light tanks in three shots.
9. In conversations during games players said that Axis AT rifles are 10x better than former AT gun. Yet they dont even cost more than CW boys.
10. It carries axis till late game helping them bypassing all AT guns to get Stugs straight and even faster. CW Boys get fucked once a Tank IV D shows up.
11. For the last years i got told that i must flank the axis. And in the same breath you add a unit to WH that exactly prevents this. You guys make good jokes sometimes. And you also keep refusing head on capabilties for US....Greyhound bounces from Puma (meanwhile Axis T1 AT squad rapes stuarts.....), sherman from stubby tank IV´s..... and my flanking moves with greyhound bounces from silly hetzer rear at point blank which just farts at me and a second later the Hunter/Denial rambo squad shows up to blast the brave greyhound dudes into heaven despite rushing with a speed of 80 kph thx to laser guided AT Rifle grenade shots. Even Hellcats get blasted just like that.


All in all its a joke.... an AT squad with close combat capabilties, Elite Inf HP, deadly anti inf and anti tank bonus abilties, super long ranger sniper capabilities. Its a sniper against vehicles. The stats are quite similiar to sniper rifles. That thing fires at range more accurate than a Jagdpanther just to provide an idea what insane stats it has.

[MarKr]

The rifle was implemented as a replacement for PaK36 and so it needed to have similar performance in terms of damage and also survivability. With that being said:
1) PaK36 provides green cover to 2 out of 3 crew members all the time and each of the soldiers have 70HP each (and the crew also benefits from Terror and Def doc unlocks). The squad has an ability to build sandbags but no "instant-always-active" cover bonus. So they were given 80HP. But I could agree that as an early game unit the HP could be lower.

2) PaK36 has HE ability which gives it quite good protection from infantry. AT squad has HE grenade but it misses shots against un-garrisoned infantry a lot so they were given an MP40. It is one MP40. With the buffs to Garands I sort of doubt that 6 Garands would perform worse than 1 MP40, also if the rush attempts are really so desperate then there is the option to upgrade Grease guns on Riflemen to get more punch at very close ranges.
All these "on one occasion" are (as always) not representative case of an average performance.
- jumping into a building a second before enemy, then wiping them. Wouldn't this be the case even if you entered the building with any other unit that picked up an SMG? When you get in a building one second before your opponent, then it means the opponent is most likely in the most dangerous zone of the SMG. So if you had a Volks squad and they had picked up 1 MP40 before and put them to the same situation, wouldn't they shred the enemy squad the same way?

- the case with the grenade - well, the grenade hit them. In case it misses, would the CQB still get shredded with a single MP40 rush?

- when you say that on one occasion a Puma suppressed a 101st paradrop and your AT rifleS ("-s" so plural which means you had 2 AT rifle squads) shredded them, so it was 2 infantry squads and one armored vehicle vs one infantry squad which was at the same time suppressed. If there were any other result than a complete anihilation of the 101st squad, you (as the Axis player) would complain "my Puma and two squads with SMGs fired at a suppressed 101st squad and the paratroopers didn't die (or, god forbid, killed my units)?!?!?! WTF?" so I don't see how a 3v1 situation ending by the 3 squads winning is a problem.

6) As already said - the AT rifle squad was there to replace the PaK36 and thus we wanted it to have similar combat performance. PaK36 has range of 75 and can also camo (which gives more bonuses). This squad has range of 65 (so it can out range your units) but cannot camo so you cannot ambush enemies. The squad is not meant o perform exactly the same as CW BOYS but since you brought it up you surely also know that they get +10 range from their lockdown ability so you can camo them and activate the lockdown mode and you get range 70 on a unit which is invisible too.

7) Once again, the AT squad is replacement for PaK36 - PaK36 has accuracy values of 100%/85%/75%/65% + can go into camo where it gets +50% accuracy and you are at over 100% at any range (which is max at 75). Given the types of targets that the PaK36 is meant to counter, the first shot is usually matters the most.
Since you brought up the BOYS squad again, in lockdown mode they also get +30% accuracy so you're looking at 110%/97%/84.5%/58.5% (don't forget, in lockdown the max range is still 70. So the numbers you provided are not accurate.

8) It is not the best example to compare "BOYS vs Lightly armored vehicle" to "GrB vs Light tank" when the only light tank the Axis have is present in TH doctrine and nobody uses it the way Allies use light tanks but rather as an arty unit. Practically speaking, then, Axis don't have light tanks in the sense of light tanks of Allies (Stuarts, Chaffees, Tetrarchs). A thing that has been brought up before is that Light tanks don't really have any specific place/tier in the mod - they are between HTs/armored cars and medium tanks but they have armor a bit better than HTs but firepower not really better than HTs and they cost quite a bit more than the HTs so their usage is not very common (maybe except for Recce) because you're usually better off investing less resources into a HT/armored car while have chances of survival slightly lower. This is another issue for it self. We still stick to the original thought - the AT rifle is a replacement for PaK36 and so it deals comparable damage to lightly armored targets. Even for PaK36 (in the game) the performance against HTs and ligt tanks wasn't that much different so it is kept here too. I assume you'll bring up how "BS it is from historical perspective" and what not but this is one of the cases where historical accuracy steps aside.

9) It is more of a question "why" it is 10x better. I would say that the biggest advantages over the PaK36 is the mobility and the ability to automatically acquire targets in 360°. It might be possible to make some tweaks in this aspect.

11) Ever since I've known you, you have been kinda obsessed with squeezing as much realism as possible to the game even to the aspects and "corners" that are not needed. Sometimes too much realism chokes the fun, not to mention the "selective realism" (apply realistic performance only on the stuff that benefits me but don't use realism where it would put me into a disadvantage) from which many players suffer. Not everyone wants what you want and by talking about it over and over you won't make them want the same thing.

Being loud about something does not get you what you want, so I want to say right away that if I see even a slight hint of your "rage mode" I'll ignore your further posts.

[Warhawks97]

The rifle was implemented as a replacement for PaK36 and so it needed to have similar performance in terms of damage and also survivability. With that being said:
1) PaK36 provides green cover to 2 out of 3 crew members all the time and each of the soldiers have 70HP each (and the crew also benefits from Terror and Def doc unlocks). The squad has an ability to build sandbags but no "instant-always-active" cover bonus. So they were given 80HP. But I could agree that as an early game unit the HP could be lower.

Yes, but an AT gun doesnt charge + they die very fast despite this shield. It takes a short volley and two members are dead. The last one cant move the AT gun so effectively you need to kill two guys less in order to take the unit out of combat.

2) PaK36 has HE ability which gives it quite good protection from infantry. AT squad has HE grenade but it misses shots against un-garrisoned infantry a lot so they were given an MP40. It is one MP40. With the buffs to Garands I sort of doubt that 6 Garands would perform worse than 1 MP40, also if the rush attempts are really so desperate then there is the option to upgrade Grease guns on Riflemen to get more punch at very close ranges.
All these "on one occasion" are (as always) not representative case of an average performance.

Its that you get it for free right away on an AT unit. HE shells are different bc they are timed (which means you can "sit it out"), limited fire angle (you can flank it), cooldown, limited mobility, limited rof, cant shoot vehicles and inf at the same time, cost ammo which deplets your early game ammo storage. HMG42 and AT gun and you couldnt use HE, now HMG42 and two of these squads and you have excellent vehicle protection, flank protection and close combat protection. The AT squad is a real cqc unit in the early game. It protects volks/HMG more or less agaist incoming Rifle squads from all directions but this unit should fight off vehicles, not inf. Perhaps we get Stens for the CW Boys and 80 HP? Would like to see the faces

- jumping into a building a second before enemy, then wiping them. Wouldn't this be the case even if you entered the building with any other unit that picked up an SMG? When you get in a building one second before your opponent, then it means the opponent is most likely in the most dangerous zone of the SMG. So if you had a Volks squad and they had picked up 1 MP40 before and put them to the same situation, wouldn't they shred the enemy squad the same way?

Sure, when you pick it up. Thats an AT unit that dominates early game urban combat long before first smgs drop down somewhere.

- when you say that on one occasion a Puma suppressed a 101st paradrop and your AT rifleS ("-s" so plural which means you had 2 AT rifle squads) shredded them, so it was 2 infantry squads and one armored vehicle vs one infantry squad which was at the same time suppressed. If there were any other result than a complete anihilation of the 101st squad, you (as the Axis player) would complain "my Puma and two squads with SMGs fired at a suppressed 101st squad and the paratroopers didn't die (or, god forbid, killed my units)?!?!?! WTF?" so I don't see how a 3v1 situation ending by the 3 squads winning is a problem.

generally i would say that most of these squads kill more inf rather than vehicles simply bc nobody gets vehicles anymore.
There are tons more of such occassions.

6) As already said - the AT rifle squad was there to replace the PaK36 and thus we wanted it to have similar combat performance. PaK36 has range of 75 and can also camo (which gives more bonuses). This squad has range of 65 (so it can out range your units) but cannot camo so you cannot ambush enemies. The squad is not meant o perform exactly the same as CW BOYS but since you brought it up you surely also know that they get +10 range from their lockdown ability so you can camo them and activate the lockdown mode and you get range 70 on a unit which is invisible too.

and this is bullshit. You cant just put an AT gun into a rifle and give it same stats. AT guns have longer reload, limited fire arc and if they fail to hit/kill they get flanked and are dead.

Why dont we simply add Rifles with Panzerschreck values and say "thats the new replacmant for a Panzerschreck". A rifle is fundamentaly differnt and its advantages over AT guns have to be taken into account. You just cant give them all bonuses a rifle has and put the bonuses of an AT gun into at is well. Everything needs pros and cons and dont tell me now "it cant hide". Escaping from Boys AT is much easier once you are under fire bc you can count mostly the next shots as fails or not kill hits. This weapon doesnt allow it. I use Pumas vs CW all day long, but using any vehicle vs these anti vehicle snipers is almost impossible.

7) Once again, the AT squad is replacement for PaK36 - PaK36 has accuracy values of 100%/85%/75%/65% + can go into camo where it gets +50% accuracy and you are at over 100% at any range (which is max at 75). Given the types of targets that the PaK36 is meant to counter, the first shot is usually matters the most.
Since you brought up the BOYS squad again, in lockdown mode they also get +30% accuracy so you're looking at 110%/97%/84.5%/58.5% (don't forget, in lockdown the max range is still 70. So the numbers you provided are not accurate.

See above. You compare rifles with AT guns and put advantages of both weapon systems into one without drawback. Thats crazy.
AT guns are not so mobile, cant retreat, limited fire arc, need minimum crew to move, need time to get this ambush, reload longer, aim longer, cant go into houses (a big factor btw bc here you can ambush with them as well), need smart placings due to all these disadvantges which means careful planing of your movments etc etc etc.
If you faced an unambushed 37 with an M20 the 37 was dead quite often.


And CW boys get hit easier in lock down mode. In another post i asked if its possible to give some sort to set up times/lock downs on these weapons bc this is ridiclous how you can react on just everything instantly. Running arround with a massive weapon, aim 1 sec and shoot a tiny fast vehicle over a distance tanks engage each other just like that? Thats nuts. The accuracy is higher than that of all guns (tanks, AT guns etc).
Allied tanks have afterall very hard times hitting moving Pumas due to their target table. So you can trigger M10 ambushes easily without getting hit in many occasions. But these dudes shoot the tiniest vehicle just like that? Its nuts.

8) It is not the best example to compare "BOYS vs Lightly armored vehicle" to "GrB vs Light tank" when the only light tank the Axis have is present in TH doctrine and nobody uses it the way Allies use light tanks but rather as an arty unit. Practically speaking, then, Axis don't have light tanks in the sense of light tanks of Allies (Stuarts, Chaffees, Tetrarchs). A thing that has been brought up before is that Light tanks don't really have any specific place/tier in the mod - they are between HTs/armored cars and medium tanks but they have armor a bit better than HTs but firepower not really better than HTs and they cost quite a bit more than the HTs so their usage is not very common (maybe except for Recce) because you're usually better off investing less resources into a HT/armored car while have chances of survival slightly lower. This is another issue for it self. We still stick to the original thought - the AT rifle is a replacement for PaK36 and so it deals comparable damage to lightly armored targets. Even for PaK36 (in the game) the performance against HTs and ligt tanks wasn't that much different so it is kept here too. I assume you'll bring up how "BS it is from historical perspective" and what not but this is one of the cases where historical accuracy steps aside.

forget realism, and what "arty light tanks" do you speak of? and yes, nobody uses light tanks and vehicles are also rare now.... but i guess you dont care a shit when tons of units become just placeholders now. the entire Motorpool becomes obsolet due to this.

Get it straight, A rifle is not an AT gun. You just took all advantages a gun has (accracy, damage) into a rifle and kept rifle advantages as well (mobility, rof, 360 degree fire arc, no set up time etc)


Why dont we remove all AT guns and instead create 37 mm AT rifle squad, 50/57 mm AT rifle squad and 75/76 mm AT rifle squad and 88 mm AT rifle squad.
Apparently you guys see absolutely no problem here, right?

9) It is more of a question "why" it is 10x better. I would say that the biggest advantages over the PaK36 is the mobility and the ability to automatically acquire targets in 360°. It might be possible to make some tweaks in this aspect.

yes, give it rifle disadvantages: Lower accuracy than guns, less range than guns...... Start here maybe?
Or are you going to create a Rifle that behaves like an AT gun? Cant wait for your next crazy idea.

11) Ever since I've known you, you have been kinda obsessed with squeezing as much realism as possible to the game even to the aspects and "corners" that are not needed. Sometimes too much realism chokes the fun, not to mention the "selective realism" (apply realistic performance only on the stuff that benefits me but don't use realism where it would put me into a disadvantage) from which many players suffer. Not everyone wants what you want and by talking about it over and over you won't make them want the same thing.

Once again, vehicle die out. If i would ask for realsim in this case than this thing would behave like an grenade launcher what it was with piat like trajectory.

I am just trying to explain you that you cant create a unit that combines advantages of guns and rifles at the same time.

Being loud about something does not get you what you want, so I want to say right away that if I see even a slight hint of your "rage mode" I'll ignore your further posts.

I listed issues, not more.



If you allow me to suggest:

We have different types of AT weapons, guns, hendheld AT and rifles. So i would suggest that we get clear lines which types has which cons/pros. So i would make it as follows:


Guns:

Pros:
- Range
- Accuracy
- damage
- good pen against their supposed targets

Cons:
- mobility
- Reload (between rifles and hendheld)
- Fire arc and set up time
- aim time



Hendheld AT:

Pros:
- decent damage
- Usually good pen
- No pen drop over distance
- Mobility
- 360 degree shooting


Cons:
- Long reload
- low range
- average aim time
- accuracy at max range and vs mobile targets



AT rifles:

Pros:
- good mobility
- Rifle range. Less then guns but more than hendeld AT
- 360 dgeree shooting
- high rate of fire


Cons:
- Damage
- accuracy at max range is not as good as guns.
- penetration.
- need more hits to properly kill something.


Changes to AT rifle squads:

They either have a basic range of 60 and poor max range accuracy which via lock down ability boosts to 65 and better accuracy at range. Or they get a short deployment time in order to make it less "old hit, press hold pos button, retreat" style aka old AT squad hit and run attacks.

I think in close combat they could just shoot without lock downs but in order to make it work as long range AT you need a lock down ability which may require 1,5 sec to deploy (like deplyoing the bipod) bc you cant fire such rifles that easy due to recoil.

Also as a general rule, they shouldnt be "handfired AT guns" and shouldnt be "two shot kill weapons", neither cw nor axis.
They should be able to hide, two ambush shots, roughly 4 hits to kill a vehicle, rof increases the closer the target comes to prevent being easily overruned.

Also perhaps pen drop over distance as long a no HEAT is involved.



Changes to Axis AT Rifles in Particular:

1. Revert it to a rifle, 7,92 mm that can kill vehicles in 4 shots and with a good rof that gets higher the closer the target gets.
2. Ambush ability like cw Boys.
3. 70-75 HP per model
4. The current standard shot becomes equivalent to the US Rifle grenade heat shot with 45 range and able to strike light tanks and insta kill vehicles for 35 ammo. This way they dont replace medium AT guns and instead support those and being heavy AT gun support. Current anti tank shot removed.
5. The anti inf grenade becomes the equivalent to US rifle squad anti in grenade with similiar trajectory. Atm its pure RNG. I prefer the US style.
6. As mentioned above, add lock down ability. Basic range is 60 and low max range accuracy, lock down enables it to strike vehicles at range better (and more sight, better rof)
7. Put it as a reward to the 37 mm AT gun so players can be free what to chose, depending on map and style bc in some scenrios the AT gun is just better. That adds also more to that Rock, Paper scissior thing bc nobody knows what WH is gonna use.


I just cant help myself but for me (and others) its just frustrating to play. I really hope there is some common sense and you dont stick top harsh on your "we put a gun into a rifle coz we like it, live with it" standpoint.

[MarKr]

I listed issues and facts. If you consider that as rage, not my problem.

You might have noticed that I used the first conditional sentence, so I did not say that the first post contains rage or whatever. What I meant was that when you don't like something and we don't give you what you want, you sometimes tend to start going passively-agressive with loads of sarcasm or simply agressive with all the "this is bullshit", "you don't give a shit about (insert a topic)" etc. and so I said that IF this sort of talks appear here, I'll just won't participate in this topic anymore, that is all

[MenciusMoldbug]

I don't like how AT rifles work at all. One-shotting light cars like Jeeps/Shwimwaggens with AT rifles is a big no-no from me; no matter how realistic it might be.

It might have been better if these AT-Rifles were less damage dealers and more crit dealers vs light vehicles. The 37mm AT guns should be the hard-hitting stuff that does super loads of damage vs light vehicles but I don't see the reasoning behind why AT-rifles have to be this way as well. They should be 'flank protectors' or 'disablers' who peck away at light vehicles giving them engine criticals, gunners killed, and even main gun destroyed criticals if the vehicle's HP get's low enough. While also doing less damage to vehicles overall so they have their own niche role rather than being better AT guns with 360 degree firing arcs and stuff.

I also think they should have aim time because trying to keep the Jeep out of range of this AT squad without lots of micro is pretty hard. Only takes one shot and boom the jeeps out of the game. Which means Jeep is usually just sitting in the back when WH comes into the picture (same goes for shwimm vs AT boys).

[Warhawks97]

I listed issues and facts. If you consider that as rage, not my problem.

You might have noticed that I used the first conditional sentence, so I did not say that the first post contains rage or whatever. What I meant was that when you don't like something and we don't give you what you want, you sometimes tend to start going passively-agressive with loads of sarcasm or simply agressive with all the "this is bullshit", "you don't give a shit about (insert a topic)" etc. and so I said that IF this sort of talks appear here, I'll just won't participate in this topic anymore, that is all

excuse me, but can you perhaps describe what happend in your heads when you decided to put an AT gun into an rifle. This is not sarcasm but a serious question. Doesnt it sound weird to say "hey, lets put this AT gun stats into this rifle?" I really want to understand where that sort of thinking comes from.
Just bc its meant to replace an AT gun doesnt mean it needs excatly those accuracy and damage. This weapon is a million times better in killing vehicles than the AT gun was and it also kills light tanks which not even the old AT gun could do.

I don't like how AT rifles work at all. One-shotting light cars like Jeeps/Shwimwaggens with AT rifles is a big no-no from me; no matter how realistic it might be.

It might have been better if these AT-Rifles were less damage dealers and more crit dealers vs light vehicles. The 37mm AT guns should be the hard-hitting stuff that does super loads of damage vs light vehicles but I don't see the reasoning behind why AT-rifles have to be this way as well. They should be 'flank protectors' or 'disablers' who peck away at light vehicles giving them engine criticals, gunners killed, and even main gun destroyed criticals if the vehicle's HP get's low enough. While also doing less damage to vehicles overall so they have their own niche role rather than being better AT guns with 360 degree firing arcs and stuff.

I also think they should have aim time because trying to keep the Jeep out of range of this AT squad without lots of micro is pretty hard. Only takes one shot and boom the jeeps out of the game. Which means Jeep is usually just sitting in the back when WH comes into the picture.

yeah, my thoughts, too, thx.

The Current WH AT "rifle" is not really a rifle, but an grenade launcher mounted on it. Thats why i would revert it back to a rifle 7,92 mm and acting the way you described. But not crit dealer via "i use disable button" but rather randomly causing cirt after crit with high crit chance on vehicles.
WH could then use the current standard shot as a special shot with 45 range and one shot or high damage capabilities like the current US HEAT grenade for their rifle squad. That way they dont need to fear getting overruned by a vehicle. But nothing to be also able to take on tanks, thats just too much for T1. Its like giving the 37 mm pak 36 the rocket shot the 50 mm AT gun has (it really could use it).

[mofetagalactica]

I liked the addition of this unit , but i was expecting something way more close of what we see with CW AT boys, this unit is cappable of denying from the start until sherman phase while still doing really nice damage to infantry its a really really well all-around unit (Adding a mp40 was kinda stupid btw).
I saw a lot of really logic writing and recommendations for changes of this unit so i will support it and expect some changes for this unit.

[Beast Slayer]

I agree with Warhawks. I think his posts make sense and contain plenty of valid complaints. The thing is that you did not create a replacement for the 37mm pak at all but rather a wastly superior unit in every way because the combat performance against vehicles is very similar to the pak but this squad have also better mobility (less pathfinding issues then pak and sprint ability), survivability (can retreat and garrison buildings), can shred infantry at close ranges without problem (mp40), is able to fire in 360 degrees (therefore its not even possible to flank this squad in the same way as you can do with pak) and is dirty cheap (240mp which is only 30mp more then the pak). How can you even compare this squad to the clumsy and slow AT gun is beyond me. I do not think this unit is properly balanced at all.

This AT squad should be a reward unit instead so you can choose between high mobility but lower firepower/range (AT squad) and low mobility but better firepower/range (37mm pak).

As you can see Warhawks is not the only one complaining here so at least consider some of the changes which was suggested in this thread.

[Krieger Blitzer]

Honestly, I don't have much problems with this WH AT rifle squad.. and the 65 basic range is justified as it can't ambush... Generally, I really can't imagine playing WH without this unit, specifically after the 50.cal buff which makes most Allied vehicles a lot more deadly than they used to be.

Though, I can agree that this squad shouldn't be effective against infantry in any possible way! Despite I have no problems with the MP40 in particular.
Because the CW AT Boys seem to be actually somewhat effective against rushing Axis infantry with just 2 rifles for some reason...

All in all however, if i were to decide... I would personally make this WH AT rifle squad totally different.. and that's what I would do:
- I would remove both the "AT grenade" and the "anti infantry grenade" abilities, only the smoke ability would stay.
- I would decrease the basic range to 60 while giving this unit camo feature, just like the CW AT boys.
- I would also reduce the squad size to 3 men; 1 kar98, 1 MP40, 1 AT rifle, and cost unchanged.

That's just how I think of it.

[MrSuv]

First of all I want to say that I agree with what WarHawks says, but not with his way of saying things.

Having said that, I would like to offer a solution from my point of view, which does not seek to be an absolute truth, but only a proposal.

I like that the unit exists as such, I think that infantry units are always welcome because they usually invite to do micro-management. But there is a problem: the unit is is unbalanced in its price-performance ratio, and this I will justify in 3 points:

-They are available from the start of the game at a very low price (240 MP).
-They have very good range, ROF and damage against light vehicles and even medium tanks (using skills).
-They have a very high HP (as has been said in this topic, each sodier has 80 HP).

So we have an early unit that equals or even exceeds an mid game unit: the US AT Team. The AT Team has to be closer to a tank (exposing himself more), take more time to aim (regarding the time it takes to launch the 46mm AT grenade skill) and, I suspect that the US AT Team has less HP ( Could someone confirm this?).

So, my proposal to solve this is:
-Reduce the HP of the WH Light AT Team.
-Increase its cost.
-Increase the price of the grenade AT of 46mm, to 100 ammo. This is because I consider that 70 ammo is very cheap for a safer shot (because of its range, time of aiming and damage) than that of a Panzershrek. Also, remember that kill tanks is NOT THE POINT OF THIS UNIT.

That's all I wanted to say, greetings to all and sorry if there are grammatical errors, I'm using Google Translate to a large extent.

Peace.

[Beast Slayer]

- I would remove both the "AT grenade" and the "anti infantry grenade" abilities, only the smoke ability would stay.
- I would decrease the basic range to 60 while giving this unit camo feature, just like the CW AT boys.
- I would also reduce the squad size to 3 men; 1 kar98, 1 MP40, 1 AT rifle, and cost unchanged.

I like these proposed changes a lot.

This squad should be a dedicated AT unit with nearly no capability to counter infantry in the same way as the British AT Boys work and do not give me this counter argument that it needs to be good against infantry because pak which it is replacing have HE shells because this AT squad is way better then the pak when you consider its survivability and mobility so there needs to be some kind of counterbalance.

Reducing the squad size to 3 and keeping the same cost is a very good idea because this change will put more emphasis on the AT role and less on the anti infantry role and AT grenades fired from this rifle are better then the .55 cal rounds used by the AT Boys so that 240mp cost will be still justified even after the squad size reduction.

Introduction of the ambush ability is also good idea because every other dedicated AT unit have it so why not this one?

I really think this unit need some changes which will more define its role and make it less good around. That would be much better design.

[Warhawks97]

Thx for the support at first. I do agree that WH does deserves some sort of compensation for the cal 50 changes. I didnt say it has to get removed. But it cant stay as it is.


What if Pak 36 and the AT rifle squad can co-exist and being not even a reward to each other. The Pak 36 has the hard hitting unit while the rifle is more a flank protection. It would use the 7,92x94 mm bullets instead of the Grenade launcher. These would be weaker than those of CW Boys AT rifles bc they dont have any t1 AT gun. So the German AT rifle would 2-3 shot jeeps, 4-6 shots vs vehicles. It has good chances to kill gunners or damaging engines and so on. The squad would be 3 or 4 men strong, ambush and lock down ability (lock down enables it to hit more accurate at max range). As reference we should use CW range and accuracy values just AT rifles wont exceed 60 range). The K98 stats could be normal Volks gren K98 stats instead of Pio k98 stats. HP dropped to max 75 (3 men) or 65-70 (4 men)
Later in the game, after HQ upgrades, it gets the ability to fire the current standard round (which is a rifle grenade) as special shot for 35 ammo and 45 range just like current US rifle squads can do to defeat or heavily damge light tanks and vehicles when they get very close.
AT rifles would also have a pen drop over distance like guns have. So the closer a vehicle gets the faster shoots the rifle with higher accuracy and better pen chances.


I also thought about giving Volksgrens the ability to upgrade Rifle Grenades. It was also a widley used weapon and the "Schießbecher" (grenade launcher) was essentially the same that was used in the GrB 39 (or rather the one used on GrB 39 was the same as on K98). So as flank protection for the AT guns the Volks could fill this role as well by adding an upgrade for grenade launchers. The Panzerfaust would get automatically unlocked at a certain HQ upgrade just like the molotov gets unlocked right after the first HQ upgrade.




So essentially AT rifles would get changed from being "AT guns put into a rifle" into what the name says: Rifles. Range would be max 60 and lock down just improves accuracy sight range.

The difference would be that CW one deals a bit more damage as it is the only t1 AT weapon for CW while WH one is more orientated towards support while the pal 36 remains as the hard hitting unit.

At the end, AT rifles would fill the niche between AT guns and Handheld AT weapons.

- I would remove both the "AT grenade" and the "anti infantry grenade" abilities, only the smoke ability would stay.
- I would decrease the basic range to 60 while giving this unit camo feature, just like the CW AT boys.
- I would also reduce the squad size to 3 men; 1 kar98, 1 MP40, 1 AT rifle, and cost unchanged.

I like these proposed changes a lot.

This squad should be a dedicated AT unit with nearly no capability to counter infantry in the same way as the British AT Boys work and do not give me this counter argument that it needs to be good against infantry because pak which it is replacing have HE shells because this AT squad is way better then the pak when you consider its survivability and mobility so there needs to be some kind of counterbalance.

Reducing the squad size to 3 and keeping the same cost is a very good idea because this change will put more emphasis on the AT role and less on the anti infantry role and AT grenades fired from this rifle are better then the .55 cal rounds used by the AT Boys so that 240mp cost will be still justified even after the squad size reduction.

Introduction of the ambush ability is also good idea because every other dedicated AT unit have it so why not this one?

I really think this unit need some changes which will more define its role and make it less good around. That would be much better design.

The issue still would be that it is a AT gun put into a rifle in terms of damage and accuracy, thus benefit from being a rifle and a gun at the same time. Thats why i prefer Menicus thoughts about giving AT rifles their own role between Guns and schrecks/zooks/Piats.

[MenciusMoldbug]

This squad is still using normal ambush modifiers similar to units like panzerjagers. Which means it oneshot light vehicles from first-strike camouflage bonuses (+25% accuracy, +50% damage). Put them in a building or trench; wait for them to go invisible and have an M8, Halftrack, or any other light vehicle run into them. You will see it get oneshotted by them. AT Boys don't have these ambush modifiers because it got removed from them but these guys still do. They can also make cover wherever they want. So if they get camouflage ability like the AT boys have, then they are going to be invisible wherever they go/hunker down.

They seriously do not need the MP40. They have 80 HP per model making them by far the tankiest unit in the early game and they can kill riflemen squads by themselves no problem in favorable engagements. This Anti-Tank Squad usually turns into my MVP Anti-Infantry unit later on and it has nothing to do with its anti-infantry grenade but that single MP40 managing to do so much work.

The K98 stats could be normal Volks gren K98 stats instead of Pio k98 stats.

Yup, better K98's is better than giving them any CQC weapons. It makes them into some sort of hybrid squad that is capable of dealing with a lot of different targets when they should have a clear-defined role like the old pak36 did. They can capture points unlike the old AT gun. Which is already a 100x better than the old WH setup where they would be the slowest-cappers in the game.

[Warhawks97]

This squad is still using normal ambush modifiers similar to units like panzerjagers. Which means it oneshot light vehicles from first-strike camouflage bonuses (+25% accuracy, +50% damage). Put them in a building or trench; wait for them to go invisible and have an M8, Halftrack, or any other light vehicle run into them. You will see it get oneshotted by them. AT Boys don't have these ambush modifiers because it got removed from them but these guys still do. They can also make cover wherever they want. So if they get camouflage ability like the AT boys have, then they are going to be invisible wherever they go/hunker down.

They seriously do not need the MP40. They have 80 HP per model making them by far the tankiest unit in the early game and they can kill riflemen squads by themselves no problem in favorable engagements. This Anti-Tank Squad usually turns into my MVP Anti-Infantry unit later on and it has nothing to do with its anti-infantry grenade but that single MP40 managing to do so much work.

The K98 stats could be normal Volks gren K98 stats instead of Pio k98 stats.

Yup, better K98's is better than giving them any CQC weapons. It makes them into some sort of hybrid squad that is capable of dealing with a lot of different targets when they should have a clear-defined role like the old pak36 did. They can capture points unlike the old AT gun. Which is already a 100x better than the old WH setup where they would be the slowest-cappers in the game.

There are three models in this squad. Team-Leader (1x), Team-Loader (2x), team (1x).

Loaders have the two K98 and their ambush boost is x3 accuracy which boosts its accuracy beyond that of Stormtroopers and 50% more damage.
The leader has also 25% accuracy and 50% damage boost for its Mp40. The "Team" has also 50% damage and 25% accuracy boost but listed with K98. The AT rifle is as "upgrade applied" so idk which entity receives the rifle. In any case the ambush boosts apply for the rifle.

In short everything is incredible and far over the top. Its not just 10x better than the AT gun, its 1000x better than the AT gun. The advantages it has over AT gun in summary is:
- Better ambush (trench/house)
- 360 degree fire arc
- beats light tanks
- High rof
- Always good accuracy
- mobility (sprint, retreat)
- cant get flanked
- It can be played a lot more reactive without exposing other areas too much as you can run quick from point to point where its needed.
- It doesnt require such a smart positioning like AT guns, thus it can literally be everywhere, not just at typicall AT gun locations
- Is deadly to the last men, AT gun is not
- hits even without being in ambush unlike at gun
- 4 models with 80 HP (instead of 3 of which only two need to die to make the unit almost useless)
- can build sandbags and thus take cover everywhere.
- Can cap points
- Threatens medium tanks
- short aim time
- no set up time
- Capable cqc in early game (and beyond)
- can still fight inf even when HMG is build as well, old AT gun couldnt due to lack of ammo (standard res games)
- cant get captured by the enemie unlike AT guns, thus the "loss risk factor" is much lower.


Disadvantage:
- Cant hide everywhere it wants.


If anyone feels free to add more to it. List seems endless. I still wait for an explanation that caused the devs to belive that a rifle needs exactly the same stats as an AT gun despite offering tons of advantages already.

[Walderschmidt]

Honestly, I don't have much problems with this WH AT rifle squad.. and the 65 basic range is justified as it can't ambush... Generally, I really can't imagine playing WH without this unit, specifically after the 50.cal buff which makes most Allied vehicles a lot more deadly than they used to be.

[snip]

That's just how I think of it.

It's really hard to make balance decisions in this game because one change tends to lead to multiple after effects. It's never just a simple change.

American tanks, M8s, and even Jeeps now are extra deadly against German infantry with the across the board .50 cal buff/standardization. And I'm okay with this because the Germans have an effectively tool to deal with this. And that's just one thing.

Remember, the Americans can get a cheap .50 cal jeep, a cheap .50 cal jeep with armor, or a cheap jeep with 75mm recoiless rifle that can kill tanks! I've killed plenty of infantry with jeeps and plenty of tanks with jeeps too.

Honestly, I'd prefer to wait for major unit reworks after the doctrines get reworked.

Edit: Looking at Warhawks list - the bonuses to this unit are ridiculous. I still need to think more on this but I think Tiger's suggestion of making the unit a three man squad would go a long way towards making this unit less ridiculous.

Wald

[Warhawks97]

Honestly, I don't have much problems with this WH AT rifle squad.. and the 65 basic range is justified as it can't ambush... Generally, I really can't imagine playing WH without this unit, specifically after the 50.cal buff which makes most Allied vehicles a lot more deadly than they used to be.

[snip]

That's just how I think of it.

It's really hard to make balance decisions in this game because one change tends to lead to multiple after effects. It's never just a simple change.

American tanks, M8s, and even Jeeps now are extra deadly against German infantry with the across the board .50 cal buff/standardization. And I'm okay with this because the Germans have an effectively tool to deal with this. And that's just one thing.

Remember, the Americans can get a cheap .50 cal jeep, a cheap .50 cal jeep with armor, or a cheap jeep with 75mm recoiless rifle that can kill tanks! I've killed plenty of infantry with jeeps and plenty of tanks with jeeps too.

Honestly, I'd prefer to wait for major unit reworks after the doctrines get reworked.

Edit: Looking at Warhawks list - the bonuses to this unit are ridiculous. I still need to think more on this but I think Tiger's suggestion of making the unit a three man squad would go a long way towards making this unit less ridiculous.

Wald

If you read what Menicus and i wrote down about the boosts, you can literally ignore armor aspects on US side bc this unit ignores all armor. So the armor on the armored jeep is now just a cost factor.


The squad doesnt need to two and oneshot stuarts, armored cars and stuff alike with more or less guranteed accuracy. You make it sound as if WH as lost all its 20 mm guns, 50 mm AT and stugs while US got some working cal 50´s which on most units are a pay for upgrade. The Puma is still very resistant to cal 50 shots from the front which means you shred greyhounds and M20. And the 50 mm Puma is also still in place.

So i dont think that the "omg cal 50 kills something" argument justifies such a T1 unit that is capable of total denial untill sherman arrives. Its not meant to replace 20 mm guns and 50 mm AT guns. But thats what it does which in turn means you dont need to spend anything for AT during mid games and rush straight for Tank IV´s and stugs.

[Beast Slayer]

1. Revert it to a rifle, 7,92 mm that can kill vehicles in 4 shots and with a good rof that gets higher the closer the target gets.

Is there a model of working Panzerbüchse 39 which can possibly replace the current grenade firing rifle? The current Granatbüchse 39 have grenade attached to its barrel which is part of the model and its firing animation. I do not think devs know how to change this into the bullet firing rifle unless there is a model without the grenade attachment and bullet firing animation.

Pic of the current rifle:

You can clearly see grenade attached to the rifle which is part of the model. It would look weird if it fired bullets through that grenade.

Im mentioning this mainly because when I reported glitchy FT animation of the Wasp some time ago MarKr said he do not know how to fix this because its part of the model and new animation would need to be created from scratch to replace it and he have no experience with that.

If working model of the Panzerbüchse 39 exists though then ignore this post. My apologies.

I just do not remember seeing any in the mod before or anywhere else.

[Warhawks97]

1. Revert it to a rifle, 7,92 mm that can kill vehicles in 4 shots and with a good rof that gets higher the closer the target gets.

Is there a model of working Panzerbüchse 39 which can possibly replace the current grenade firing rifle? The current Granatbüchse 39 have grenade attached to its barrel which is part of the model and its firing animation. I do not think devs know how to change this into the bullet firing rifle unless there is a model without the grenade attachment and bullet firing animation.

I just do not remember seeing any in the mod before or anywhere else.

Originally it was planned to add the rifle. But since it was planned that it would be able to penetrate Stuart tanks it was proposed to use the GrB 39 in order not to break the realism aspect too much.

So yes, the rifle exist, it was even added before it got changed into a grenade launcher.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2705

Here they said it wont be better than Boys AT but since it was planned that this gun kills light tanks at any range and apparently twice the Boys AT accuracy (and the massive ambush boosts would have been also in place) it would have been already better.

In this Topic Panzerblitz was also wrong when he said more veloccity more spalling. There need to be a vast different in speed. What is true that pen chance increases. But generally, if you have a big shell/round going through armor or a small and lighter one, the bigger one creates more spalling bc itself has more "material mass" that turns into shrappnel as well as pushing more armor mass inside the tank.
The difference is the pen chance where the axis one was apparently slightly better than Boys AT but nothing that would make a substantial difference in game since most units have no armor that is right between these two values.
What is needed is that AT rifles also get penetration drops over distance (but it should be assured they wont bounce of from a solider).


I was against a tier 1 AT rifle squad that would be able to destroy Stuart type tanks and Scotts etc and suggested the same i do now. But devs said something like WH needs such a powerfull AT rifle squad bc they have no chance vs recce or something. So i said that it should use at least a calibre/weapon that could realistically pen these light tanks (even though i said we dont need such a powerfull Rifle). Or what would you think about the game when there is a 7,92x94 mm rifle with max than 33 mm pen that would suddenly two (original plan), now three shot light tanks with over 30 mm slopped armor with a bullet size not bigger than that of a k98 rifle.



As it turns out there is no need that this rifle kills Stuart/chaffe/scotts (in just 3 shots). I mean the Pak 36 couldnt do that either. Thus we can get back to the table of discussion and finally make it was it was planned to be: The Panzerbuchse 39 instead of Granatbüchse 39. And it wouldnt kill light tanks bc there is no need for it to do so.

[MarKr]

Lots of suggestions from many people, nice

I am not against changing the unit but I would like to keep the unit in some way special, so not turn it into "BOYS squad in Wehrmacht uniform".
I would be for lowering the HP and possibly also the number of the soldiers, limiting mobility in some way, lowering accuracy (possibly connect this to the mobility change), tweaks to overall damage, possibly setting range to 60, removing the builder options (so that they cannot create their own cover anywhere)...maybe more things.

However I don't think that it is necessary to nerf damage, accuracy, RoF, aim times and add set up times - all at the same time. This is because there is a difference between "damage" (as a number detracted from target's HP on hit) and "overall damage" (which is affected by many factors). If you have a weapon that deals 10000000000 damage but misses 99.9% of times and fires one shot every 30 seconds while the unit operating the weapon dies from 2 hits from anything, then the weapon (or overall the unit) is just useless.

So perhaps the accuracy could be lower and there could be more severe accuracy penalties when shooting at moving targets also the range could be shorter and the squad would only gain better stats after not moving for some time (let's say 2 seconds or whatever), simulating some kind of "weapon set up time", as Hawks mentioned. After the unit had not moved for the given ammount of time, they could get some solid accuracy boost, possibly some extra range etc. this, in combination with less HP for the soldiers could be enough to set them from their current "god tier" to some more appropriate level - they would hit less often even in the "set up" mode, they would not be able to "hunt" vehicles because on the move they would hit even less often and during the set up time it would be possible to rush them with vehicles and even if they managed to set up the gun, a moving vehicle would still be harder to hit.

If the current main problems are addressed (accuracy, high HP etc.) then I see no reason why the squad should not be able to damage light tanks too.

Just one more idea...we will need to discuss it more internally.

A few more points I would like to address:

This squad is still using normal ambush modifiers similar to units like panzerjagers

This was overlooked and is not intended and will be removed.

Is there a model of working Panzerbüchse 39

There is one and we had it in one of the betas before we changed it for GrB39. However as I recall there was some visual glitching when we tried to use PzB and GrB models at the same time I am not 100% sure but I think there was some problem like that (both models coming from same author so they used some same files and thus glitched together? really not sure). However even if they worked fine together we would run into complaints from some players who have fundamental problem with guns having unrealistic performance and keep bringing it up every time they get the chance - the GrB indeed was modified PzB but it was no "field" modification. If I'm not mistaken, the PzB39 became obsolete to such level that they were shipped back to factories, there they were modified into grenade rifles and then shipped back to the front. So they did not work like those grenade launcher attachments on Garands and other rifles and thus having a PzB with an ability to shoot grenades would be off.

[Warhawks97]

Lots of suggestions from many people, nice

I am not against changing the unit but I would like to keep the unit in some way special, so not turn it into "BOYS squad in Wehrmacht uniform".
I would be for lowering the HP and possibly also the number of the soldiers, limiting mobility in some way, lowering accuracy (possibly connect this to the mobility change), tweaks to overall damage, possibly setting range to 60, removing the builder options (so that they cannot create their own cover anywhere)...maybe more things.

However I don't think that it is necessary to nerf damage, accuracy, RoF, aim times and add set up times - all at the same time. This is because there is a difference between "damage" (as a number detracted from target's HP on hit) and "overall damage" (which is affected by many factors). If you have a weapon that deals 10000000000 damage but misses 99.9% of times and fires one shot every 30 seconds while the unit operating the weapon dies from 2 hits from anything, then the weapon (or overall the unit) is just useless.

So perhaps the accuracy could be lower and there could be more severe accuracy penalties when shooting at moving targets also the range could be shorter and the squad would only gain better stats after not moving for some time (let's say 2 seconds or whatever), simulating some kind of "weapon set up time", as Hawks mentioned. After the unit had not moved for the given ammount of time, they could get some solid accuracy boost, possibly some extra range etc. this, in combination with less HP for the soldiers could be enough to set them from their current "god tier" to some more appropriate level - they would hit less often even in the "set up" mode, they would not be able to "hunt" vehicles because on the move they would hit even less often and during the set up time it would be possible to rush them with vehicles and even if they managed to set up the gun, a moving vehicle would still be harder to hit.

If the current main problems are addressed (accuracy, high HP etc.) then I see no reason why the squad should not be able to damage light tanks too.

So whats the reason why this thing must be able to damage/destroy light tanks so easily? Stuarts etc suffer enough from late deployment, weak gun and 50 mm/75 mm guns everywhere... 50 mm AT gun, 50 mm Puma, 75 mm stubby on HT and Pumas, 28 mm on cars and HT, 75 mm Pak 40 on Puma and HT.... did i forget something? More than 50% of all t2/3 units are "stuart killers" already.
Light tanks are thus already rare enough and if they occure then just once per game.
I mean have you ever seen anyone complaining about too OP stuarts or chaffes? Recce is a thing that could create headaches but such units are everywhere. Hetzer, Inf Jumbo, Priest, Stupa..... They all can cause headaches but that doesnt mean that we need to add a brain dead counter to each of them.


So bring back old Rifle but unable to reliable pen light tanks and even if they pen it wont soak half or 1/3 HP from them.

And its not just this one but Rifles dont need to act like AT guns in terms of range etc. The Rof is ok but they should not deliver the damage as Guns do.
As last resort option they could fire a HEAT grenade just like the US Rifle squad and things would be fine.


And Perhaps schwimms/jeep wont die oneshot as Menicus suggested. And for proper long range engagment there needs to be some sort of either ability to boost accuracy in trade of for something or as you suggested some sort of deployment time for long range fighting.


But pls, just try to find a place between guns and Handheld AT so that all three types have their pros/cons instead of one is simply better than the other.
I belive in your creativity.

There is one and we had it in one of the betas before we changed it for GrB39. However as I recall there was some visual glitching when we tried to use PzB and GrB models at the same time I am not 100% sure but I think there was some problem like that (both models coming from same author so they used some same files and thus glitched together? really not sure). However even if they worked fine together we would run into complaints from some players who have fundamental problem with guns having unrealistic performance and keep bringing it up every time they get the chance - the GrB indeed was modified PzB but it was no "field" modification. If I'm not mistaken, the PzB39 became obsolete to such level that they were shipped back to factories, there they were modified into grenade rifles and then shipped back to the front. So they did not work like those grenade launcher attachments on Garands and other rifles and thus having a PzB with an ability to shoot grenades would be off.

As far as i can remember is that you wanted it to beat light tanks as well. So in order not to make it look to unrealistic you changed it into a grenade launcher.


And yes, it was not a field modification. They shortned the barrel and put the Schießbecher on it (which still is the same used by K98 and even stgs).
But if you go this way then even the GrB 39 was withdrawn from all fronts since early 44 onwards bc K98 could use the grenade launcher as well. Also It had no real range advantage over Schrecks (which became available much greater numbers. The GrB 39 production figures were actually veeery low) with a max effective range of 300 meters for the grenade launcher.
And finally the grenades fly staright just like those of Garands HEAT which is also not realistic. So its more forgiveable to turn it back to a rifle with Grenade launcher ability like Garands have it even though it was no field modification.

[MarKr]

So whats the reason why this thing must be able to damage/destroy light tanks so easily? Stuarts etc suffer enough from late deployment, weak gun and 50 mm/75 mm guns everywhere... 50 mm AT gun, 50 mm Puma, 75 mm stubby on HT and Pumas, 28 mm on cars and HT, 75 mm Pak 40 on Puma and HT.... did i forget something? More than 50% of all t2/3 units are "stuart killers" already.

Changing the GrB to PzB will not change this in any way. This about what I mentioned already - light tanks don't have any specific place in the game's tier system. Tiers are (or at least should be) made in such a way that each side has comparable types of units with comparable performance at about the same time (in case that nobody fucks up during the match) and the performance is also connected to price of the units. If Halftracks and Armored cars are "tier 2" and medium tanks are "tier 3" then light tanks are "tier 2.5" - they have firepower comparable to halftracks/armored cars of Allies, their durability is slightly better than HTs/ACs but their costs are higher (in case of Chaffee it is reaching the cost of medium tanks) and compared to HTs/ACs require further investment into upgrades to become more useful. All this in combination with the fact that they arrive when there are already units that can easily one-shot them leads to a conclusion that they are simply not worhwhile investment. In order to make them more useful, they need to be changed conceptually, if the rifle can or cannot penetrate the tanks does not make much difference when there already all those other units you mentioned that can tear their ass anyway. For this reason I don't think that using light tanks as an argument against the rifle makes a valid point.

As far as i can remember is that you wanted it to beat light tanks as well. So in order not to make it look to unrealistic you changed it into a grenade launcher.

We did not "change it" in a sense "we reworked it" - we had two separate models, one for PzB and one for GrB. After the feedback the PzB received, we switched the models. As i said, I think there was some problem with it when the files of both models were in the game...something displayed wrong or something, I don't remember details anymore :/

[Krieger Blitzer]

I am not against changing the unit but I would like to keep the unit in some way special, so not turn it into "BOYS squad in Wehrmacht uniform".
I would be for lowering the HP and possibly also the number of the soldiers, limiting mobility in some way, lowering accuracy (possibly connect this to the mobility change), tweaks to overall damage, possibly setting range to 60, removing the builder options (so that they cannot create their own cover anywhere)...maybe more things.

in my humble opinion, i don't think that "making things different" work this way... i'm very curious over your definition of "making things different" because for me it sounds really unclear.

For example;
Allowing 1 unit to crawl with Shreck when they pick it from the ground (PE Sabotage squad) while on the other hand disallowing another infantry unit (StormTroops) from doing the same for god knows why.. even despite they require veterancy unlock to crawl... is simply a wrong/corrupted concept of how you would want to make things different.

I mean; they are all elite soldiers, and they all have good muscles...

The same way, the WH AT rifle squad carries an AT rifle and is supposedly serving the same purpose as the CW AT boys.. thus, you can't make them "different" by stripping them off their own role!!!

[MarKr]

For example;
Allowing 1 unit to crawl with Shreck when they pick it from the ground (PE Sabotage squad) while on the other hand disallowing another infantry unit (StormTroops) from doing the same for god knows why.. even despite they require veterancy unlock to crawl... is simply a wrong/corrupted concept of how you would want to make things different.

I mean; they are all elite soldiers, and they all have good muscles...

You compare Stormtroopers to different types of infantry, both are infantry, both can crawl and both can obtain handheld AT + you top it off with "both are elite and have muscles" so it sounds solid. Where it starts falling appart are the points where they are NOT similar - specifically their role in the game, HP and overall durability etc.
Storms are frontline infantry, they have the most HP of all infantry in the game (95 per soldier; Sabo squad has 80), they gain damage reduction later and have wide array of possible weapon upgrades which allow them to be long-range focused or short range focused, gain extra anti-tank capabilities or combine them somehow together. The other infantry (now you speak about the PE Sabotage squad, before you kept talking aboout Infiltration rangers) you mention has a completely different role - they are not a front line combat unit, their combat equipment is only effective at short ranges and even at short ranges the combat can go wrong due to limited number of squad members. They are there for infiltration, laying mines, sabotaging stuff and in general more of a hit-and-run tactics. I don't see how shooting a schreck from a crawling position does not fit into the hit-and-run stuff, especially when the Sabo squad has just 4 soldiers so after shooting the weapon, they have to retreat anyway.

So your whole reasoning behind this has many holes - you basically say:
"they are both infantry, both are elites, both can use crawl so both should be able to crawl with schrecks"
If I apply same thinking to different two units I can say:
"Churchill and Tiger are tanks, they are both heavy tanks and both use a cannon so their cannons should perform the same"
I bet you would not support this suggestion (to make Churchill gun same strong as Tiger's or Tiger's same weak as Churchill's) and you would say that they are different tanks with different roles and purposes and I would agree, and same it is in the situation you brought up - different units, different purpose, different capabilities. The fact that you can find some similar or same features between units does not mean that the rest of what they can do must be the same too.

The same way, the WH AT rifle squad carries an AT rifle and is supposedly serving the same purpose as the CW AT boys.. thus, you can't make them "different" by stripping them off their own role!!!

This is misinterpreted in the similar way. The purpose of the AT rifle squad IS fighting vehicles. They CAN do it in their current state (even too well, as this topic shows) and WILL BE ABLE to do it after the changes too. I said before that I would like to avoid turning the WM squad in "clone of BOYS" and I want to avoid it because, as already said, the WM AT squad CAN do its job but they don't have to do the job the same way as BOYS. Does the WM squad need exactly the same abilities and options as BOYS squad to keep doing its job? Does it need to have static mode and camo to effectively counter vehicles? No it doesn't. So get your facts straight - nobody is talking about "role stripping", the role remains, only the way to fulfill the role can be different.

[Warhawks97]

So whats the reason why this thing must be able to damage/destroy light tanks so easily? Stuarts etc suffer enough from late deployment, weak gun and 50 mm/75 mm guns everywhere... 50 mm AT gun, 50 mm Puma, 75 mm stubby on HT and Pumas, 28 mm on cars and HT, 75 mm Pak 40 on Puma and HT.... did i forget something? More than 50% of all t2/3 units are "stuart killers" already.

Changing the GrB to PzB will not change this in any way. This about what I mentioned already - light tanks don't have any specific place in the game's tier system. Tiers are (or at least should be) made in such a way that each side has comparable types of units with comparable performance at about the same time (in case that nobody fucks up during the match) and the performance is also connected to price of the units. If Halftracks and Armored cars are "tier 2" and medium tanks are "tier 3" then light tanks are "tier 2.5" - they have firepower comparable to halftracks/armored cars of Allies, their durability is slightly better than HTs/ACs but their costs are higher (in case of Chaffee it is reaching the cost of medium tanks) and compared to HTs/ACs require further investment into upgrades to become more useful. All this in combination with the fact that they arrive when there are already units that can easily one-shot them leads to a conclusion that they are simply not worhwhile investment. In order to make them more useful, they need to be changed conceptually, if the rifle can or cannot penetrate the tanks does not make much difference when there already all those other units you mentioned that can tear their ass anyway. For this reason I don't think that using light tanks as an argument against the rifle makes a valid point.

Lol, so you are basically saying "There are already tons of units able to kill a Stuart, it doesnt matter if we have one more which can do that."
In short they are worse than earlier avaialble vehicles bc lack speed, come later, cost more, have not more or less firepower (no cal 50) and live perhaps one second longer. Awesome.
Axis vehicles with 50 mm/75 mm tank canons are also kind of "t 2.5". They are hybrids as well. They dont offer more survivability, but at least massive firepower. Stuart currently provides neither and a rifle killing them doesnt makes it better at all.
And since US dont have AT rifles and as Boys CW can get oneshoted by one of their 75 mm HE shells while these vehicles are being able to stand 5 CW shots (including missings) it wouldnt be wrong if stuarts and stuff wouldnt get killed outright by a rifle. US is forced all the way up to tanks to get new counter weapons. The 37 mm might helps defending against vehicles, but you need to get vehicles that can engage axis 20 mm vehicles (which accidentially happens to be the stuart sometimes) and 57 mm AT to have proper defense against early Tank IV´s (and even Pumas) and stugs.

But thx for making this clear. Sometimes i wonder if you can you even "hear" yourself?
If this rifle wouldnt be able to kill stuarts so easily they would at least force the enemie to get 50 mm AT or other counter units like Pumas and HT´s with 50/75 mm guns which means they would be forced to invest something instead of just sticking up on one unit untill shermans arrive which would force them for the first time to invest into something else, usually stugs (which in turn come much faster since medium AT spending isnt neccessary anymore)

And yes, light tanks dont have any specific role and are allied specific but they are Tanks!. The term light tank and tank is a bit difficult in ww2. In 1939/40 a 15 ton tank was a tank. In 42 it was a light tank bc technology advanced to quickly.
30 mm armor was a medium tank in 40 but in 44 even 50 mm unslopped armor was rather a "lower class medium tank".
This rifle is a weapon of 39 (The GrB from 41/42). Thus its designed to beat tanks with usually not much more than 20 mm of armor which falls in 42 under the category "armored vehicle". The Puma of 44 had more armor than the early war "tanks". Thus we could even call the Puma "light tank".
WH here has the Tank Iv D with 30 mm armor and would thus be a light tank like stuart. Stuart has better mobility, Tank IV D vastly better firepower.
Yet Boys AT cant beat the tank IV D "light tank" (as it would be called in 44) but german rifle beats Stuarts.



Meanwhile WH just sticks with a stupid rifle that works during offense just as well as during defense. No special medium AT spending, no further offensive anti vehicle spendings... nothing... you go save untill shermans arrive.

Every other faction needs to spend something all the time till "full tec" to be prepared and combat ready, but WH just sits there and does nothing untill stugs are available (some went even straight for tigers/Panthers recently without any Puma/Stug/50 mm AT)

I wonder what would happen if US would receive a unit or CW boys boosted up to a point where they dont need to invest anything into units untill Firefly/easy eight/jackson arrives.

Damn, even as PE i have to go all the steps from 37 mm AT to 28 mm to 50 mm AT to Hetzer in most cases or i risk to get overruned at some point when not doing so.



Edit:

This is misinterpreted in the similar way. The purpose of the AT rifle squad IS fighting vehicles. They CAN do it in their current state (even too well, as this topic shows) and WILL BE ABLE to do it after the changes too. I said before that I would like to avoid turning the WM squad in "clone of BOYS" and I want to avoid it because, as already said, the WM AT squad CAN do its job but they don't have to do the job the same way as BOYS. Does the WM squad need exactly the same abilities and options as BOYS squad to keep doing its job? Does it need to have static mode and camo to effectively counter vehicles? No it doesn't. So get your facts straight - nobody is talking about "role stripping", the role remains, only the way to fulfill the role can be different.

yes, CW does not have an light AT gun and their whole vehicle defense consist of those dudes. The Axis could co-exist with 37 mm AT, thus more support role/flank protection/vehicle harrassment.

CW´s would kind of 3-4 shot light vehicles (2 shot schwimms) and crit chances, WH would require 4-5/6 shots to kill a vehicle (2-3 shots for jeep, Ht´s die faster, armored cars take more) and crit chances while 37 mm guns could still deliver the heavy blow. The Axis one could fire a HEAT shot like US rifles to damage/kill stuarts but with 45 range and thus just support 50 mm guns, not replace them.

But your understanding of "different is" that WH AT rifles are able to replace all medium AT while all other factions (esspecially CW Boys) cant do that.


So there are tons options to make them different from CW boys (weaker weapon that can accompanies 37 mm AT guns but with strong support ability the CW´s dont have).

[Krieger Blitzer]

You compare Stormtroopers to different types of infantry, both are infantry, both can crawl and both can obtain handheld AT + you top it off with "both are elite and have muscles" so it sounds solid. Where it starts falling appart are the points where they are NOT similar - specifically their role in the game, HP and overall durability etc.
Storms are frontline infantry, they have the most HP of all infantry in the game (95 per soldier; Sabo squad has 80), they gain damage reduction later and have wide array of possible weapon upgrades which allow them to be long-range focused or short range focused, gain extra anti-tank capabilities or combine them somehow together. The other infantry (now you speak about the PE Sabotage squad, before you kept talking aboout Infiltration rangers) you mention has a completely different role - they are not a front line combat unit, their combat equipment is only effective at short ranges and even at short ranges the combat can go wrong due to limited number of squad members. They are there for infiltration, laying mines, sabotaging stuff and in general more of a hit-and-run tactics.

I get your point, MarKr.
However, judging their role is quite debate-able... I mean, yes! StormTroops are frontline infantry.. but only until the veterancy unlock, that's when they become infiltrative infantry units as well. And that's what you pay the Command Points for! They have better HP and so on, but they also cost more and require a lot of ammunition to upgrade them in order to become combat effective...

I don't see how shooting a schreck from a crawling position does not fit into the hit-and-run stuff, especially when the Sabo squad has just 4 soldiers so after shooting the weapon, they have to retreat anyway.

And I don't see how shooting a Shreck from a crawling position after paying 5 Command Points, is somehow a big deal...
Not to mention that - by the way - the Demo Storm squad (4 men) also loses the crawl ability as soon as they pick a Shreck!
You speak how it's justified for the PE Sabotage squad since they are only 4 men, well.. what about the Demo squad then?
There is clearly a flaw here, something is not right.

So your whole reasoning behind this has many holes - you basically say:
"they are both infantry, both are elites, both can use crawl so both should be able to crawl with schrecks"
If I apply same thinking to different two units I can say:
"Churchill and Tiger are tanks, they are both heavy tanks and both use a cannon so their cannons should perform the same"
I bet you would not support this suggestion (to make Churchill gun same strong as Tiger's or Tiger's same weak as Churchill's) and you would say that they are different tanks with different roles and purposes and I would agree, and same it is in the situation you brought up - different units, different purpose, different capabilities. The fact that you can find some similar or same features between units does not mean that the rest of what they can do must be the same too.

If their cannons are the same, they should behave the same... That's a totally different aspect.
My example on the other hand is more in this following direction;
If they are both heavy tanks, then they should both be able to crush hedgerows and trees.. just as they already do it now.

This is misinterpreted in the similar way. The purpose of the AT rifle squad IS fighting vehicles. They CAN do it in their current state (even too well, as this topic shows) and WILL BE ABLE to do it after the changes too. I said before that I would like to avoid turning the WM squad in "clone of BOYS" and I want to avoid it because, as already said, the WM AT squad CAN do its job. However, does it need the exatly the same abilities and options as BOYS squad to keep doing its job? Does it need to have static mode and camo to effectively counter vehicles? No it doesn't. So get your facts straight - nobody is talking about "role stripping", the role remains, only the way to fulfill the role can be different.

So, to make my point even clearer.. here is another example; You can't remove the camo ability from the Axis 50mm AT guns, under the excuse of "making them different" from the Allied 57mm AT guns of the same tier...

So, the WH AT rifle squad would be nearly useless without camo ability if the basic range and HP were reduced.. etc.
just imagine the CW AT Boys without camo ability and you would then quickly realize what I mean... They will never get the chance to catch the fast moving light vehicles or score any hits this way.. since they can never ambush them, and they also wouldn't have any range advantage either!

I hope you can get my point... I get yours, though.