AT WH Infantry squad Blitz Doctrine (5.1.8 beta)

[mofetagalactica]

Copy/Paste of changes that where made to WM AT rifle squad on (5.1.8 beta) :

Sumary :

-Blitz doc only
-Less HP
-No mp40
-46mm grenade removed
-Max range 60
-Basic accuracy dropped by 15% at all ranges and misses more when vehicle is moving

I think the nerf has been too strong for this one even more since it got moved into blitz, wich has caused to be used less often, also changes and building options for WH where added in last beta patches wich made this unit even less popular.
It is true that this unit made obsolete a few early starting units and opening for US and CW, wich are being seen and shining more often in latest beta games after the pak37 coming back and having more chances to flank and avoid being shooted by it wich is something good, thought for the sake of the effort of the devs in adding this new unit, here have some ideas about making this unit more attractive again without completely denying the early start.

AT rifle squad recommendations for future patches:

-Stays as blitz doc only.
-HP buff.
-X1 MP40.
-Max range 60/65.
-Basic accuracy dropped by 10% at all ranges and misses more when vehicle is moving. *from 15%*
-46mm grenade stays removed
-Limited to 1 squad.

[Redgaarden]

-Basic accuracy dropped by 10% at all ranges and misses more when vehicle is moving.

Is the only real reason I get at squads is because the vehicle is circling around my ATG. I disagree with that change.

-HP buff.

Why?

-Limited to 1 squad.

Dont see why such a weak unit needs to limited

-Max range 60/65.

Dont think this is needed.

-X1 MP40.
-Available after battle phase.

Id prefer having this unit early to deal with jeep shenaigans. And I dont really want a mp40 on it again.

[Black Panther]

I agree with Figree, with limitation to 1, it will be a lot less pain in the ass, tho trying to catch them with Garands will be still pain in the ass, when taking in considiration their buff to HP

[mofetagalactica]

Red, the original idea about this unit was to be able to deal with circling recces, not to competely obliterate jeeps, dingos and brens on the early game, wich is also why should be limited to 1 so two of them dosn't make the map unflankable by early vehicles.

[Warhawks97]

1. No limits again... the game gets filled with limits more and more. And esspecially "1" limit is stupid for such units.
2. We will never get AT rifles balanced when it remains a mix of a rifle and a gun
3. Why is it supposed to fight recces? That idea was just dump from the beginning. When recce comes you can have 50 mm AT gun as well as HT`s with 75 mm guns or Pumas which proof to be a good counter. Red is right when he says that AT rifles should be against light vehicles like jeep and lightly armored vehicles, not to counter light tanks.

Red, the original idea about this unit was to be able to deal with circling recces, not to competely obliterate jeeps, dingos and brens on the early game, wich is also why should be limited to 1 so two of them dosn't make the map unflankable by early vehicles.

It was not the original idea as far as i know. It was that jeep and rifles could outflank/overrun WH and thus this unit came. That it became also a light tank counter was just a bad idea.

I would afterall make the AT rifle sqaud a support unit for 37 mm AT gun for BK doc so that this doc can be played more aggressively in early game. The squad would get the AT rifle (its currently a grenade launcher) and effective against jeeps and bren carrier and such kind of vehicles (but not oneshot kill, rather two shot kill) But ineffective vs recce against which you can use other vehicles and guns. Esspecially in HR games it should be easy to get enough 50 mm AT guns out.
So HP buff, MP40, x1 limit and all that is really not needed when this unit would be a support unit in BK doc to deal better with jeeps and stuff.

[mofetagalactica]

1. No limits again... the game gets filled with limits more and more. And esspecially "1" limit is stupid for such units.
2. We will never get AT rifles balanced when it remains a mix of a rifle and a gun
3. Why is it supposed to fight recces? That idea was just dump from the beginning. When recce comes you can have 50 mm AT gun as well as HT`s with 75 mm guns or Pumas which proof to be a good counter. Red is right when he says that AT rifles should be against light vehicles like jeep and lightly armored vehicles, not to counter light tanks.

Red, the original idea about this unit was to be able to deal with circling recces, not to competely obliterate jeeps, dingos and brens on the early game, wich is also why should be limited to 1 so two of them dosn't make the map unflankable by early vehicles.

It was not the original idea as far as i know. It was that jeep and rifles could outflank/overrun WH and thus this unit came. That it became also a light tank counter was just a bad idea.

I would afterall make the AT rifle sqaud a support unit for 37 mm AT gun for BK doc so that this doc can be played more aggressively in early game. The squad would get the AT rifle (its currently a grenade launcher) and effective against jeeps and bren carrier and such kind of vehicles (but not oneshot kill, rather two shot kill) But ineffective vs recce against which you can use other vehicles and guns. Esspecially in HR games it should be easy to get enough 50 mm AT guns out.
So HP buff, MP40, x1 limit and all that is really not needed when this unit would be a support unit in BK doc to deal better with jeeps and stuff.

You mean about making the weapon more of a AT gun kinda like AT boys instead of a grenade launcher?
I also had been messaged about an idea of make them kinda like how support weapon works, do you remember the 30cal ranger squad that has fast deployable mg?
Well one of the ideas was to make it kinda like that, a faster deployable weapon that can be circled but not that easily but stronger with pen capabilities between 37mm and 50mm.
So im pretty much up for any changes or reworks to this, just make a clean post here about what stats could get and how it could work, we can discuss from that adding edits to it and finding a point in the middle.
And by the way the recce comes earlier than 75mm HT wich needs asault phase to be built, it pretty much comes after the puma 20mm, the earliest thing available to fight those are the manned 50mm at and the 28mm PE car at the momment.

[Warhawks97]

You mean about making the weapon more of a AT gun kinda like AT boys instead of a grenade launcher?

Rifle, just Rifle... not gun, not Grenade launcher but a Rifle. It was a 7,92 mm AT rifle called "Panzerbüchse". But it was soon insufficient against most tanks. Later in the war the Rifles got changed into a grenade launcher (basically using the same cup you could mount on K98). In Game we have this Grenade launcher with the handling characteristics of a rifle and a Damage system of an AT gun. It cant be more sci-fi.
Remember the discussion few months ago about this weapon? Many have exressed concerns about or their "dislike" of AT rifles that use the one or two shot kill mentality of AT guns and thus creating an "AT-rifle-gun" combining advantages of both systems. For that i reason i also still dislike CW Boys AT (In the very far past of BK they had higher rof but less damage per hit but then got changed).

I also had been messaged about an idea of make them kinda like how support weapon works, do you remember the 30cal ranger squad that has fast deployable mg?
Well one of the ideas was to make it kinda like that, a faster deployable weapon that can be circled but not that easily but stronger with pen capabilities between 37mm and 50mm.
So im pretty much up for any changes or reworks to this, just make a clean post here about what stats could get and how it could work, we can discuss from that adding edits to it and finding a point in the middle.
And by the way the recce comes earlier than 75mm HT wich needs asault phase to be built, it pretty much comes after the puma 20mm, the earliest thing available to fight those are the manned 50mm at and the 28mm PE car at the momment.

For me AT rifles are (or would be) more a flexible support unit. They wouldnt have the damage of guns but in return being a lot more flexible with 360 degree fire arc (even though some short set up time). Also having a higher rate of fire (however axis AT rifle having no magzin with short reload after shot and CW with magazin but longer reload once magazin depleted).
In short the Axis AT rifle would be a cheap (180 MP or so), mass deployable (perhaps two rifles in a squad, no unit limit), BK doc only, support unit to protect flanks and to damage/deter enemie vehicles, and not to be a predator unit that hunts vehicles with a crazy "Grenade-launcher-Rifle-Gun".

-The accuracy would thus be arround 40% at max range.
- Deployment Time of 1 or 2 sec
- 360 degree fire arc
- Single shot rifle (No Magazin)
- Mass deployable (Two rifles per squad)
- cheap (180 MP)
- Unit can be deployed alongside Pak 36
- Can cause critical damages to vehicles
- Can one or two shot jeeps, two-three shot dingo/bren, More shots to kill armored vehicles.
- Not effective vs light tanks.


Units like the 28 mm and stubby 75 mm Halftracks could be earlier available to counter recces.

[CGarr]

Warhawk's resolution seems reasonable, I don't like the idea of quickly hunting down and 2-hit killing armored light vehicles so a set up time makes sense, but having the performance of a high pen rifle like the boys rather than a grenade launcher would hopefully mean more consistency. On a similar note, having 2 AT rifles in the squad would help with this, as even if they have the craptastic accuracy that boy's AT do, they'd still be a deterrent due to there being at least some chance that both would hit and severely damage and possibly get a crit the vehicle (or instakill in the case of anything bren-sized or smaller). The brit version should be changed to mirror this in terms of the damage and having a 4 man squad with 2 rifles.

Neither squad should be able to do significant damage to tanks of any kind, but they should be able to get mobility crits (detracking), possibly by using munitions similar to the track breaker that the AT halftrack on PE has in vanilla. Light AT guns on all platforms should also get this ability, but I'll make a seperate topic for that in a bit since I had some stuff I wanted to say about them.

Long story short, AT rifle squads on WH and CW should have 4 men, 2 at rifles, the above-mentioned damage model, and maybe a mobility crit ability to keep them relevant late game, and both should need to use a stationary mode similar to the current one on boys if they want to have a decent chance of hitting anything.

[mofetagalactica]

I can't agree with that idea warhawks, spammable being able to one shots jeeps, double rof than at boys. I don't know how that works on your head, peopple don't play maps as big as you want and with that idea you're completely denying jeeps, dingos ,wasp and bren carrier with complete 0 skill.

Search the way around it, because even AT'boys has been limited for balance reasons, the unit that you just explained will make the starting game boring as fuck unless you play 2v2 in goodwood.

[CGarr]

@Figree If they're still killing stuff too fast and completely negating light vehicle play with the changes Hawks and I were proposing, we could also just change it so that the unit is purely focused around getting mobility kills while retaining the shots to "kill" model listed above. 1 shot to immobilize jeeps, 2 for dingos and brens, 3 for anything bigger, and a muni ability that can immobilize anything in 1 but which takes longer and has a significantly shorter range. Once most light vehicles are immobilize they're pretty much fucked if nobody can repair them but you might be able to smoke them out and prevent AT field guns, AT nades, or rockets from finishing the job. AT squad could even be made to be capable of killing an immobilized vehicle with more shots (like 3 more after immobilizing one to simulate killing crews).

If the immobilize thing is too OP the unit limit for AT squads would make sense, maybe 1 or 2 per person. Any more than 2 in the early game would probably be a death sentence for the player using them and I could see the immobilize shit being annoying if there's a lot of them.

[Warhawks97]

Warhawk's resolution seems reasonable, I don't like the idea of quickly hunting down and 2-hit killing armored light vehicles so a set up time makes sense, but having the performance of a high pen rifle like the boys rather than a grenade launcher would hopefully mean more consistency. On a similar note, having 2 AT rifles in the squad would help with this, as even if they have the craptastic accuracy that boy's AT do, they'd still be a deterrent due to there being at least some chance that both would hit and severely damage and possibly get a crit the vehicle (or instakill in the case of anything bren-sized or smaller). The brit version should be changed to mirror this in terms of the damage and having a 4 man squad with 2 rifles.

thx.

Neither squad should be able to do significant damage to tanks of any kind, but they should be able to get mobility crits (detracking), possibly by using munitions similar to the track breaker that the AT halftrack on PE has in vanilla. Light AT guns on all platforms should also get this ability, but I'll make a seperate topic for that in a bit since I had some stuff I wanted to say about them.

chances to crit, yes, but not for paying something in exchange for 100% crit chance. In the past lots of unit had a treadbreaker ability such as Boys AT, AT squads and others, but it was abusive. The issue is that you get that guranteed immo crit. In war nothing is guranteed. You can try to aim for tracks but you wont always hit them. So paying stuff so that a gunner gets a god like aiming ability sucks.
We had ideas arround that we can switch between aiming for track/engine or aiming for dealing damage. Having "aiming for crits" activated would increase changes to detrack a unit or dealing crits, but lowering the chances for high damage. In "normal mode" they would aim for the main body of a vehicles trying to deal maximum damage.

That switch wouldnt cost anything and would be applied to a unit permanently. This way we avoid "100%" chances in exchange for a payment and only change possible damage in exchange for a higher crit chance.

Long story short, AT rifle squads on WH and CW should have 4 men, 2 at rifles, the above-mentioned damage model, and maybe a mobility crit ability to keep them relevant late game, and both should need to use a stationary mode similar to the current one on boys if they want to have a decent chance of hitting anything.

The difference here is that Boys AT use a 13,2 mm calibre and Axis AT rifle 7,92. The German gets two rifles bc of that and due to the fact that the rifle has no magazin. Each bullet (which are placed in a box right next to the barrel) has to be put manually into the barrel. Reload however is short. Two rifles ensure continues fire with good chances to score enough hits in a reasonable time. CW Boys have a magazin.
CW Boys would deal more damage than WH one but less as they do now (no more oneshot kills vs jeeps or two shot kills vs heavier armored vehicles). They might also get two rifles as CW doesnt have an AT gun. The squad would also cost more than WH one ofc.

I can't agree with that idea warhawks, spammable being able to one shots jeeps, double rof than at boys. I don't know how that works on your head, peopple don't play maps as big as you want and with that idea you're completely denying jeeps, dingos ,wasp and bren carrier with complete 0 skill.

Search the way around it, because even AT'boys has been limited for balance reasons, the unit that you just explained will make the starting game boring as fuck unless you play 2v2 in goodwood.

why should it work only on big maps? It would be the difficult part to decide how many squads you need. Getting too many means getting overruned by infantry. Having not enough would mean you wont be able to effectively stop enemie vehicles. Everything is balanced by cost.
The ammount of rifles per squad go up, the damage per rifle down. This way its a lot less "no hit no damage, hit and kill" extrem that bothers both. User of rifles can be annoyed by not rolling hits at all, the vehicle user gets annoyed when rifles role a lucky hit right with the first shot against a far away fast moving jeep. I saw jeeps escaping three shots, and others dying before they had a chance to see them. AT guns are different in so far as that they are more predicatble in their locations, not so aggressive in usage and thus leaving vehicles some space to operate.

[CGarr]

Track breaker doesnt have to be a 100% chance, 50% would still be better than nothing, but higher sounded more reasonable with the range i had in mind (panzerfaust or nonvet grenadier range) and with stationary mode being a must to have a chance of hitting anything. It'd function like a really expensive (manpower cost of squad, muni cost of abilitiy) demo charge/mine that has a relatively wide range but which can only get mobility crits and does barely (if any) damage. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me and realism doesn't seem to be a huge focus anyways given how ineffective US infantry AT and field guns are most of the time relative to real life. A man with a bazooka should be able to hit the tracks/roadwheels at least half of the time at the ranges they are generally forced to fire at, nevermind someone with a (much easier to aim) AT rifle. As such, it doesn't seem unrealistic to say that a man in a stationary firing position with one of said rifles and all the time in the world to take their shot (assuming they're cloaked) would have a good chance of getting a mobility kill on something or at least severely crippling a tanks ability to move, even more so with non-tracked vehicles.