All of these are true but at the same time it is intentionally designed this way - this is one Axis doctrine that doesn't go with the played out "Axis have fewer units but stronger" cliché but takes a different direction. This doctrine has some of the strongest tanks in the game and also some of the strongest artillery and so the intended weakness of this doctrine is weaker infantry play. When we say "weaker" it doesn't mean "this doctrine cannot do absolutely anything against infantry" but more of the "this doctrine needs to put in more efforts when managing infantry". The intention here is that you have plenty of infantry that is relatively cheap to build and also cheap and quick to reinforce. You may also have noticed that Vsturm description says:
1) You can increase their squad size from 5 up to 7
This increases the time the Vsturms squad can remain in a fight. It also increases their "DPS" as more rifles are shooting at the opponent and this adds in even more when combined with other abilities of this doctrine.
2) You can boost their performance with the Officer
The Officer should be always around Vsturms where you expect some more severe fighting. With the Officer unlock he provides more XP to Vsturms around him which makes them get veterancy faster and once they get Vet1, they no longer auto-retreat when they take too many losses.
Basic Officer bonuses to infantry around:
- received suppression -15%
- received damage -5%
- accuracy +12.5%
- weapon damage +2.5%
Officer bonuses at Vet2 (stacks with the basic bonuses):
- XP gained from kills +10%
- received suppression -15%
- weapon cooldown -10% (delay between shots/bursts reduced by 10% = weapons shoot faster)
- weapon reload time -10%
- received damage -15%
Officer bonuses at Vet4 (stacks with previous bonuses):
- Weapon damage +15%
Office unlock bonus (stacks wi other aura bonuses):
- XP gained from kills for Volksturms +25%
3) You can get the "Zeal" unlock
This unlock increases combat stats of each soldier in the squad when the squad takes losses. For enemy squad a dead soldier always means a loss of 1/6 (for 6-men squads, obviously) of the squad's combat power. These bonuses mean they lose less combat efficiency per dead soldier.
With 5 men squads:
- bonuses when squad has fewer than 5 men:
-- received suppression -5%
-- accuracy +5%
- bonuses when squad has fewer than 4 men:
-- accuracy +5%
-- received damage -5%
-- received suppression -15%
-- weapon cooldown -15%
- bonuses when squad has fewer than 3 men:
-- any current suppression canceled
-- accuracy +10%
-- received damage -5%
-- received suppression -15%
-- weapon cooldown -40%
-- weapon reload time -15%
(bonuses of each "stage" stack)
With 6 men squads:
- bonuses when squad has fewer than 6 men:
-- received suppression -5%
-- accuracy +5%
- bonuses when squad has fewer than 4 men:
-- accuracy +5%
-- received damage -5%
-- received suppression -15%
-- weapon cooldown -15%
- bonuses when squad has fewer than 3 men:
-- any current suppression canceled
-- accuracy +10%
-- received damage -5%
-- received suppression -15%
-- weapon cooldown -40%
-- weapon reload time -15%
4) You can use the "Inspired Assault" ability that boosts the damage output even more
For 20 seconds all your infantry on the map gets:
- weapon cooldown -40%
- weapon reload time -50%
- weapon damage +20%
- damage taken +50% (negative effect on your infantry)
(bonuses stack with all bonuses listed above)
This ability gives the best results when you have more rifles shooting than your opponent. That means that if your opponent has 1 rifle squad, you should have 2 Vsturms squads (or any other squad). If they have 2, you should have 3. The sheer boost to rate of fire makes up for any lack of accuracy and any bullet that hits deals 20% more damage. There is the negative effect of taking more damage during this ability so it is recommended to use it when your infantry has some cover (cover bonuses stack with all other bonuses, so yellow cover = harder to hit, green cover = harder to hit + take less damage), however, even if your squads take some losses, the bonuses from Zeal also apply (if you have it unlocked).
There are also the propaganda abilities that allow you to lower the stats of enemy units there is the one that lowers stats on units in a certain radius (from basic to top level the radius is: 8/9/10/12 and last for 30 seconds) and then there is the other one that allows you to apply the bonuses in an entire sector for 130 seconds. The "nerfs" of these two abilities don't stack with each other (so applying sector propaganda and then also the area ability does NOT cumulate their effects).
The effects are (basic level/1st lvl/2nd lvl):
- accuracy -5%/-10%/-15%
- weapon cooldown +5%/+10%/+15% (longer delays between shots/bursts)
- received suppression +5%/+10%/+15% (get suppressed faster)
- received accuracy +5%/+10%/+15% (are easier to hit)
2nd and 3rd levels also provide nerfs to vehicles (reload speeds, accuracy and movement speed).
These abilities along with the arty options you have consume a lot of ammo, so OP-ing and keeping ammo points is vital for you.
All in all - this doctrine's intended strength are heavy tanks and artillery. The intended weakness is infantry play that requires more micro. Having one micro-intensive doctrine in the Axis roster is not a problem because if you don't have the required micro, you can play any of the remaining 5 doctrines. Another thing is that "strong tanks, arty and relatively good infantry" is already in Tank Support doctrine so giving Propaganda doctrine stronger infantry would make it pretty much the same as the TS doc and having 2 docs that play the same is not something we want. So if you want to have Tigers and KTs available along with some better infantry, you can simply play TS and you'll have those units but also Assault Grenadiers and Assault Pioneers.
As such, any suggestions to make the weak infantry just flat out stronger, to add some stronger infantry type or to add some change that will improve the other existing units to such a level that Volksturms become obsolete are not going to happen. You need to understand that making the infantry stronger would mean that the doctrine would have pretty much no weakness, which means we would need to rework the whole thing but we will not do that when we know that the doctrine CAN work with enough micro skill. We will also not move Volsturm squad to Def doc or any other doctrine as it would require even bigger changes to everything and as said in the previous sentence - it is not needed.
That being said, this doesn't mean that no changes can happen. Someone's suggested to give to Vsturms an option to upgrade an LMG when they reach (I think) Vet3 - we might give it a try. We could adjust the current buffs and nerfs if anything feels too weak or not worth the cost. For example, the original infantry nerfing system was set up before the infantry veterancy changes so we could increase the nerfs a little bit to compensate for it. There is a topic around here with some suggested changes for Sturmtiger - we're still considering some of the suggestions there. We could make some changes to ability costs or add some sort of ability that would help managing resources - either some sort of resource swap or something completely unique to this doctrine. If you feel some unlocks provide too little for their cost, we can think of some improvements in this way, too. When I was diggin through files to get the stats on abilities, I noticed that when Zeal applies to Vsturms it "just" changes when the bonuses kick in but not the bonuses themselves - this could be revised, too.
TL;DR:
So if you have suggestions for this doctrine that don't involve changing the intended gameplay or don't require and entire doctrine rework, feel free to post them but if your suggestion requires some such thing, don't be surprised when it gets rejected.
