Soviet Infantry

Been playing this mod sporadically for a while now. I just downloaded patch [IP address redacted] and am really having trouble coming to grips with it. The soviet infantry die so easily it borders on ridiculousness, regardless of cover, support fire etc... I'm all for historical accuracy but games still have to be fair. The tanks are still balanced well and even the odds but the trouble is getting there. I often get killed before I can pump them out because i have no fuel because i can't hold points cause my infantry drop like flies! Am I missing something? Could anyone say what impacts the patch has had so I can come to grips with things and figure out what tactics work best now.

Sorry if i come across as venting, I do enjoy this mod and think it is really great! I'm also sorry if this is in the wrong place

What infantry exactly are you talking about? Guards are very tough and Strelky are very similar to rifles in terms of survivability (same health, worse vet but get resistance to SMGs with RBS). Cons will always be weak for sure which is why their reinforce is dirt cheap. The worst value squad is the CS actually which has a very high reinforce cost but is essential to your gameplay of course. NI have decent survivability but their weapons output quite a lot of damage compared to Strelky or THs. Their smoke and molos are useful too. Partis are pretty good for early stealth assault troops. Popping out of buildings is very powerful when used behind an MG to make way for a charge.

My bad, I wasn't very specific was I. Conscripts do, but they always have done, Strelzky seem less durable as do tank hunters and the AT teams take the honours. The other conclusion I was thinking about was that heaps of German stuff got buffed. Is that the case?

That is not the case, since all vCoH factions have remained completely the same, with no change whatsoever. (Remember folks, redundancy helps drive the point home, remember it.)

Devs have stated several times already that, barring a reward unit or two, there is no change in balance regarding American, vBritish and both vGermans.

Perhaps you should look at the fights directly, cover, location and other stuff. Where all of your strelks in cover? Where they in cover at all? Or worse, where they in red cover? Maybe the Random Number God just hates you and every shot made against your infantry hits?

Last edited December 5, 2012 at 10:50 PM by EasyCalic

EasyCalic wrote:
...all vCoH factions have remained completely the same, with no change whatsoever.

From 1.7 Changelog:

Wehrmacht
* Tiger Ace health increased to 1500hp
* Fixed some penetration bugs with the Tiger Ace crack shot
* Set Pak38 penetration vs KV1 to match Churchill.
* Increased dmg of Panzerschrecks & PaK 38 against IS3 to 0.9.
* Increased penetration of Schreck against KV1 armor to match Churchill armor.
* Added the following changes to StuG IV gun:
- Set penetration vs. T34/76 to 0.75.
- Set penetration vs. T34/85 to 0.6375.
- Set penetration vs. KV armor to 0.5804.
- Set damage vs. KV armor to 1.2
- Set damage vs. SU85 to 1.3
- Set penetration vs. SU85 to 0.65
* Set penetration modifier of Panther gun vs. KV1 armor to 0.84675
* Set penetration modifier of Ostwind vs armor to:
- KV1: 0.00075
- T34/85: 0.00085
- T34/76: 0.0009
* Switched penetration modifier of WH Panzer IV gun vs. KV1 and T34/85 armor
* Lowered LMG42 accuracy vs Sturmovie to 0.85
* Added HMG42 from the Community Model Project
* Normalized dmg from pak 38 vs SU85 cage armour
* Panzerfaust penetration vs SU85 cage armour set to 0.75
* Tiger gun penetration vs ISU-152 now matches Panther

Panzer Elite
* Increased dmg of Panzerschrecks against IS3 to 0.9
* Increased penetration of Schreck against KV1 armor to match Churchill armor
* Set penetration modifier of Panther gun vs. KV1 armor to 0.84675

EasyCalic wrote:Perhaps you should look at the fights directly, cover, location and other stuff. Where all of your strelks in cover? Where they in cover at all? Or worse, where they in red cover? Maybe the Random Number God just hates you and every shot made against your infantry hits?

I did state in my first post that cover etc... made little difference. But you could be right in sayng I just had atrocious luck!

Another thought, has the axis ai been modified to be smarter? Maybe that could also explain some things.

Yup , axis AI has trouble with even good players (even on hard)

Point of Information here please. Will a Dev team or Balancer clarify whether vCoH factions remain unchanged totally or only against vCoh factions. Seems to me I read about buffs and nerfs to performance by most factions towards Sovs and vica versa. It doesn't bother me one way or another but if you can balance Sovs against wehr and Wehr against Sovs then you haven't changed the way vCoH faction operate against each other.

Otto wrote:
vCoH factions ..............  against vCoh factions.

This. Its probably much simpler to do this for various reasons

Mabye your conscripts just suck in general, you need to take advantage of their numbers and use those unarmed men in the squad as bait and damage soakers and just run up as close to VolksGrenadiers as possible and they will win the engagement as long as they have over atleast 5 men when they get close.  Other than that they just loose to everything from long or medium because conscripts have next to no training, and those unarmed soldiers are just their to be the damage soakers until you get extra rifles.

Last edited December 6, 2012 at 1:08 AM by 132

Balance is not altered between vCoH factions. Of course their weapon target tables are modified vs Soviet target types which only affect that matchup. The only things that affect vCoH balance in any way that we change are the reward units.

Conscripts are labelled "good as cannon fodder" for their Tent tooltip for a good reason; they die very, very quickly. So it's an excellent thing that you can reinforce a good five conscripts for two Volks killed (or even more with two Gren kills) in the mid-to-late game. They really shouldn't be primary troops once you have access to RBS and Guards, although I've found that it is generally worth upgrading them with full rifles when possible. (Unlike BARs for Riflemen, though, it's not generally worth teching to Weapon Reserves solely for the purpose of having five full-rifle Conscript squads rushing around the battlefield, hilarious though it might be.)

In terms of strategy, I figure it's much better to tech to T2 early on and get those RBSes out on the field as soon as you can. There might be a possibility of a T3 rush using lots and lots of full-rifle conscripts to hold the line, but in that case most of the upgrades in the Armory would be comparatively useless (since most Armory upgrades are for T2 and T2 related units), and as a result Conscripts remain costlier to reinforce. What's the expert opinion here?

It is most certainly worthwhile to upgrade conscripts with weapons reserves. You get 5 squads cap free and with no reduction in MP increase rate. IIRC It adds an additional 10% to the MP upkeep reduction to the 10% reduction for the armory. That can amount to a lot of manpower over the course of the game.

I'm glad that the conscript upgrade is actually worthwhile now.  Before it was doctorinal and overpriced 50 munitions.  Now it's just 30 (10 munitions a rifle) plus extra accuracy so atleast then they can stand up to volks or MGs a lot better, though become more of a combat unit than a cannon fodder

132 wrote:
I'm glad that the conscript upgrade is actually worthwhile now.  Before it was doctorinal and overpriced 50 munitions.  Now it's just 30 (10 munitions a rifle) plus extra accuracy so atleast then they can stand up to volks or MGs a lot better, though become more of a combat unit than a cannon fodder

They still work best in the urban warfare doctrine though imo, For the Motherland! with a wall of conscripts in front of yours guards/tanks is always a sight to see. I call em soviet minesweepers myself. This upgrade just helps them contribute to the killing if they survive the charge, which is always nice.

But they still die like nothing but who cares?  There practically free to use, especially lategame where it only costs 8 mp to reinforce one guy.

I use Sturmovies since they can repair tanks and my strategy focuses on vehicles. Default Ingenery drops fast but when they get thier Assault Gear they can take on Grens, Panzer Grens and Volks. They dont really die as fast but maybe because of the body armor? And 2 Tank Guards + 4 Assault Sturmovies + IS-2 and 1 SU-85 makes my day  :)

Drake22 wrote:

132 wrote:
I'm glad that the conscript upgrade is actually worthwhile now.  Before it was doctorinal and overpriced 50 munitions.  Now it's just 30 (10 munitions a rifle) plus extra accuracy so atleast then they can stand up to volks or MGs a lot better, though become more of a combat unit than a cannon fodder

They still work best in the urban warfare doctrine though imo, For the Motherland! with a wall of conscripts in front of yours guards/tanks is always a sight to see. I call em soviet minesweepers myself. This upgrade just helps them contribute to the killing if they survive the charge, which is always nice.

An infantry charge with FTML is fun no matter what kind of infantry is involved. I think conscripts need a better buff in Urban now. Double ROKs for Ingeneri, Incendiaries for Strelky, Stielgranadien for Partizans; The Conscripts should get something in the infantry doctrine.

Wekwekboris wrote:
I use Sturmovies since they can repair tanks and my strategy focuses on vehicles. Default Ingenery drops fast but when they get thier Assault Gear they can take on Grens, Panzer Grens and Volks. They dont really die as fast but maybe because of the body armor? And 2 Tank Guards + 4 Assault Sturmovies + IS-2 and 1 SU-85 makes my day  :)

I disagree that Stormovie can stand up to Volks/MP40/cover. Mine get eaten all the time by this combo.

Mp40 volks destroy anything that charges them.  I had 2 PPSH Strelky (one was vet2 and the other vet 3) use the red banner ability, charged straight at them, and the vet 3 squad died so quickly at a cost of one unvetted mp49 volks.

Charging to infantry in cover (or not) with SMG weapon is always a bad idea. 
Especially against MP40 Volks with Strelky - better stay at mid range. Vokls can be beaten with Consctripts even  ;D

Sadly I have lost Vetted stormovie to MP40/Volks when the Stormovie started in cover and Volks didn't. I can accept that one type of infantry is buufed against another type, but if the volks are buffed against all Heavy infantry (SMGs), something is not right.

Dont know they are buffed or no, but according my exp they are really good only in close range.
And in general - attacking a squad who is staying at one place is bad idea, no matter if this squad is RB Strelky , KCH, BAR rifles, MP40 Volks or else.

I got issue with infantry´s damage too. Conscripts i get as firs infantry unit/meat shield, but some of other actually bugs me, like my squad of strelka´s in good cover (green shield) getting wiped out by squad of un-upgraded Volks standing in middle of road or squad of flamethrower wielding Pioneers wiping out 4 of my squads (RB Strelka, Ingenery, Guards - both without upgrades and Sniper - shot once, missed and got cooked) without losing single man. PDTR soldiers are same, i know that they are mobile and you cant expect same damage from anti-tank rifle as from Panzershreck or real canon, but i feel they're basically waste of space, since to take down even Panzer Elite Scout car in reasonable time, you´d need at least 4 upgraded squads (didn't try, just estimating from my experience), considering enemy wouldn't repair it or shoot out your soldiers. That and critically low damage of IS-2 are actually only things bugging me on otherwise perfect mod (even though finding way to make this work with Blitzkrieg would make me ecstatic :) ).

Last edited January 11, 2013 at 12:43 AM by Sapp_CZ

How do you think I felt when 3 upgraded Cons lost to a FG42 Falschrimjager squad in cover.  Those squads just decimate infantry.

Last edited January 11, 2013 at 1:51 AM by 132

@132: Did you get close enough to throw a molotov at the Falls?

aside from minor things my major beef is the 4 man guard squad. too small i still believe 5 mans the way to go. i dont see any big advantages gained for the cost. all things considered u get a bigger impact from resources spent elsewere most likely at that part of the game

call me crazy but thats my 2 cents

Last edited January 25, 2013 at 10:14 PM by SovietVictory1945

Guards even with the recent nerf decimates enemy infantry. 5 People in a squad is too much. @132 Them Conscripts are not really that good against elite german paras  :P

SovietVictory1945 wrote:call me crazy but thats my 2 cents

I'm afraid you are crazy.

I have noticed in my recent matches (against AI) that Stug IV is very effective against SU infantry. Even one of this scored multiple hits on my Strelky squad, not to mention Cons which gets decimated by it. I don't think that it was so accurate against American Riflemen...

Well stug is good vs infantry, even though its not as good as a PIV it's still decently good against them, like a panther or hetzer.

Move the double ROKS to the conscripts? Would actually make the conscripts scary when flanking, and it would make the ROKS dual worth getting again. Anyone who puts that many munitions into a Ingenery squad must be drunk to justify putting that much resources into something which dies due to a light breeze.

I think that would be a bit hilarious, as conscripts die like flies and are probably too inexperienced to use flamethrowers properly based on why they can't man weapons on their own.

The fact that the Soviet's can't man early game equipment with even the Command Squad really bothers me. If a Wehr player messes over and loses his MG to the Soviet player early on, he should pay for it.

The reason they didn't give the CS the ability to man MGs is because they didn't want the possibility of the Major being part of the MG squad.

132 wrote:
The reason they didn't give the CS the ability to man MGs is because they didn't want the possibility of the Major being part of the MG squad.

To be honest I'd gladly sacrifice him into that squad. I'll just reinforce in a new one. But I can see that it isn't ideal with him joining weapons crews.

Dot.Shadow wrote:

132 wrote:
The reason they didn't give the CS the ability to man MGs is because they didn't want the possibility of the Major being part of the MG squad.

To be honest I'd gladly sacrifice him into that squad. I'll just reinforce in a new one. But I can see that it isn't ideal with him joining weapons crews.

The thing is that danko himself has 120 hitpoints and a pistol with high chance to crit-headshot enemy soldiers, so he's quite strong for a single CoH unit - a grenadier has 80 hitpoints per man for comparison..

Makes a lot of sense then. I'm also guessing it's impossible to change his stats once he crews a weapon, as you most likely would have done that then?

Also, how much HP does the Strelky in the Command Squad have?

Last edited February 23, 2013 at 11:16 PM by Dot.Shadow

Iirc they're around 70 hp per man. The CS in terms of total health is similar to british tommie squad.

dArCReAvEr wrote:
Iirc they're around 70 hp per man. The CS in terms of total health is similar to british tommie squad.

Quite a large difference between Danko and his guards then. Probably not a good idea to make them more similar to allow for crewing. I just wish I didn't have to steal fritz' guns with ingenery >_<

dArCReAvEr wrote:
The thing is that danko himself has 120 hitpoints and a pistol with high chance to crit-headshot enemy soldiers, so he's quite strong for a single CoH unit - a grenadier has 80 hitpoints per man for comparison..

My Soviet Majors haven't 1 shot killed anybody yet :(

But he has 1 shouted a retreating sniper once :D

Really?  Danko has a chance to crit?  I never knew that. :D Does that carry over when he gets the PPS?

Back to the infantry, I love my Shock Guards. :) Excellent at long-range, where they shred infantry with the DP-28s and SVTs.

AFAIK the old balancers addressed that and the criticals were removed many patches ago.

Meh... :P

So Danko is just as good with his pistol as the CW Captain is?

They die easily because of the number they have in a squad perhaps.

I see that the AT unit for Soviets are not so strong as well if compared to Panzer Elite and US. Almost the same firepower with the British PIAT.