US Infantry musings

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[TheVolskinator]

My bitchiness over comms aside, this is what I've gleaned from the 'education' I was given over discord:

You MUST have AT LEAST one sniper, if not more.
You MUST have a halftrack for the sniper (okay, that's a given).
You MUST use Rangers with Bazookas to cover the sniper.
You MUST use artillery.
It is implied that you should bring heals.
It is implied that you should bring at least 3 ATGs to help the team fight off enemy heavies.
It is implied that you should bring a mortar, and a spare, to generate smoke.
It is implied that a minimum of Riflemen (5 or less?) should be used, for "support" (how?) and recrew.
It is implied that you should use a good number of MGs to prevent your units from being rushed.
It is implied, and in my experience proven, that any other build falls on its face, other than a jihad company with smoke grenades; and that's only good for pushing lines, not actually accomplishing shit-all in a real game.

I play infantry, I've seen Area play infantry once or twice, I think Garry tried it once and then never touched it again, as did Kyun. Infantry is not being used by 99% of our itty bitty community on a regular basis, most of whom will play most of the factions. That indicates to me, on top of the hundreds of times I've been told "Volsky, infantry is shit, play AB", that infantry is...well, shit (or at least, really unappealing).

Airborne does "smoke spam, HHAT, and grenades everywhere" better (as well as having heals), Armor has tanks that are good enough to support with nilla infantry and still get stuff done (along with the Callie), and that leaves infantry with buffed crew weapons (still not as good as the nilla Axis ones) spare MP for reinforcing (yay, dying more) and artillery to call its own. Are those really considered advantages?

Should we scrap all of the Riflemen buffs? Should we give more buffs to Rangers? Are there any other alternative builds hidden somewhere that I'm not seeing?

What can be done? What should be done?

[koimn6]

i'm fine with inf coy, commando is 1st and it's gonna be my 2nd platoon and i'll keep playing it
might be okay because i like nonmainstream,bad faction

[tehbloxx4h]

this again smh just put some random shit into your coy instead of constantly planning every step u will take in a batle. and stop hoarding vet

[GrayWolf]

You MUST have AT LEAST one sniper, if not more.
You MUST use Rangers with Bazookas to cover the sniper.
It is implied that you should bring heals.
It is implied that you should bring at least 3 ATGs to help the team fight off enemy heavies.
It is implied that you should bring a mortar, and a spare, to generate smoke.
It is implied that you should use a good number of MGs to prevent your units from being rushed.

Fixed

Also AB is Infantry+, no point of infantry as it is of now

[CrazyWR]

any american company that doesnt have at least 5 ATGs and isn't spamming RRs is built wrong...

[CrazyWR]

And what the heck is this quote about removing riflemen buffs...what buffs?  I have an infantry company that I used once and dumped...there aren't any rifles DPS buffs.  When people used to run rifles/atgs only companies, it was b/c of buffs like carbines (which was stupid OP, but im sure we can find a happy medium, like 20-25%, not 50%).  All the buffs I see are to survivability, which is rubbish, since rifles are meat anyways.  Increase their DPS so that people can use them the way they should be used.  There was a time when the first thing you put in your company on Amis was 16 rifles.  Now anyone that uses 16 rifles is just handing the enemy a huge portion of manpower.  Give them some sort of DPS boost, like 20-25%.  See if it is too much, adjust by 2.5-5% at a time until it feels right.  Infantry doc only.

[Tachibana]

it was b/c of buffs like carbines (which was stupid OP, but im sure we can find a happy medium, like 20-25%, not 50%).[...]  Give them some sort of DPS boost, like 20-25%.

That would be assault garands.

[CrazyWR]

That would be assault garands.

which are where?  I don't see that...I see where you give them k98s, that is very different than garands.

[Tachibana]

Well, volsk seems to be pulling some early triggers. Currently you get assault garands from that unlock. Will remain so until next patch i would imagine.

Assault garands are approx the following results.
~30% extra squad DPS close
~40% extra squad DPS mid
~38% extra squad DPS long

[TheVolskinator]

Maybe the problem is the lack of a suitable support vehicle?

Would moving the Jumbo back to Infantry solve the problem, even if it goes against our strict infantry, mobility, and armor template?

[GrayWolf]

It's not that Rifle Battalion needs jumbo, but rather armor not needing it? Why would u use it, when you have way better options for mediums like 10 pop shermans.
Jumbo is a sponge that would fit infantry more than armor as support tank rather than strictly medium one

[Tachibana]

Should also put JP into SE since they have trouble dealing with heavy tanks. Don't see why panzerwaffe needs it when they can get 50 range apcr panthers/hetzers.

[tank130]

I would rather we find ways to make infantry better at it's intended role as apposed to just slapping a simple fix of a jumbo in there. Lets not just always go to the easy peasy solution - try something a little more creative.

If Jumbo has no good role in armor, change it so it does - without eliminating the role of something else.

I find as we balance this mod correctly, we discover all these units that were just randomly placed in the mod "cuz they're cool" are redundant and not needed. Perhaps the jumbo is not one of those units, but it is something that needs to be considered when creating new doctrines and play style.

[CrazyWR]

agreed 100%, there has to  be a way to make it work and let the doctrine keep its unique flavor

[GrayWolf]

Tank is right, although the same does not apply for example to Blitz, that has a Tiger. Tiger fits a OK in Blitz, cause it's basicly quite fast heavy tank. Or sniper buffs in WH armor.

I'm saying that jumbo might also fit in infantry as support tank. At the moment US infantry suffers from not having real tanks to support infantry. As we all know pure infantry companies will lose to MGs, Snipers, Nebels etc., etc.

Jumbo would be a good addition to infantry, cause it would act like a sponge that can go straight in, kill the MG and suffer some dmg, instead of your infantry. It would be perfect infantry support tank. I does not have great pen, nor damage, so it might purpose would be to SUPPORT INFANTRY.

But thinking outside the box, jumbo could be also changed when moved to infantry. It could be changed to some kind of infantry CCT, or it's stats could have been tweaked adding smoke canisters, so having shit ton of smoke grenades is not a must anymore. Adding some kind sprint aura like in Blitz would also make it more "infantrish". This would add a lot of tactical options for infantry and make game much more fun.

In 2v2s it would also highly affect axis gameplay, so axis players don't feel like their AT is not needed when playing against US infantry companies. If I would know someone like Volsky is playing infantry, I would not ignore AT anymore and would have to consider putting more AT options into my company build.

Whatever you like it or not, we shall not forget, the doctrine design is about spreading armor, infantry and mobility (Which is elite infantry + light vehicles) into different doctrines. Even though we shall think outside the box and "mix" them if armor unit fits the infantry theme better and the other way around. If we did not there would not be Assault Engies in armor or Tiger in mobilty company or Flamethrower Sappers in CW armor.

Sorry for the long post, hope it's possible for you to read it and understand it

agreed 100%, there has to  be a way to make it work and let the doctrine keep its unique flavor

Adding Jumbo to infantry would make it more "unqiue". US infantry would get more flexibility instead of spamming rangers and smoke grenades. You could still do that, but having some kind of support on your own would provide nice cover, that US infantry needs. Without it, it's easily countered by many things I described above, and having 1 viable build is not something we should be aiming for

TBH Jumbo would be basicly what KT  is. A good support tank that keeps your infantry alive by being a big sponge. It would not be a as good as KT, nor it has the firepower, but having some kind of "sponge" would be really nice for fragile US infantry.

[Tachibana]

Or, you know, buff the infantry...

[GrayWolf]

Or, you know, buff the infantry...

You're not gonna make infantry unkillable or impossible to suppress. I'm talking game mechanics and options, not balance.

[Tachibana]

Between the mortar, GMC, howizter, sniper, smoke nades, officer smoke, fire up, vanilla sherman and m8s, you would think getting around support weapons would not be a problem.

If these tools are not able to get around suppression or supportspam, thenI I think they should be looked at well before adding the jumbo to the doctrine.

The sponge argument does not hold much ground either. CW inf and WM inf get by with no tank buffs and se get buffs to one tank and thats more due to how reliant PE will always be on vehicles, so its fairly atandard. I dont see an argument for switching over or adding the churchill nilla/pvct/hetzer /jagdpantherto these doctrines so that they can have a sponge that will kill the mg for you.

Volsk should be able to bring US inf to the level of those 3 comparavle docs without adding in the Jumbo.

[GrayWolf]

Then what's the difference beetwen infantry and AB then, besides AB being better than Infantry? Whole infantry mechanics right now is spamming smoke and AB does it better. I suggest making Inf more unique.

[GrayWolf]

Unless you make US inf more unique it's Gonna be worse version of AB. Both buff inf (both have elite inf with fire-up and AB has better Fire up upgrades), both have heals, both have better support weapons, both can get snipers. AB is better in smoke (both docs right now depend on smoke). You either change how infantry works or you gonna end up with YOLO charges with grenades. If you want to have one way to play with specific doc, go ahead.