My DAK rewrite was received well and similarly to what I did with DAK, I want to take the opportunity to air my thoughts on Wehr and what changes I would make. Now’s the time for these changes to be made as we don’t want to wait until the balance becomes solidified, its like trying to move a building to firmer ground after the concrete has already set.

However, in contrast to DAK, which I feel needs what I have already classified as a complete rework, Wehr basically doesn’t need that kind of surgery, it’s a really well designed faction, which you’d expect given that its essentially the third attempt in over 15 years. So my changes are mostly superficial tweaks with an eye to the future and an eye to the past.

I want to set the tone of this post as being different from my DAK thread, as the changes I propose there:

https://community.companyofheroes.com/coh-franchise-home/company-of-heroes-3/forums/9-coh3-feedback/threads/3632-the-dak-redesign

I’m absolutely convinced of and I think are obvious. Here though, the changes are not the end of the World, the faction will still be fine if not implemented, but these are more experimental and creative. They aim to liven up the same old Wehr formula into something a bit more spicey.

Without further ado, let’s have a look at the current design:

Current Design

A few observations to start off.

Wehr really lacks side tech relative to the other factions. While DAK have a whole armoury of side tech options, Brits have a structure dedicated to it as well and Americans have 3 trees of side tech. Wehr really have only the veterency and side skirts upgrades and that’s your lot. It means Wehr doesn’t really have the same opportunity cost and decision making other factions have, the choice between more units or better units. This would be something I would change.

Jägers design is questionable. In the Scoped version they’re okay, but with the Schrek it’s a nightmare. The problem is you have a single Schrek upgrade on 5 man squad. Whenever in the Coh franchise this has been done before, this has always lead to blobbing because it can deal with basically everything. Panzergrenadiers in PE, Grens in Coh1 Wehr, Volksgrenadiers in OKW, Panzergrenadiers in Ostheer; this is the latest in a long saga. In Coh2, they got removed in the case of Volks and made into a dedicated AT squad once upgrade in the case of Pgrens. I see the same happening to Jägers at some point.

Hulldown makes little sense as it can be activated in combat, is free and gives buff immediately.

Finally, I feel AT is perceived as a problem for Wehr, not because they don’t have it but because it can be difficult to access due to the steep costs of switching between tiers. The design basically encourages staying in one tier at the expense of others but this leads to less varied build orders.

Here’s what I would change:

New Design

Like last time, I will explain the changes first and then the logic after. Unlike last time though, I’ve already modded the proposals before making them, so if reading is not your thing, just check it out yourself here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2947341907

Tier 0 stays the exact same. Tier 1 stays the same except now it has various side techs. These side techs basically boil down to veterency (already existing), infantry ability unlocks, infantry upgrade unlocks and infantry construction unlocks; all of which I will explain later in greater detail.

Tier 2 and Tier 3 are where the changes become more stark, the upfront costs of both of these tiers have been reduced by about 30% and they each now have their own individual side tier. For Tier 1, Jägers and the Flak 30 are unlocked immediately but the 221 and the Marder are locked behind behind tier 2.5, which comprises of that cost that was removed from the base building. In Tier 3, Panzergrenadiers and the Pak40 are available immediately but the 251 and the Nebel are locked behind their own side tier, 3.5. The StuG and the Wirbelwind are still locked behind the same side tier, albeit at a reduced price and the upgrade is dependant on either Tier 2.5/3.5 having been already researched. Both Tier 2 and Tier 3 have an additional side upgrade, in Tier 2’s case, this unlocks vehicle abilities and in Tier 3’s case, unlocking vehicle unit upgrades.

Tier 4 follows much of the same logic, the upfront cost of teching T4 is reduced but about 1 third, but it now has a side tier called tier 4.5. In the base tier of tier 4, we have the Stoßtruppen but also the recovery halftrack (which I removed from DAK!). In tier 4.5 we have the Panzer 4, Sturmpanzer and also the Nashorn tank destroyer. Finally, T4 retains the same side tech upgrades as before.

One change that I also make in the mod which is not apparent from the diagram is tying callins to tech. The Stug D, 251 Mechanised Group, 8 Rad, Wirbelwind and P4 Command Tank callins are all tied to requiring either T4 base tech or Tier 2/3*. Then the Tiger and Panther are tied to Tier 4.5.

The Logic

It goes like this.

The elefant in the room is the changes to the tech costs, which primarily have the motivation of making it easier to tech from one tier to the other. This will make it easier to have more flexible build orders and will make it less punishing when your build order doesn’t accommodate the situation you find yourself in. A good example of this is making T3 cheaper, this essentially has the effect of making the Pak more available. So if you screw up your T2 game loose your Marder and don’t have the fuel to tech StuG or the munitions for Schreks, it’s not a complete lost cause as teching Paks is relatively easy. This also applies to T4 stalls, as if you miscalculate and a light vehicle shows up before you can really get to within grasp of those late game vehicles, the Pak is always an option.

Another nice feature of this setup is that it makes it easier to make the best up of the Stug/Wirbelwind unlock, as once you’ve unlocked one, say the Stug for example, its now 30% cheaper to pick up the tech for the other. It also has the advantage of making transfer order more accessible, as by picking up both tiers, you can transform your army to be suited at all ranges rather than being nudged specifically towards one or the other. 

With the T4 price split, this has 3 broad purposes. The first is to make Stoßtruppen arrive earlier in the same manner that the Panzer Kommand in OKW was split to get Obers earlier and make the tech less of a large upfront cost with no benefit. Another advantage is that it makes the side skirts upgrade more available, so let’s say your army has a considerable contigent of Wirbelwinds or Stugs, then getting the skirts upgrade is less of a stretch and more appealing, or at the least can be upgraded faster. Finally, this also players into the battlegroup call-in timings. With 2 different points in the tech tree, which are roughly the same timing fuel wise (90-100 with tier 2&3 respectively, 80 with a straight tech to T4), it opens up a broader set of build orders where you could conceivably go for a T4 straight tech and call in either a Stug D, 8 Rad or Panzer command tank. This works out especially elegantly with the StuG D and 8 Rad as 80 fuel is the same amout of fuel it takes to tech these units directly with DAK in my mod, which was not the original intention, but a happy happenstance.

The inclusion of the recovery halftrack to me makes a lot of sense. Relative to DAK, where everything either repairs or repairs itself, Wehr lack repair options in that they only have Pioneers and Repair bunkers. The recovery halftrack fills a niche more admirably here I feel by giving you that lategame fast repair. I haven’t been able to find in the modding tools how to adjust the repair rate yet but I’m sure I can figure out how to give it DAK advanced repair.

The side tech upgrades for units I feel is basically self explanatory, with the infantry related ones, various squad upgrades are locked behind tech and likewise with various abilities and there’s a opporunity cost in getting them. The ones I particularly want to make a shout out to though include:

- The Jäger schrek upgrade. With Jägers, I’ve experimented with making them 4 men and reducing their cost manpower accordingly. I’ve also made the Panzerschrek upgrade a double schrek upgrade, so once upgraded, they’re basically a dedicated AT squad. I tend to avoid making balance changes when I can, as my mod really really is all about design, but with schreks I reduced their damage, penetration and accuracy to compensate for the fact that Jägers have 2 of them now. I’m still monitoring to see if they need further changes, but I feel this is only a realisation of what is inevitable.

- Panzergrenadiers now have an upgrade that gives them rudimentary repair. I found when playing T3 I always used the 251 in conjunction with Panzer Grens. The entire time I was wishing for some minor repair facility so I could synergise them more effectively and not have to run my halftrack off to my pioneers. It was bit of whim change, not essential in the grand scheme of things, but it works well and is a nod to their DAK cousins.

- Now for the Grens. So for Grens I often see reports from people complaining about how weak they are and its true, they don’t scale so well into the late game. Clearly relic has designed Transfer orders so that players can switch out Grenadiers when they’re no longer so great in direct confrontations and that with merge, sandbags and snares, they’re angling for the ‘Conscripts of Coh3’ accolade. Having thought about this dynamic a bit, I wanted to make the decision to transfer squads out more difficult by making Grens more appealing in terms of late game scale, but I don’t want to do this via making them stronger or giving them weapon upgrades, but instead I wanted to increase their utility.

In that pursuit, I gave Grens 3 squad upgrades.

The first is med kits, where they can not only heal nearby squads when outside of combat but also drop med crates for a munitions cost. This synergises amazingly well with your support weapon army and increases your staying power in the field. In my testing, I almost never when base healing before the 8 minute mark as I just co-ordinated my squads to use these heals. It works exactly like the Sturmpioneer crate drops, but currently they also passively heal outside of combat. In the long run, this ought to be a timed munitions ability like the 250 halftrack, but coding it this way was easier and the timed healing abilities in the game are incredibly lack lustre right now, as well as being difficult to change.

The second upgrade is an observer upgrade, where the squad has increased LOS when stationary and also detects vehicles in the FOW. This is also extremely useful, giving just a few examples:

- It works well with MGs allowing your to open fire immediately as squads enter it’s arc.

- This logic also applies to Snipers.

- It reduces scatter on Mortars and Nebels.

- Sniping vehicles with Paks is easier.

My personal favourite is using it in conjunction with the Marder, as the LOS makes it easier to take advantage of the Marder’s range, but also the vehicle detection reveals the unit in the FOW for attack ground shots, hunting vehicles down or even knowing when a dive is coming so you can back up early and make ready the faust. In summary this upgrade has serius utility.

Finally, the last upgrade increases the squads capture rate by 20% and also allows grens to detect mines while stationary. The whole idea behind this, is that as the game draw out, this would be your squad capping up the edges, capping faster and avoiding mines. I experimented with getting the kettenkrad cables upgrade to work on grens, but no luck, that would have been interesting to at least try, but may have been OP. This upgrade I found myself using the least, not because I doubt its utiility, but when playing against the AI which is how I do my testing, they don’t build a whole lot of mines. I’ve been tempted to add Salvage to it as well as it would be thematically suited.

Another upgrade I really wanted to get working but just couldn’t due to restrictions in the Mod tooling, was locking all the construction abilities behind a squad upgrade and also the ability to construct mines. I feel this upgrade would be on par in terms of utility with the rest of the upgrades, perhaps if Relic fix the tooling I can add it, but no hacky work around I tried made it possible.

All of the above add a great deal of tactical nuance and synergy in your army. I found it basically impossible to get rid of my Grens once I had teched up, as they’re just so useful. It makes that transfer order decision much more weighty and interesting, you should try it out and you’ll see what I mean.

Hulldown can only be activated when outside of combat for 10 seconds now. That is all.

Finally, the one other change I made was the add the Nashorn to tier 4.5. This is mostly an experimental change but I felt that Wehr late game was somewhat lacking relative to other factions, battlegroups excluded. With DAK you have the stock Flak 36 and Tiger, with Brits you have the 17 Pounder, US has the upgunned Shermans. I feel with faction design its important for the base faction to have all the tools it needs to handle any situation and Wehr doesn’t really have a great answer to heavy armour in the last game, the P4 is good but OKW had the best P4, the Panther and the KT. Soviets had the SU85, which the Stug definitely isn’t. Brits had the firefly and USF had the Jackson. It would really constrain Wehr battlegroup design if it had to contain some AT related late game answer, to fill in the gap. I feel it’s an idea with merit and better this than some DLC or adding the Panther, yet again.

Anyway, this is my take on Wehr, ike I said, my MOD is fully updated with this changes for give it a try and let me know your thoughts!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2947341907

I’ve big plans for Brits next!

Battlegroup Ideas

The Munitions Trailer requires some explanation. My thinking with this is that its a brand new unit type, which loosely can be defined as a support weapon. How it works is that infantry squads can crew it, push it around, vehicles can tow it, etc. When in a position, it provides an aura which in this case makes a cheaper abilities aura and faster barrage recharges. However, the unit shouldn't require pop cap and moreover, you can actually manually decrew it and it will still provide you the benefits. So for example, let's say it spawns in your base and you want to get faster frontline ability recharge, you can crew it with a squad, wheel it over to a house near the frontline and then decrew it. Units within its vicinity would still be benefiting from the aura. When you want to move it, recrew it again, or tow it, to a new location. The beauty of this dynamic is that your opponents can steal these units from you like an ATG, so while they don't take up popcap and would be relatively cheap (say 50 to 100 manpower), you're still incentivised to protect them. You can also attack move them with AT guns etc, potentially with a large AOE explosion, would be interesting to play around it. I think it would make for an fun dynamic, but would need to be coded from scratch. It also indirectly makes tow yet more useful. 

Smoke Saturation barrage would be an off-map of a variable surface area. An illustration:

Consider your first click is point X, point Y then is your second click and it controls over how broad an area it reaches with say an outer limit of a 50 diameter and an inner of say 15 diameter. Now, its important to note that no matter what the area of this circle equates to, the same number of shells will be fired, its just up to you as the player to decide the concentration of those shells. The logic behind this is there are situations where you would want to specifically block LOS of a unit and situations where you would want to perform broad LOS denial. Its in your hands and how effective it is depends on your skill as a player.  

The cable telephone trailer would fall into that trailer category I described earlier. Here, it would act like a mobile resource cache which you can change to different points and also retreat if needed. However, its more fun than a standard resource cache because your opponent can steal it. How much fun would it be if you dove with your Dingo to tow away a resource cache left on a safe point in the corner? 

The SD-2 Carpet Bombing would actually be of variable munitions cost:

Let's say X is your first click and Y is your second, which marks the end and direction of the run, the default drop run is diagram A, but you can drag the cursor of point Y as far as you want, with a maximum of either 35 range or when you don't have enough munitions banked up for the drop. This gives you the flexibility of deciding how much you want to spend and where it will land. This will make the SD-2 drop quite interesting, as you could use it to mine off a broad front or retreat path quite quickly. The aircraft shouldn't appear on your opponents minimap but you could have the engine sound if you wanted. Finally, The Fritz X, since this was a guided bomb, it would be really cool if you manually guide the bomb to the target with your mouse cursor. Obviously though, this is a micro tax, so I would make esc the way to break out of having to micro it.

My Other Designs

- DAK Redesign.

- Brit Redesign.

- US Suggestions.

- Soviet Proposal.

- Ostheer Proposal.

- Japanese Proposal.

- USMC Proposal

- Commonwealth Burma Proposal.

- Free French Proposal.

- Italian Proposal.

- Hungarian Proposal.

- Luftwaffe Field Division

My General Feedback 

- Feature Request and Bug Fixes

Rykuta wrote:

My thoughts in regards to purely teching:

- Divying up the tech tree into sub-tiers while reducing the main tier cost is interesting. It seems to be pulling towards a more "pick and choose" type system where you dance around the different tech buildings to try to select the types of units you actually want in your army rather than being locked in to any one particular decision. Truthfully this feels a bit arbitrary, as I never really found much of an issue with the notion of you being "hard locked" into your choice for a bit, as this felt like a core aspect of this faction's design.

- Side-grade for the MG upgrade seems rather arbitrary considering it only applies to 2 of the default tanks and is honestly just standard for every other faction.

- Side-grade for building bunkers rubs me the wrong way; I'd rather delay building them by requiring another tech building then requiring its own separate upgrade, if that's the objective there; same with grenades.

What I'd suggest here (in regards to side upgrades) is rather than just trying to append a bunch of arbitrary side upgrades to try to make them more like other factions; what if instead we played more into what this faction is designed around. 

- After the initial infantry tier you are given the choice of which tier to go next, one is a fair bit more expensive than the others, but you can still go for it right off the bat if you want.

- This design makes it so that the choice of which building to pick "is" the dominant teching choice and needing another building is "by necessity" rather than necessarily encouraged.

- Each building provides a veterancy upgrade that brings units of specifically that building up to vet1 (with the exception of the infantry center which also upgrades the pioneers).

So, what if we made it so that each building's side grades apply to all of the units in that building exclusively similar to the veterancy upgrade? And what if we added two for each building. And what if they were 'mutually exclusive'? Not speaking balance but strictly idea crafting here: what if for the luftwaffle center in addition to the vet1 upgrade; we also have two side upgrades that apply to all of the units in that building. One could like giving all units stealth (including things like the marder or scout car). And another could make them move faster out of combat in friendly territory or something.  You can only pick one though. Maybe for the panzer company hull down could be a choice and the other could be a unit-by-unit blitzkreig (defensive OR offensive). 

This gives more side grades, but also retains the general vibe of the factions sort of "locking in" when it comes to building choice, and retains the same sort of "upgrade" that the veterancy one provides.

My thoughts in regards to units:

- The main issue with Jaegers is not that "hey you can blob an all arounder" (See the british elite infantry or the US's commandos); the issue is that long range power is highly overtuned. Basically any unit that can sustain high damage output at long range is almost always better than units that have medium or close range capabiltiies because they start doing heavy damage immediately; and as you close the gap, their damage only increases (due to accuracy increasing). This issue applies to pathfinders too and its the same general problem. 

- Additionally blob fears may only based around the notion that there aren't sufficient anti-blob weapons available to each team. Some earlier assault gun options (like the stummel for the wehrmacht) might be a thing that is missing here.

- I'll add another quick aside that blob fear is generally overhyped and I never found the volksgrens an issue in coh2; that change always rubbed me the wrong way because it made it so that now you just only build panzerpioneers.

- Grenadiers being given more utility is a cool way to take them, though I think it might be better to try to play more into their transfer orders mechanics. Transfer orders needs its cost cut in half, and it needs to transfer veterancy from the grens over; and then we just reduce the manpower cost of grenadiers to 240 and we're done; they serve their role as a cheap mainliner that can provide support, and once they get sufficient battlefield experience they can transform into a high tier version of the better infantry options. Though maybe we could combine that extra utility idea with the "side upgrade" idea from earlier to get something more spicy here too, who can say.

- I'll point out that the kettenkrad is actually meant to be your recon unit that gives range to your marders / etc. It naturally provides a high view range and spotting as its veterancy upgrade. So making grenadiers do this too is redundant and makes the kettenkrad less useful as a unit (or just makes it a pure capture monkey).

- Hull down is weird as an ability because I never found much use for it. "A stationary tank is a dead tank" comes to mind. If you're getting poked with an anti-tank gun out of range, hull down isn't going to help you; you still need to move. And if the enemy is trying to shell you, you also want to move out of the way. Additionally the assault guns (stug, stuh and marder) can't rotate while hulled down (at least I don't think they can) so they're basically just far weaker versions of Pak's at that point that are vulnerable to tank shells. The utility of being able to pop it on and off at will is probably the only thing that makes me occasionally mess with it; Mostly just hulling down units that I'm no longer looking at just so if a surprise attack comes about I don't lose them instantly. If people are just rolling up to the enemies line and then dropping the tank into hull down mode, it sounds like they're just creating easy targets; but thinking about it a bit, that does sound a rather silly thing.

- Nashorn for late tier germans is good idea; I had this idea too since I felt like their only options were very late doctrinal ones.

My Own Notes / Ideas

- I feel like the distinction between the luftwaffle and the panzergren centers is rather arbitrary and would probably rework what units each one gets and probably rename them too. Luftwaffle could be more "defensive" focused, and get the PAK and Flaktrack but lose the ostwind and scout car to the panzergren one. The panzergren one could be a more "mechanized" focus, with panzergrens working with scout cars and half tracks; and then their armored tier would grant them that stug and ostwind. No idea where I'd put the nebelwerfer as it feels more like it could go either way.

- The Wehrmacht lack a good tank hunter unit, all of their mid-game options are support guns without turrets and lack any sort of speed or diving capabilities. I wouldn't mind seeing the return of something like a PUMA for the panzergren center or a Panzer 38(t).

- They also lack a good harasser unit for the early game that makes this faction less equipped to handle machinegun teams (like paradropped ones for example). There's no motorcycle or halftrack call-ins for the early game to help them punish undefended weapons crews. They basically just have to rely on the sniper. Not sure how this would be fixed. Maybe we replace the scout car with the 8-Rad and put the scout car in the infantry center and only allow upgrading it after you unlock another tier. Again, not sure but something I noticed.

Anyways I enjoyed reading your DAK ideas and I enjoyed reading this one. Fresh perspectives are always cool and I might incorporate some ideas here into my own potential tweaks, thanks for putting the time together for this one.

Great feedback!

Re teching, I feel there's a big difference between encouraging specialising in 1 tier and then basically obliging a player to, this being the difference between my design and the current one. With my own, you can get the benefits of staying in 1 tier but you have to, whereas with the vanilla version, its too expensive to consider. I feel the former creates build order options while the latter diminishes them. 

I agree that the side upgrades for construction options and MG upgrades seems unfair when other factions get it unlocked automatically, however I feel the point of a lack of side upgrades still stands. Wehr just really lacks any, but I haven't been able to think of any interesting ones yet.

Re Jägers, they probably are too good at range right now but I feel single schrek is inevitably going to either nerfed into oblivion or changed as I have done it. 

Re Grens, I agree, in my MOD I reduced the cost of transfer orders, it seemed too high to me, but I disagree with transferring over vet. The basic premise behind my idea is making Grens attractive enough that Transfer orders is actually a hard decision. Its a fine balance thing as well, make grens too good and no one will do it, make them too bad and you'll always do it. 

Re Kettenkrad, you can have more than 1 unit perform the same role without making the other obsolete. Jägers in Coh2 didn't make the Kubel pointless, neither did the mortar flare get rid of the T70 recon mode. 

Re luft vs panzergrens, I quite like the way Relic divided up the units, it makes a lot of sense.

Re tank destroyer, I suppose that's supposed to be the Stug/Marder, just the turreted units are too cumbersome relative to Coh2 right now.

Finally, re harassment vehicle, you do have the 221 and Stummel, I feel these have an interesting flavour relative to other factions. My thinking is that this makes for a good 'gap in the market' which Battlegroups can fill, to add variety.

Its worth noting in COH2 that Jaegers were a call-in and the kubelwagen had an MG to harass/defend itself with; whereas the Kettenkrad has no armaments to speak of.  

You are right though, nothing wrong with two units being able to fill similar roles; however I'd argue that since the Kettenkrad is entirely unarmed that its utility should far exceed that of a squad with rifles at least to still be a viable buy. So maybe the ketten just has much better spotting potential than grens, or maybe it boosts accuracy of units around it or something at higher vet, not sure but there should be a reason to keep one of those around into the lategame too I figure.

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For grens, its a different sort of approach to what I think the intent was behind them. IE: These are your conscripts, they provide some basic mainline support until they can be replaced; but maybe you always have one or two just to fill up some gaps due to the other units being fairly specialized. Nothing wrong with wanting them to be good enough support to stand on their own; and wanting to make it a tough choice of "do I keep my nice support or do I replace them with a specialized squad for cheaper than fielding a new one".

The case for preserving veterancy is simply that I feel the weight is too far towards "keep the grens around". Why would you want to replace a 2 or 3 star with a 0 or 1 star? It isn't exactly easy to get that far up. Manpower is cheap, veterancy is not. I could just be overvaluing veterancy though; but I just feel like there's not enough incentive to transfer orders even if it winds up being cheaper than fielding the unit from scratch. Additionally, A vet2 Jaeger isn't going to do the same job as a vet 2 gren; but I suppose there's a fair bit of nuance here that isn't particularly obvious where the right dividing line is to hit that fat sweet spot of actual decision making.

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There's an important distinction between tank hunter and a tank destroyer. Basically the Wehrmacht have these units to deal with armor:

* Jaegers with an expensive ammo upgrade. 

* PAK AT Guns.

* Upgraded Scout Car.

* Marders

* Stugs

* Panzer IV

* Panthers

* Tiger

* Flak 36

* That one thing that the luftwaffle drops thats name I forget but is apparently anti-tank (I say apparently because it seems to be worse than the pak).

In order to be a tank hunter there is a basic requirement. The unit needs to be able to chase/pursue tanks. If we look on this list our options are basically:

* Maybe Jaegers

* Panzer IV.

* Panther.

* Tiger.

All other units are excluded due to the fact that they can either A: Only fire in the direction they are facing (so they lack mobility due to needing to close the gap, and then also rotate in place). or B: Are slow or stationary.

Jaegers are infantry so they can get multched pretty fast by most armor you might want to actually hunt and they lack a sprint, so they can never really keep up with tanks that can kite them  but at the very least because they are effectively omnidirectional and have low profiles there's some potential to use them as a proper tank hunter. 

All the other options are either late game or super late game, there's a noticable gap basically from the mid tier all the way through; and Panzer IV's aren't even really hunters, they're just all arounders. The mid-game is lacking anything that can reasonably hunt say, a stuart or a chaffee; or harass the more late game units like a sherman or a cromwell.

Hence, there's a pretty wide gap in tank hunters that effectively funnels players directly to the panzer IV or Jaegers (probably why they're so prolific in the meta atm). They're missing something they can pop out in the mid game that can dive for a last hit or zoom around harassing an attacking stuart or chaffee. My first thought was a Puma as I couldn't think of any other units that were equipped to fight medium armor; though something like a Panzer 38(t) could also be a functional choice as it could function in a similar capacity as a stuart or M8.

Though its also possible the german anti-tank just needs to be re-tuned, as right now the lack of turret traversal makes the range at which stugs and marders can simply fire on enemies without having to turn extremely narrow.

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In regards to harassment its less that they don't have one, but more so that in that first critical 5 minutes, they lack something that can deal with say, a paradropped HMG from the US airborn dropped pretty much directly into their face. They have to tech up to get something to handle it; whereas minute 0 every other faction can pop out /something/ or has the ability to use smoke pretty much immediately or near immediately. 

Its a brief gap in their counterplay; and I'm not sure how much of a difference it actually makes of course; but I feel like the ability to establish early map dominance can snowball into a win (see luftwaffle paradrop engineers and emplacements) so, it's worth at least thinking on.

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Most of these "gaps" are not necessarily things I personally feel need a full correction on or anything; as its not out of the question that it just comes with the territory of the faction being good at certain things and not so great at others (variety is nice). Its just something worth considering when it comes to thinking about ways to restructure the faction since they are at the very least theoretical weakpoints in the faction's loadout. 

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Also read through a bit of that huge interface improvement post. Keep up the good work and I look forward to those brit ideas. 

This is an excellent show case of why Wehr need some form of Heavy AT in the late game: https://youtu.be/TG9Mgs0RCQU?t=2301

Every other Axis faction from Coh1 until Coh3 has had the Panther as the lategame AT choice and Dak have Flak 36s and Tigers. If the player in the vid didn't have access to the Tiger, how would they actually deal with Heavy Tanks? Aside from making Pak40s on par with Coh2 standards... Either the Nashorn, like in my Mod, or the Pak 43 should be added to T4 because exactly these types of situations.

I thought of another improvement you could make to Wehr, referring to the diagram in the original post, if you have 2 shared tiers between T2 and T3, the tier with the Wirbelwind and the Stug (Tier Beta) could be available not only after you Tech Flak, HT, Marder and Nebel (Tier Alpha), but also if you have both T2 & T3 or if you have T4. This set up has a lot of advantages, it allows you to tech T2 and T3 and then immediately tech to get both the Stug and the Wirbelwind (which is really expensive currently), without affecting their direct tech timing. It also indirectly buffs the Wirbelwind by making Pak and Wirbelwind strats more affordable. It makes back teching from T4 more affordable, as rather than requiring 90 fuel to tech from T4 to get a Stug and 100 fuel to get a Wirlbelwind from T4, it would get reduced to 60 fuel and 75 fuel respectively.  This is all achieved without changing any of the direct teching costs of these units. 

With regards to Jägers and PGs early timing, if order to adjust their scaling, you could lock some of their current performance behind an upgrade which requires the same level of teching as they do now. For example, with PGs, if they started with MP40s rather than STGs, but they could get STGs once the player had teched to T2 or TAlpha, then their scaling at that fuel timing would be identical.

All of these changes would merely enable more build paths and more flexible build orders, which is superior to the current version.