I will lay my cards on the table here and say that returning to the Eastern front is what makes the most sense for further factions in the game. I wouldn’t mind seeing factions from Japan/Italy but overall I feel the Eastern front to be the most logical answer, from both a gameplay perspective, historical accuracy but also because players liked Soviets and Ostheer, so I imagine it would be a crowd pleaser.

Therefore, here is what my design for Soviets would be. I don't think that Relic should release any new factions for at least a year, but I imagine that work will start on new ones soon. A few notes, I’m going to be sparse with the text as these faction posts become monotonous if they’re too long. The design itself tries to make best use of the new features (towing) as well as using units that were not in Coh2, to keep things interesting.

This diagram mostly speaks for itself, however some notes:

Gaz Truck is basically your tow and reinforcement vehicle for the faction, it has 3 upgrades, 2 of which can be upgraded after either T1.5 or T2.5 has been unlocked or T3 has been built. These include:

• Ambulance version.
• Quad Mount, 4 maxims, for surpressing infantry and performing AA roles (Requires T1.5/T2.5/T3)
• 76 mm regimental gun M1927 version (Requires T1.5/T2.5/T3)

The BA-64 is basically on a similar power level to the 221 Scout car and arrives at a similar timing to reflect this. Could potentially have a PTRS upgrade making it a light vehicle counter.

The 72-K is a 25mm AA gun, my assumption would be that this would have similar power levels to the Flak 30 AA but require towing to get around, so not unlike the Bofors in that respect. 

The T-60 has a 20mm gun as opposed to a 45mm one, so my assumption would be that this would be more similar to the Humber in lethality but closer to the 8 rad in survivability. 

The BT-7 would fulfill the same role as the Stuart and Chaffee of being primarily used against light vehicles. It could also have a 76mm howitzer upgrade replacing the main gun, making it effective against infantry with a slow moving projectile like the Stug D. 

Guards would be 6 man again but start with SVT rifles and can be upgraded with either DPs or PTRS rifles, but in my opinion they shouldn’t have a mix of weapons again. The T-26 would be similar power level to the Crusader and fill that role of generalist light tank. The 76mm AA Gun M1938 would be towed and serve the same purpose as the Flak 88, albeit at a lower power level. The SU-122 would fill the same role as the Brumbar. And finally the M-30 would be the primary lategame indirect option. 

In keeping with my suggestions for a substitutable units feature, I would recommend being able to do the following unit substitutions:

• OB-25 -> PM-41
• M-42 -> Zis-2
• BA-10 -> BT-7
• BA-20 -> BA-64.
• DS-39 -> Maxim.

Although we're by no means limited to this, there are a plethora of options. 

In terms of teching design, the basic idea is a T1/T2/T3 split. This grants the soviets a lot of flexibility in how they want to approach their early game teching, where they could go either T1/T2 and get some support weapons and have access to AT, or they could go straight to T3 and get out some heavy infantry. Another advantage of this split is that it compliments 2v2s and even 3v3s, in that one player can go for each tier and have all the bases covered. Then having reached either tier, you have a plethora of options. For T1 and T2, each tier has a .5 tier, which contains units of mid game power. The T60 and BT-7 are not unlike the Humber and Stuart combo and the BA-64 with 72-K combo is more akin to the Flak 30/221 combo. However, if you went T3, you could go directly for the T-26 and SU-76, which constitute a higher power level roughly along the lines of Crusaders, StuG Ds, Wirlbelwinds and Marders. Another nice thing about the T3 straight tech is that it also unlocks the Quad mount and 76mm upgrade for the Gaz truck, so you need not sacrifice your light vehicle pressure, which you would get with the other tiers. This is not to say that the Gaz wouldn't be worth getting if you went T1.5/T2.5, as the upgrades allow you to cover up the missing element of your composition (either suppression in the Quad mount, in case you didn't go T1, or indirect in the form of the 76mm gun, in case you didn't go T2). Thus further increasing the robustness of your teching choices.

Going into the late game, players have the option of spamming T-26 tanks, which would not be far from Carro Armatos and Crusaders, with the back up of the 76mm AA Gun M1938. However, the real late game steam roller would be T4. To get to T4 you need either T1.5/T2.5/T3. With the main battle tank, heavy anti infantry tank, heavy tank destroyer and heavy indirect fire, its everything you could need. 

In terms of upgrades, I made a system somewhat similar to US, based on Infantry, Artillery and Armour. They each unlock a unique unit in the HQ. 'Conscript Squad Medic' should give Cons the ability to heal outside of combat. 'Conscript Squad Observer' gives Cons recon mode ability when stationary. 'Conscript Squad Engineer' gives Cons access to rudimentary repair. All of these upgrades should upgrade the skin of one model so its clear. NKVD Squad should be unique. Artillery Observers would have a long LOS, camo and can call in artillery. 

This diverse teching allows battlegroup vehicles to be tied to a variety of techs, opening up teching paths and build orders. Speaking of battlegroups:

The T-40 should be able to ford lakes and not suffer movement penalties when in water. As I said in my other designs, bringing back the water mechanics from Coh1 and expanding them would be really cool. Likewise with the LVT.

My Other Designs:

- DAK Redesign.

- Brit Redesign.

- US Suggestions.

- Wehr Suggestions.

- 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

Trademark wrote:

Excellent faction design. Very detailed and well thought out concept. I really admire the use of visuals and a focus on balance. It would be great to see a lot of these early war soviet vehicles added to COH 3. 

I have a few small changes to suggest:

-Have the Gaz Truck conversion munitions cost standardized with all other faction tow trucks (Medical 60 munitions, AA gun 75 munitions, AT/Other 60 munitions)

-For the sake of balance, I am a firm believer in every faction having access to a sniper for production, add a soviet sniper to the tier 1 base structure 

-The sniper team was highly unbalanced and unpopular in COH 2, remove the the sniper team and replace with another early CP ability (examples; recon or smoke plane)

-Adjust Guards weapon upgrades to COH 3 pricing, 2x DP-28 to 90 munitions (similar to US paratrooper LMGs) and 3x PTRS to 75 munitions (similar to US paratrooper bazookas)

-Change name of "Guards" to "Guards Rifle" to reduce confusion with British "Foot Guards"

-Swap production locations of the 52-K and M-30 Howitzer so the 52-K has the same timing as DAK Flak 36 and British 17 Pounder 

Again, some really good ideas here and I hope Relic looks to this page when they create a Soviet faction for COH 3.

I actually really like these ideas, I implemented most of them. The only ones I haven't added are the sniper ones and the switching of the Howitzer and the flak. 

Regarding the sniper, I totally agree with you that all factions should either have Snipers or not. Having said that, I'm hoping that Relic just change how snipers work in Wehr and US so they're not so much of glass cannons, my vote being converting them to Jager Light Infantry type units, as everyone loves them, they're way more fun and they perform the exact same role. Although, its not a hill I would die on, if Relic wanted to add a traditional sniper to this, then they can, but since I don't love them myself, I don't want to add them.

For the sniper team, agreed, that unit was terrible in Coh2, but the unit in the battlegroup here is actually not related at all, its more a Jager Light Infantry type unit. This wasn't clear from the diagram before, so I updated it. My mistake. 

Finally, swapping the M-30 and the 52-K is an interesting one and something that I had pondered over when drafting the design in the first place. Ultimately I think it would be fine if they did get swapped but the reason I prefer this setup is because in T4, you already have the heavy duty AT you need in the form of the SU-85, so I would imagine that the 52-K would get overshadowed if they were in the same tier. The 52-K's niche here is when you 'get stuck' in T3 and don't have time to tech to T4, so you just get the 52-K and cope with T-26 backup. In my mind, T4 should be objectively superior to T3, however if the M-30 was in T3.75, then T4 wouldn't have a solid answer to AT-gun walls. Regarding the timing, all of my faction design's prices are based off of the reworks I did to the existing factions, where they come earlier, but this one was slightly too early, so I bumped up the teching costs. Other options include replacing it with a weaker equivalent to the Flak 88 or swapping it with the M-30 and making the SU-85 battlegroup specific. Food for thought.

I also have no problem with them adding the Soviet faction, this is not about the Second World War; I don't know why those on discord dislike it