I'm sure there will be lots of people lining up to shoot me down for asking this question but I'm going to anyway.
Ever since they nerfed the Shreck the PE, IMO, have big problems.
How do they take down Brit emplacements, namely Lewis gun nests but also mortars and bofors.
The PE have virtually no decent artillery unless you go scorched earth and even then it is expensive and late game. So Before the nerf you simply charged your grenediers in with shrecks in sufficient quantity to stop them all getting pinned so they could shreck it to death. The trouble now is that since the shreck has been nerfed it is harder to do this to the point of it being almost impossible. I don't know if the lewis was also buffed as well since it seams to be able to suppress and pin huge numbers of units.
Other than the grenedier rush how else does a PE player take down lewis emplacements?
Well you can use a mortar HT if you like practising an exercise in utter futillity as it takes so long it's daft. From the other side the Brit mortar pit is brutal and will do a lot of damage to most of the lighter PE vehicles and infantry. Needless the say the mortar HT is also crap against brit mortars.
A PIVis is very good against emplacements, the trouble is it is very vunerable to brit tanks and dies in seconds to the 17lber, so unless you have about 4 driving into a brit strong point is suicide.
Also since the shreck nerf the PE are also very vunerable to brit tanks. Now it is very easy to kite tank buster squads and the cromwell is more than a match for a hetzer or marder. Sure the panther will kill a cromwell as will the jagdpanther but a couple of well positined Fireflies will scare a panther ot two away especially if the have a support tank in tow and or a cromwell or two.
But the tanks is a side issue, the major problem as I see it is emplacements. Grenediers simply cannot attack due to lewis guns. PE armour gets raped by bofors and 17lbers and they have no artillery to speak of to provide useful indirect fire. Even if you do get a hummel it need constant attention to stop it falling foul of counter battery fire.
On top of this the 25lbers harrass your units to the point of insanity. I don't know what the cool down time on them is but if your opponet has 2 they can pretty much pound you into subbmission.
In short PE have no effective way of taking down a brit stronghold and on many maps avoiding it just isn't an option.
Had the shreck not been nerfed, which IMO it shouldn't, then this would not be such an issue.
After all wasn't it nerfed because of people blobbing? a tactic endorsed by relic due to the inclusion of group zeal and the fact that PE units need to be grouped to make up for their general weakness and small size of units. After all US have been blobbing rifles for years.




