Company of Heroes 3: US Support Center Detailed List

There are a lot of upgrades and choices in this game, and without a wiki or any form of in-game information I was tired of trying to remember everything and made some notes, which I later thought may be useful for other players.

Here is a run down of the three US support structures, all of their upgrades and what they do.

The support structure tech is a critical component of how the US faction plays, and each of the three structures offer wildly different playstyles, so it is imperative to understand them and what they do, so hopefully this breakdown and list is useful to you!

Each support structure costs 100 manpower and 30 fuel, you can only choose one per match and it’s a permanent choice much like your battlegroup, and choosing a structure is a necessary step to advance in the tech tree past the first two production structures.

Air Support Center:
Offers three aircraft related abilities, and upgrades for those abilities.
Do note that if the aircraft are shot down, it locks the ability for a non insignificant amount of time.
Immediate effect: Grants three aircraft abilities.

Grasshopper high-altitude recon run;
Cost: Free.
Cooldown: 120 seconds.
Sends a reconnaissance aircraft over the nominated position, identifying targets through the fog of war.

(Strafing run and dive bomb share a cooldown, using one ability puts both on cooldown)
P-47 strafing run;
Cost: 60 munitions.
Cooldown: 90 seconds.
Damage is wildly inaccurate and unreliable, but it does suppress infantry for it’s duration.

P-47 dive bomb;
Cost: 90 munitions.
Cooldown: 90 seconds
Heavy damage against all targets within the radius.

Center Upgrades:

Advanced Air Reconnaissance; 75 manpower, 15 fuel.
Upgrades the recon run to provide line of sight.

Air Supply; 100 manpower, 30 fuel.
Reduces the cost of air support abilities;
Strafing run 60 munitions down to – 40
Bombing run 90 munitions down to – 60

Air Supremacy; 100 manpower, 25 munitions.
Reduces the recharge time of air support abilities.
Recon 120 to 90 seconds.
Strafing run and dive bomb 90 to 45 seconds.

Double Sortie; 150 manpower, 40 fuel.
Adds an additional aircraft to the strafing run and dive bomb call in’s, effectively doubling the effects with a second barrage slightly following the first.

Closing thoughts: Fun abilities that compliment any strategy or playstyle, and the effects are felt immediately without any further investment making it the cheapest way to tech up.
The biggest drawback is that if your opponent has good flak coverage, it can really hamper the abilities from having any meaningful impact.

Mechanised support center;
As the name suggests this support center is focussed on getting the most out of your heavy vehicles, adding extra armour, abilities and weapons.
Immediate effect: Can repair vehicles and you are able to construct M3 APC’s already converted to either quad flak or 75mm cannon saving both time and resources.

Center Upgrades:

Specialized munitions. 100 manpower, 20 fuel.
Globally upgrades armoured vehicles with special munitions.
Upgraded units; M18 hellcats, M4A1 and 105 shermans, M24 Chaffees and M8 Greyhounds.
Canister shot: 35 munition cost on M8 Greyhound, 45 munition cost on M4A1 Sherman (high explosive buckshot style point blank range shot against squads)
M24 Chaffee gets ACPR rounds, 45 munitions cost. (increased damage and penetration against vehicles) .
M18 gets high velocity armour piercing rounds – 45 munitions (increased damage and penetration, reduced area of effect).

Improvised Armour: 100 manpower, 20 fuel.
Globally increases the armour of M8 Greyhounds, M24 Chaffees, M18 Hellcats, M4(105) Sherman bulldozers and M4A1 Shermans.
Below are the standard and upgraded armour profiles.

M8 Greyhound;
Front 40mm – 52mm
Side 30mm – 39mm
Rear 20mm – 26mm

M24 Chaffee;
Front 50mm – 60mm
Side 37.50mm – 40mm
Rear -25mm – 30mm

M18 Hellcat; Unchanged on the unit card???
Front 120mm –
Side: 90mm –
Rear: 60mm –

M4A1 Sherman;
Front 195mm – 234mm
110mm – 132mm
80mm – 96mm

Smoke Shells: 100 manpower, 20 fuel.
Upgrades vehicles with smoke canisters or launchers;
Unlocks smoke launchers for Shermans and M24 Chaffees and smoke shot for M8 Greyhounds.

M4a1 76mm conversion: 200 manpower, 50 fuel.
Globally upgrades all Shermans with 76mm cannons.

Being able to produce the upgraded weapon variant of the M3 armoured personnel carrier is a huge boon.
The basic M3 costs 270 manpower and 25 fuel.
Upgrading to either the flak or 75mm costs 75 munitions, for a total cost of 270/75/25.
However the upgraded versions are produced for 320 manpower and 30 fuel.
Trading 50 manpower and 5 fuel for 75 munitions is already a good deal, but you are saving a lot of time by not having to retrofit the vehicle post production.
Given the tech gap the US suffers between early game and getting out their larger tanks, while the Axis are already roaming the map with Stugs and Marders, the 75mm allows you to compete on an even level.

Closing thoughts: The upgrades have no noticeable effect until much later in the game and offer no real advantage in the early stages of the match, but the benefits are significant. Increasing the firepower, armour, and versatility of your strongest units is no joke, and being able to build the weaponized variants of the M3 offer you more mid game options.

Infantry Support Center:
Powerful and economical upgrades for your infantry.
Immediate effect: Deploys a free captain retinue on completing construction, HQ can now train captain retinues.

Center Upgrades:

Munitions Surplus; 100 manpower, 15 fuel.
Reduces the cooldown on infantry abilities by 25%, and reduces the cost of infantry weapon upgrades by 50%.

Demolitions Package; 100 manpower, 15 fuel.
Upgrades riflemen, engineers and bazooka squads to be able to plant demolition charges and M6 anti tank mines.
M6 mine = 50 munitions cost, can be triggered by any enemy (according to unit card description), has the anti tank tags.
Timed demo charge = 35 munitions, heavy explosive that can destroy buildings and bridges. 9 second fuse that counts down after the 13 second construction.
The final few seconds of construction is not animated, yet if you give the squad an order they will stop building the bomb and you will have to right click on it to continue the process.

I tested the damage of the charge;
I placed a charge directly in front of an M4A1 Sherman. It only did 13 damage (out of 720 durability).
I placed the charge directly behind the same tank, and didn’t move the squad away, and the detonation only did 183pts of damage to the Sherman, killed two of the riflemen, wounded two down to 88hp, and two more down to 18hp.
So it’s damage against units is pitiful and simply not worth it, however against base buildings it is ENORMOUS.
Even though you cannot place the charge directly next to a base structure, it still one-hit destroyed an enemy HQ building I placed it near.
Depending on enemy layout its not unrealistic to think you could destroy two base structures with one charge, which could be an incredibly potent backdoor attack, IF you could pull it off.

Advanced Logistics; 250 manpower, 50 fuel.
Reduced the manpower cost of reinforcing all infantry squads by 25%, and squads reinforced by triage stations are granted a small amount of experience/veterancy points.

Survival Training; 250 manpower, 80 fuel.
Globally upgrades all US infantry to have increased health by 10 points.

First number is health per man, second number is overall unit health. Second set of numbers is health post upgrade.

Scout squad 80/240 to 90/270
Engineers 80/320 to 90/360
Captain Retinue 95/380 to 105/420
Riflemen 95/570 to 105/630
Bazooka team 80/320 to 90/360
Sniper 80 to 90

Pathfiners 90/360 to 100/400
Paratroopers 110/660 to 120/720
SSF Commando’s 95/570 to 105/630
Assault Engineers 90/450 to 100/500

Weapon teams were not effected;
Mortar team 80/320 to unchanged.
LMG team 80/320 to unchanged.
M1 anti-tank gun team 100/400 to unchanged (this is the HP of the crew, not the weapon).

Captain Retinue; 240 manpower, limit of 1 active at a time.
4 man squad with several abilities and respectable firepower; 2 M1 garands, a thompson and an M1919A6 light machine gun.
Abilities;
Leadership – passively increase the experience gain of nearby allied infantry. (no idea if it works on your allies/team mates)
Flanking maneuver – active ability increases speed, reduces suppression and recieved accuracy of the captains squad (confusing wording but I believe it makes the retinue harder to hit, not reducing the accuracy of the retinue).
Rally to me (can be toggled)- Designates the Captain Retinue as a retreat point. Retreating infantry will fall back to the closest retreat point.

Captain has two different veterancy abilities to choose from;
Off-map mortar barrage; coordinates an artillery strike from off map batteries akin to a mortar barrage. (free ability, zero munitions cost, 135 second cool down).
Mark vehicle – marked units are easier to hit, take more damage and have reduced armour. (also free ability, 135 second cooldown)

Closing thoughts: Significant and powerful upgrades here, allowing your squads to get cheap weapon upgrades (25 cost flamethrowers or paratroopers getting 2 bazookas for 45 munitions!), extra health, (assault engineers having almost 50% more health than their vanilla counterparts!) infantry being 25% cheaper to reinforce and the introduction of the Captain Retinue which offers, at worst, a powerful for its cost unit, and at best, a total game changer.

Rally to me is an ability which, as time goes on and more players figure out the ins and outs of the game, is most likely something which will draw the ire of the masses.
The most obvious application is to have the captain and a medical truck sitting just behind the front line, allowing you to endlessly zerg down the enemy with healing and casualty replacement at any point on the map as fast as if you were fighting outside of your HQ.

Where things get spicy, is if you use it offensively.

Troops run faster, take reduced damage/are harder to hit and cannot be suppressed while ‘retreating’.
So if your captain is deep in enemy lines or simply on the other side of a machine gun nest, you can ‘retreat’ your soldiers to run at supersonic speed through the enemy defences and deliver a lightning fast flanking attack.
Also retreating cancels suppression, even if its a short distance so the captain and his troops can wade through LMG teams without qualm.
And losing the captains squad is insignificant, apart from the veterancy, as it only costs 240 manpower to replace.