>>534730130
Body armour is the cinching factor for the Soviets, because it REALLY fucks up the low BR German SMGs. The faster firing ones, the MP 28 and M38, have small mags that are very frustrating to use against enemies who take 3-4 shots to kill.

However, that being said, the PPD-34 is overrated (take a look at that damage! Who needs body armour when your enemy's gun deals 6.4 damage?) and Soviet bolt actions are, arguably, the worst in their class at BR I. Not by much, just a tiny bit. Their tanks are better than American tanks (the T-70 at least has a decent HE shell where the M5A1 doesn't, but the M5A1 is better in every other way), but are pretty badly lacking in a lot of ways, but like the Americans their CAS is pretty fucking bad compared to the Germans getting the Duck and the Bf 109 with 4x50kg bombs.

As with most BRs, the Soviets are massively carried by one strong power item and kinda let down by a lot of their other equipment.

>>534730358
The Type 38 rifle is borderline excessively strong since it has an ROF of 80 when perked with bolt action speed. The Type 100 (Early) is also extremely nice despite its low ROF since it has zero recoil and deals 7.2 damage per shot. The Type 97 AT rifle is also, for all intents and purposes, an oversized semi-auto you can use for that purpose.