Every faction should each get a unique TT squad, that has a special ability that specifically fits the nature of said faction.
As such I want to propose the following special squad for the Soviet faction:
Heavy Assaulter
One thing first - Soviet body armor as a cosmetic will be removed completely, in return this new heavy Soviet Assaulter squad will get body armor as a unique feature.
Reasoning behind this squad:
Soviets uniquely put massive emphasis on SMGs, so much so that parts of their army were entirely equipped with nothing but SMGs. Soviets were also the first army to ever implement infantry bodyarmor successfully on a massive scale. While those plates were ineffective at stopping rifle and MG rounds, they gave a massive boost to moral for assaulting units because they provided protection from shrapnel and SMG fire.
Functionality of this squad:
Body armor and SMGs, the entire squad get those - however the reality of body armor is that those armor plates are very very effective at stoping pistol and SMG bullets, but did nothing to stop rifle rounds.
So to implement this correctly, body armor should make the front torso of the assaulter get a flat damage reduction of 5 dmg instead of current flat 10% dmg reduction. What this will do is it will radically reduce effectiveness of SMGs because each shot individually will lose 5 dmg while rifles and MGs both wont drop to the 3 hit down damage levels. Now this is obviously a massive buff to already OP body armor, but actually is quite realistic that way - real world armor works like tank armor, no penetration = mostly no damage.
So to make this balanced, it is important that this body armor “ONLY” works on the front of the torso - NOT the back of it, just how it actually was with those plates in real life. Also, those plates should come with a big movement speed penalty.
So to speak those “Heavy Assaulters” should be super powerful CQC superiority units - but very slow and their armor being mostly powerful at stopping SMG rounds.
To clarify the bullets to kill math behind this:
Armor reduces damage by 5 →
So 9mm SMGs usually dealing 6.8 dmg will now deal only 1.8 damage which will mean SMGs will need 8 bullets to down against hitting those plates - which is pathetically weak, but IF those Assaulter squads would get proper movement speed reduction they will become sluggish and slow in close combat, which means in return it will be easier to land head shots or to aim for the enemies limbs.
Next bolt action rifle → usually you need above 13.5 damage to down with one shot, but you also need above 20 damage to guarantee a direct one hit kill.
Since bolt action rifles all deal above 20 dmg, this will result in them downing instead of killing straight away. In other words it will effect bolt action rifles, but not massively.
Now semi auto and select fire rifles → most semi auto rifles deal above 15 dmg which means they will need two shots to down a heavy assaulter, which definitely lowers the effectiveness of semi auto rifles up close but since those heavy assaulters would come with movement penalties and they are limited unlike current body armor, this would be a fair trade off.
MGs → MGs usually deal around 13.2 damage upgraded, which means they never down in one shot against vitality. 13.2 dmg - 5 dmg = 8.2 dmg → this is still enough to down with two shots up close.
This means MGs will be very effective against body armor.
Conclusion:
As long as the heavy assaulter squad doesn’t get too much utility and a noticeable movement speed penalty it will function as a dedicated CQC superiority unit and will be a hard counter to SMGs, but will not be OP outside of this role - and ultimately will finally put an end to the current issues body armor has.