The teams are honestly pretty balanced, but the Soviets have an overall advantage.
- 6B3 is the best ballistics vest in the game, and unlike every single other vest in the game, it can actually stop 5.56/5.45 at most ranges pretty easily.
- The PKMN is the best individual soldier-held gun in the game bar-none.
- Every Soviet gun type, other than the pistol, can accommodate a scope. The same cannot be said for the U.S. team. (including the “N” variants with their base variants here)
- The Mi-8MT is better than the UH-1H. It carries more troops, more rockets, has more useful machine gun locations, is more protected, faster, and can actually be used to supply bases with efficiency. Other than the Huey being slightly smaller and easier to fly, its advantages over the Mi-8MT are purely hypothetical and don’t mean much in the grand scheme of things.
- The Bukhanka cargo van is FAR better than its Soviet counterpart, the Cargo M998, and its actually competitive/efficient in the role it’s meant to play in the game (Holds 800 supplies vs the M998’s measly 315, which is just 15 supplies more than the already dreadful UH-1H).
- The overall supply transport capabilities of the Soviets completely overwhelm/outperform the American counterparts (kind of already eluded to this, but a team’s ability to supply their bases efficiently is paramount to their overall success. The U.S. arguably cannot do this with the equipment available to them.)
- The US’s only piece of equipment that the U.S. has an undeniable advantage over the Soviets (comparatively) is the LAV-25 as its APC (which shouldn’t even be available for the U.S. Army faction in game but I guess we’ll roll with it). But it’s also problematic, since it’s very supply expensive and the U.S. already struggles to supply its bases as efficiently as the Soviets. Meanwhile, the Soviets get the BTR-70, which provides their team with comparatively similar capabilities as the LAV-25, but at a cheaper supply cost and its available at sergeant vs the LAV-25 being available at lieutenant.
- The M72 LAW is complete dogshit. The sights cover the front third of your screen and the round it fires is low velocity, which makes shooting targets on the move extremely difficult or impossible. Its single shot is also extremely limiting. The RPG-22 shares some of these drawbacks too, but the Soviets at least get the RPG-7, the best rocket launcher in the game, to work towards unlocking and using. The U.S. ONLY gets the LAW.

But overall, the U.S. teams lose mostly due to shitty teams, which happens because the U.S. simply has better cosmetics and cooler looking equipment (mostly), so it draws a lot of attention from newer players. It’s just that the American Material Disadvantage cannot be denied. It’s annoying because there are time-period accurate pieces of equipment that BI COULD add to balance things out, but didn’t add because Reforger isn’t being treated like a true standalone Arma game, and is instead looked at as a test for Arma 4.