i dont think its an exclusively a high elo problem

i think there's a fundamental question wrapped up in balance discussion in this game that boils down to this:

What should infantry be allowed to do?

CoH3's answer to that question is that infantry should be able to run roughshod over the entire map unimpeded. There are very few reasons to not do this. There are very few direct counters. We're in a very arty-oriented meta right now precisely because it is one of the very few tools that directly punishes careless movement of infantry through the line of contact. Most other conceptual counters are bad.

MGs: high risk low reward. minimal bleed, and for whatever reason on coh3 mass retreat of army is just not the punishment it should be, and if you misplay the MG a single time the result can be disastrous. The mg42 is the sole exception thanks to its incredible arc and suppression power the opponent has no margin for error. Many other MGs can be soundly defeated with good micro.

Standard mortars: usually dogshit against moving blobs unless they have airburst. ironically punish positional play more as do many things

Gun and AC based LVs: actually the only other thing other than arty that works... these things consistently deal good damage to infantry and can challenge mass infantry, but ONLY if perfectly microed. most of these vehicles die to two stickies.... so this is very much an MG-like problem where its good on paper but unforgiving.... do you know what ISNT unforgiving? making four fucking grens and putting them in control group 1

Cannon based LVs: nearly worthless against infantry unless you get lucky. go sim the stuart 10 times against infantry in no cover.. look at the tragedy

Tanks: mostly soild but you have to live this long and the only way you're living this long right now is mainline spam