Basic Starter Strategy - American army. 

Engineer 1x - Only starting engineer, have him build barracks.
Rifleman (ad nausem, probably around 5)x - Spam Rifleman, use them to cap, attack in groups, try to attack from all sides, move in close to do the most damage.
Choose Infantry Company, go down the left hand side getting to rangers.
(Once you hit 60 fuel) Buy B.A.R.s for the rifleman
(Once you get 20 more fuel) get a Triage Center at your base to heal the wounded rifleman
(Once you get Rangers)  Stop building rifleman, keep your existing squads alive.  Build rangers.

Rangers are effective anti armor weapons and the rifleman are good against all infantry.  If you can afford it, buy the rest of the rifleman upgrades as well as upgrade ranger squad with thompsons.

Continue down the left hand side and once you get Off map combat group, get that, it should give you heftier anti tank weaponry.

Panzer Grenders with MP44s and an Ostwind Flakpanzer destroys your strategy.

The best and worst part of Company of Heroes is that you have to combine a variety of tactics and think which one to use on the fly. This is awesome for the long lasting value of the game for people who love it. But new players may be overwhelmed and give up. The campaign is pretty easy to get through though.

Yeah, against Panzer Elite you basically need to rush to get an M8 out or their armored cars will own your infantry. Likewise you'll need something other than rangers to combat Tier 4 from wehrmacht- a well microed Ostwind or Panzer IV will ruin an all infantry strat.  Especially if they have proper support for their armor in the form of MGs and grenadiers. 

Its not meant to be the indefeatable strategy, its meant to be the easiest strategy for beginners.  If youve just started the game, you can hold your own in a 2v2 with this strat. 

seems like a decent strat for beginners

I thought it was, and the two proposed counters can be overthrown by this strat though, albeit with extreme casualties

the mp44s:
Supression with the bars, grenades, and a prayer

the ostwind:
have each rifle squad in the area throw a sticky bomb on it, and once a squad has thrown it, retreat that squad.  This will try to maximize damage and minimize casualties.  Once you do as much damage with the stickys, move in teh rangers, and spread them out to avoid multi-kills from the ostwind.  You'll need at least 2-3 ranger squads to even have a hope of killing an already weakened ostwind.  Fire up and spread out, try to get behind.  This is just for one ostwind.  If there are two, and they have veterancy, you're screwed.

Personally, I like to build 3 or 4 engineer units early, capture some points, then build the barracks, the weapons center, then like 3 snipers to snipe choke points on the map. Then I try to get the motor pool ASAP so I can build some anti-tank guns. Once I have a few of those, then I usually go the airborne infantry route so I can get AT gun drops and paratroopers. After that I build whatever I need to counter my opponent.

"I thought it was, and the two proposed counters can be overthrown by this strat though, albeit with extreme casualties

the mp44s:
Supression with the bars, grenades, and a prayer

the ostwind:
have each rifle squad in the area throw a sticky bomb on it, and once a squad has thrown it, retreat that squad.  This will try to maximize damage and minimize casualties.  Once you do as much damage with the stickys, move in teh rangers, and spread them out to avoid multi-kills from the ostwind.  You'll need at least 2-3 ranger squads to even have a hope of killing an already weakened ostwind.  Fire up and spread out, try to get behind.  This is just for one ostwind.  If there are two, and they have veterancy, you're screwed.
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