2S38 to 11.0

Machinery of War Discussion Ground Vehicle
1166

I want to start this with:
I wasn’t talking about the lvkv, i was comparing to the strf as both are light tanks in game (it is, at the moment, irrelevant that people argue that it should be an AA because right now it isn’t and that’s what i’m going by)

There is no “primarily” in the category gun handling, its an umbrella term that encompass everything around how the barrel moves.
The 9040C being “more than enough” does not take away the fact that the 2S38 is still almost twice as fast. it is literally faster at the slowest possible speed than the 9040C at its fastest.

regarding gun depression; yes its VERY important for this type of vehicle as its primary use is from behind hills.
But do you know how little 3 deg actually is?
Calculating on a 2m long barrel (just guessing here but it shows what i mean) that results in a 10cm difference in height at the tip. which at longer distances is remarkably more yes, but that matters little as all that means is that the 2S38 has to move to a better less steep hill and that problem no longer exists.

whether the depression or the rotational speed is more important ENTIRELY depend on the map that you are on. and the difference in depression is far less than the difference in traverse speed is.

anecdotal, not relevant to the discussion.
it having better thermals and access to commanders sights just objectively bakes it better in that area. it does not matter what you personally think about it, so i wont give my opinion either.

it does A LOT when you get shot at and have to go backwards behind a hill to repair or try to drive circles around a MBT in CQB. as shown in my calculations the speed alone sits at 10.4 comparatively (30% better acceleration).

(going by the strf here and not the lvkv:)
sure, you can, but having larger areas that are penetrable helps if either one of you are moving. not much, but it still helps.

  1. its ABSOLUTELY an advantage, in any situation where even parts of the hull is covered, having no crew in the turret does A LOT for survival. you can even hit the turret ring and not even injure the crew.
    not only that but from the side the crew is WAY less spread out so if the shot misses the crew it misses them all, the other two you very often get at least one crew which slows it down.
    so in the 2S38 its either survive or not, very little gray area, but the other two its often loose one crew and survive or don’t survive meaning even if you survive you are down one crew and easier to kill later on whilst the 2S38 completely resets its chanses.

i showed this as well.

Yes, this gives it survivability when not in cover, when in cover the 2S38 has the advantage so again it depends on the map, the strf9040C survives better in CQB but the 2S38 survives better on long range maps with hills.

skipping this as i compared to strf.

the strf9040C is 2.7m tall whilst the 2S38 is 2.4m tall as far as i know. making it shorter.
depression talked about above.

helps with AA.
when fighting MBT its more important if you can hurt them to begin with, it does not help to fire hundreds of rounds if they cant get through (analogy, the strf9040C can pierce but not as good).
so if i fire 10 shots and one make it through before the MBT turns and kills me or if i fire 3-4 and 2-3 gets through its far more likely that the MBT dies before firing back.
note that if either of them gets a surprise angle from the side then it wont really matter as both will kill the MBT anyway.

reverse speed matter way less than the acceleration does. in CQB or while hill peaking you don’t need the top speed to go back behind cover, you wont reach any meaningful speed over 20km/h in the strf9040C backwards before you are safe anyway.

the rest of that post i wont get into as i did the math on almost all of that and the 2S38 landed around 10.7 in BR comparatively.

and as a note, the strf does not have the 5 crew the lvkv has, it only has 3, same as the 2S38.

i don’t really see that many comparative flaws, it has flaws yes, but so does the others, often balanced out by something else. which is why i did the comparative math on straight numbers.
but the 2S38 has way more advantages than it does disadvantages compared to the strf.

i have no idea what you are referring to here. where can i see the statistics for individual vehicles?

3 Likes
1167

You don’t understand what the word “primarily” means.
This huge text wall has already had every single “point” of yours addressed within the thread, so I won’t waste too much time.

https://thunderskill.com/en/vehicle/ussr_2s38 - 2S38, average combined K/D of registered users = 1.2
https://thunderskill.com/en/vehicle/sw_lvkv_90c - Lvkv9040, average combined K/D of registered users = 1.75

The 2S38 being a premium really doesn’t mean anything, considering premiums such as the premium 2A4 and KVT have identical stats to their tech-tree counterparts. Most people, experienced or otherwise, play premiums. I personally have most of the Chinese high tier premiums.

1168

The word’s meaning is irrelevant - you cannot simply focus on single aspect (depression) and throw out other ones out of the window. @Necronomica is very much correct here, gun handling is an umbrella term and it encompasses a number of characteristics that make up “gun handling”, those being:

  • horizontal rotation speed
  • elevation speed
  • elevation angle
  • depression angle

2S38 beats the CV9040C (that @Necronomica was comparing the 2S38 to i’m pretty sure) in 3 out of the 4 categories with ease.

The 2S38 being a premium really doesn’t mean anything, considering premiums such as the premium 2A4 and KVT have identical stats to their tech-tree counterparts.

Apples to oranges. Both 123 & KVT are ctrl + c/v of the 2 best AFVs at 10.3, with very little shortcomings apart from one or two here and there; they are set for success, and they are also very easy to play.

2S38 isn’t nearly as easy to play as those two, why? Simply put, it’s not an MBT, you have to work around 2S38s own shortcomings to make it work.

2S38, average combined K/D of registered users = 1.2
Lvkv9040, average combined K/D of registered users = 1.75

I’m not a patreon, so I’ve only got access to last month’s stats for those vehicles, but;

image
image

2S38 has better K/B
CV9040C has better K/D

It also seems like people who play the 2S38 rarely, if ever, make use of its anti-air capabilites, seeing as AK/B and AK/D are both significantly lower than CV9040Cs, which doesn’t even get IRST.

Unless you are a patreon and have got access to yearly stats for both, where did you get those K/D ratios for 2S38 & CV9040C?

1 Like
1169

Stopped reading right there. What is so hard to grasp about the English language?

1170

I dunno? Maybe ask your teacher. I also suggest growing up a bit, leaving that dogmatic aspect of yours behind, and actually reading what people write - you are simply being ignorant right now, I straight up explained why you cannot ignore other aspects, and your choice of action is to ignore that, lol.

That aside, i’m not sure if you took notice (probably not), but there is no “primary characteristic” when it comes to gun handling. If there was, all Chally 2 players I know of wouldn’t be crying about its gun handling… I mean, according to you, depression is the most important, no? So Leopard 2s horizontal & vertical speed superiority isn’t an advantage at all apparently, since its depression limit is lower than CR 2s.

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1171

Does someone pay you to come in and throw topics off track while continuously calling others dumb and acting as if your replies are the end-all be-all, you punk?

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1172

What is there to say when you clearly don’t understand what is being written?
To go lower than that is to engage in conversation with @Dinfire , and that would truly be a waste of time.

I’ll give you ONE explanation, and if this gets brought up again - I’ll just consider you more beast than man and no longer care about your points.

Here goes:

PRIMARILY does NOT mean that I’m “ignoring” other aspects. You clearly don’t understand what the word means, and you even bringing up “asking my teacher” and “growing up” is a joke.

When I say that gun depression is the primary aspect of gun handling - it means that it is the most important and holds the most weight in the context. You can have a 200deg/s horizontal/vertical traverse, but if you have -1 deg of gun depression - your gun handling sucks. If you would rather take that rather than ~20deg/s and -10 deg of gun depression, you’re just delusional.

The main reason for this is something that was already explained here and here.

Regardless of you being in a CQC environment or a long range environment - you are expected to react ahead of time and pre-aim on your targets. If you’re in CQC or at long range, you should:

  • Know the map and aim towards expected chokepoints/enemy areas
  • Listen carefully to engine sounds and keep your gun ready

Hence, traverse speeds aren’t that useful in most cases. If you’re caught off guard, you’re probably dead anyway. You’re meant to be ACTIVE in the engagement of the enemy.

Gun depression enhances that, by allowing better positioning. Hence, it is the most important aspect of gun handling. This is especially prominent in vehicles that ALREADY have good traverse speeds like the CV90s (and any 10.0 light tank), where the difference between 33 and 56 is barely noticeable.

Traverse speed is only really useful when engaging low flying aircraft, which is a very specific scenario. And when it comes to anti-air, the Lvkv9040C is easily better due to its radar that allows it to pre-aim regardless. (And obviously, spot the aircraft). Along with the 3 times higher RPM for the proxy (volume > 2m higher blast radius).

This has already been said once in-thread. This is the second time. The third time will not warrant an explanation again.

1 Like
1173

You’re about as low a bottomfeeder as they come, so I suppose I’m glad to sling mud on your bad actions and call you for what you are, a stonewall who ignores his own points.

You say depression helps you get better positioning, while ignoring that the CQC aspect is primarily done IN CITIES with FLAT surfaces that do not allow for defilade to be properly used, anyway. A very common map design in War Thunder, especially. In those instances, gun traverse speed and reload rate matters.

Which, as it turns out, the 2S38 does markedly more well than many.

You do not warrant our attention further.

2 Likes
1174

I do, you just choose to think I don’t… get off of your moral high ground kiddo.

PRIMARILY does NOT mean that I’m “ignoring” other aspects. You clearly don’t understand what the word means, and you even bringing up “asking my teacher” and “growing up” is a joke.

Do you though? Seeing as you used that word to describe an important, albeit no more relevant than other aspects of gun-handling, characteristic - making it out to be the most important out of 4 of them, when it very much isn’t.

When I say that gun depression is the primary aspect of gun handling - it means that it is the most important and holds the most weight in the context. You can have a 200deg/s horizontal/vertical
traverse, but if you have -1 deg of gun depression - your gun handling sucks. If you would rather take that rather than ~20deg/s and -10 deg of gun depression, you’re just delusional.

Oh cool, and you can have -30 degrees of gun depression, but if your turret turns slower than Maus can drive, can you actually utilize that advantage?

You will prolly go out of your way, bend the laws of physics, resort to every single mental gymnastic ever thought of, and say yes.

I’ll just consider you more beast than man and no longer care about your points.

Ad hominem, an excellent example of why people don’t take you seriously. By the way, you’re Chinese right?

GKsM7upaAAA3AcG

Regardless of you being in a CQC environment or a long range environment - you are expected to react ahead of time and pre-aim on your targets. If you’re in CQC or at long range, you should

Idealistic view that is unwarranted.

Hence, it is the most important aspect of gun handling. This is especially prominent in vehicles that ALREADY have good traverse speeds like the CV90s (and any 10.0 light tank), where the difference between 33 and 56 is barely noticeable.

It’s the most important aspect only on hilly maps that allow you to take advantage of it. In city maps, it is as useless of a characteristic as they come.

where the difference between 33 and 56 is barely noticeable.

You’re delulu, the difference between 33°/s and 56°/s is massive, it’s a 42% difference in the turret’s rotation speed.

Yea, think I’ll just call it quits while i’m ahead, you’re not interested in what other people have to say, you’re here just to prove that “you’re right, and they aren’t”. Your condescending tone really sells out who you are, and what your goal is.

6 Likes
1175

this was fun and giggles until it became shits and giggles cuz i need to go to the bathroom asap

1178

okay, still not comparing to the lvkv as it has radar and no good AT round. the strf is a better comparison as it takes away the radar but adds the m/01 round instead but is otherwise identical to the lvkv as far as i know (except max positive gun elevation).

i do, but semantically there isn’t an order of priority within an umbrella term.
they are however differently important in different situations and saying one is flat out better than the others is objectively wrong. that is why i clearly stated that it is situational. gun depression wont help you att all in CQC and turret traverse wont help you much (but still a small bit) at long ranges from behind a hill.

what my main point is;
almost all of your points that are “flaws” are flaws only in specific situations. exactly in the same way that many of the advantages are positives in specific situations. BUT almost all of the advantages are advantages in most of the situations whilst the flaws are (almost exclusively) only flaws in one situation.

Many of the advantages will in my mind way heavier for BR placement as they are useful in more situations than one.
The only exception here being gun depression as it is a hard limiting factor, if you can’t fire att all the other stats won’t help you. but you solve that issue quite easily and that is such a small part of a vehicle when taking everything about it into account.

if you don’t feel like writing a wall of test as answer every time i completely understand, but could you then list of all the parts of the 2S38 that you think are worse than the strf9040C? no need for explanations as i will just use that list to add to my calculations made in the original posts that you commented to, to see if the BR range changes. (note that i will also then add all the positives for it that i didn’t use in the original).
But so far i have found that at least the raw stats of the 2S38 sits almost exactly in between the 9040C and the HSTV-L.

oh thunder skill, i don’t use that as i’ve seen many comments on it being unreliable as it relies solely on stats from players that use it and thus not being a representative selection of the player base.
but i don’t actually know so i won’t get into that. but thanks for the links :)
i also checked the strf and its stats are slightly lower than the lvkv for K/D but slightly higher for K/B
where the 2S38 shines is in arcade where it dominates in stats compared to both the strf and the lvkv.
K/D in arcade going lvkv-strf-2S38:
0.87 - 1.51 - 2.93
in realistic the difference is not that much:
1.75 - 1.48 - 1.13

if you look at K/B, starting with arcade:
0.75 - 1.12 - 2.86
and realistic:
1.36 - 1.42 - 1.2

so in arcade its ridiculously overperforming but in realistic they are equal enough for it to be within margin of error as the number of battles played for the strf is so low that i really can’t be used for any reasonable statistical accuracy (around 3000 is a number where you can start seeing and claiming statistical significance in most forms of studies/science). (K/D realistic is far enough apart that it will most likely show some sort of realistic difference in performance anyway).

So i think judging by this i think many players who say “its ridiculously OP and needs to be 11.0!!!” are probably coming from arcade and players saying “it’s fine where it is” are probably coming from realistic.

1179

Okay, just add the other C variants with similar performance that also have a high K/D? Which adds up to over 3000?

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1180

You do realise that is an anti air with not only the base APSFDS round but only difference is a search radar?
In my opinion that’s kinda poisoning the well, even if it’s in the favour of the CV90’s.

1181

Jesus Christ.

You’re implying that -5 gun depression is a flaw in only one situation… Or that it having far lower survivability with less crew members is also (mostly) a flaw in only one situation. I also recall you saying that it’s “mostly empty space” from the side, for the 2S38. As if someone who’s even a little bit experienced won’t just shoot towards the front where there’s 3 crew members lined up. Or the middle which will initiate an instant OHKO via ammo detonation.

The CV90s have full side hull spall liners and the Lvkv has 5 crew, of which only 2 are in the turret. If you don’t kill a 2S38 from the side in one shot - it is a skill issue. The Lvkv9040C being killed in one-shot from the side is miraculous.

Essentially - you think lower gun depression and lower survivability are “flaws only in one situation”, while lower pen accompanied with a 3X higher ROF and a lack of APHE - ALL THINGS which you can easily supplement by aiming better, are flaws in almost all situations.

How do people get like this?

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1182

you can’t do that, they are different vehicles with different uses and functions. it wont give a number worth any sort of weight to any of them individually by doing that.

1183

Are you taking the piss?
You’re claiming the Lvkv9040C and the Strf9040C are different enough to not be bunched together?
You know - the two vehicles in the same tree, at the same BR, using the same platform, with the same internals, the same gun using similar ammunition.

With the only difference being that one gets a radar and 2 extra crew at the expense of a worse shell. The Lvkv9040C is certainly slightly better (and is easily better than the 2S38 and is the best 10.0 IFV in the game IMO), but they play almost identically. That’s a fact.

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1184

Whilst I don’t disagree with this at all I don’t fully agree either, the fact that with good placement a 2S38 can hide it’s crew while exposing the turret and back half of the vehicle alone is pretty much in it’s favour all things considered.
But of course that doesn’t always happen.

And yes of course you can just shoot back at the 2S38, there is absolutely nothing wrong about that statement.

But at least for me the main issue is the fact that to effectively disable the vehicle from the front you’d have to go for the crew (any good 2S38 player will try to safeguard the crew against getting shredded by another autocannon tank.) You’d have to go though the “Spall liner that’s pretending to be a fuel tank” and yes of course fuel tanks are basically liners anyway, one would think that once the tank was destroyed it’d stop behaving like a spall liner, you know, like the currently implemented spall liners do. Seemingly though it stays effective even after it’s been destroyed, (E.G completely red) at least in my experience.

If you have a way of getting around that I’d genuinely like to know cause I’ve obviously got it wrong on how to combat a 2S38 user.

1185

Which is hardly ever possible due to the lack of gun depression. Which is something that’s been recursive and something I’ve personally mentioned perhaps half a dozen times.

If he finds a very specific area where he can somehow both shoot you and remain behind cover - you can always just take out his breech and reposition, you would need to be in a very bad spot for that to be possible, though.

I have experienced this maybe ~2-3 times, out of dozens of 2S38s that I’ve one-shot directly through said fuel tank. My most played BR is 10.0 so I see them all the time, and this has not been an issue. It HAS happened, but extremely rarely (about as often as any other tank from any other tree having a krok ))) moment). Autocannons seem to phase right through into the crew, even.

I’ve also been accused of being someone who uses the 2S38/has bought one, which is wrong. I’d personally never buy that piece of crap. But I’d also never grind Russia, either.

I don’t know how you’re having trouble with them, as they’re usually free kills in my experience.
The 2S38 fuel tank is far less effective than the BMP-3 fuel tank, as well. The BMP-3 fuel tank has actually eaten plenty of rounds in my experience - the 2S38, not really.

2 Likes
1186

no need for this, i’m having a civil discussion and trying my best to understand your position in the matter and why you think i’m wrong. I’m 100% ready to be disproven and change my opinion if i see something that would in the grand scheme of things impact performance to such a degree that it would lower a vehicles BR compared to a collection of other things that would increase it (thus negating each other making it stay at the BR it already is).

yes, from behind hills, its the only place i can think of. feel free to correct me but i don’t then there is any other situation where gun depression matters.

it doesn’t have less crew, as i stated before, i’m comparing to the strf NOT the lvkv. the strf also has 3 crew. and again “far lower survivability” is situational.

From behind cover the 2S38 survives infinitely better as the strf has 2/3 of its crew visible in the turret when peaking and will at least loose one crew (and most likely die) if hit in the turret that has no liner. the 2S38 also has a way smaller area of the turret that will actually do any sort of damage at all to the tank after penetration, most of the shots that hit the turret will pass through doing nothing. those that hit gun or breech will damage it but with that repaired no permanent damage has been done, the only place to do damage to its turret is the tiny area of ammo that could explode and get you a kill.

in open fields and in CQC the strf will survive A LOT better as it has liner, better armor and a frontal engine/transition.

going by your earlier statement that the gun depression is the most important gun handling function i assume that you (as well as i) think that the main role of these two are shooting from behind cover then the survivability goes in favour for the 2S38 does it not?

oh absolutely, but that does not mean that you automatically hit that area if either you or it are moving.
the difference here is that the 2S38 has more places where the shot will effectively do nothing to it whilst the strf looses 1 or 2 modules almost wherever you hit.
hitting the 2S38 “in the middle” from the side is not a guarantied kill, there is several areas where the shot might yellow some modules or crew but not take anything out to the point of needing repairs. and if it does take out breech, gun, turret ring or gunsight you can still drive and try to hide (the strf cant since if you hit in those areas you also kill the crew and thus the entire tank).

spall liners help, but the area of instant kill in combination with second shot kill is still larger on the strf (NOT the lvkv, i dont know why you are still comparing to it, the 2S38 is much more related to the strf). still only 3 crew, not 5.

gun depression yes, (again feel free to correct me). but i said “almost exclusively”, not entirely, about survival (as described above).
higher RoF matter less than pen on these types of vehicles, it matters yes, but less (on MBT’s i would argue the other way around), if a tank shoots you and misses it matters little if you shoot 20 rounds or 10, it matters more if you in that time hit and destroy the breech or barrel (or with some luck the turret ring and kill it). if you surprise a tank it again RoF matters little, both of them will kill it from the side before it can do anything back.
the main area where RoF matter is AA as volume of fire increases chances to hit a fastmoving target, and there the 2S38 has the IR-tracking and a better proxy round to make up for that (and then some as that helps other areas too). lack of APHE i have not talked about and do agree that it matter extremely little, i don’t really know why you brough it up.

?
i’m just trying to have a normal discussion to increase my understanding on the vehicle and peoples position around it. i’m trying to be as factual as i can and with as little bias as i can (although it is to some degree unavoidable) to collect information that would help me BR-place it. i have no personal quarrel with the 2S38 as i don’t find it an issue when i face it, i’m just doing data collection and calculations to see where it would land in BR between the 2 most compared to vehicles.

1187

no need for this please.

statistically yes, for uses to compare to the 2S38 yes.
one is mainly used for anti air and the other is mainly anti tank.
i said nothing on specific stats, i said “uses and fuctions”.
they play differently and players will use them differently and such will garner different results.
they are almost identical in pure numbers, but their different roles makes them play differently enough that statistically you cant bunch them together.

looking back at the statistics you linked earlier they very much don’t play “almost identically”. the lvkv is MUCH more anti air oriented and is played as such to a way greater extent. saying “That’s a fact” feels disingenuous as it at least statistically is clearly shown not to be.

I also don’t understand your claim of the lvkv being “easily better than the 2S38” when as i showed earlier in my calculations (thus disregarding anecdotes and personal feelings/experiences) when comparing to the strf that almost all of the stats are better for the 2S38. it is much closer in playstyle to the strf because they both don’t have radar, the strf gets a better round making the main round closer to the 2S38 and lastly having the same amount of crew.