I absolutely don’t agree with that point. The 2s38 is significantly better than the CV. It has a much better gun, with better penetration. It’s, I believe, far more mobile, and in some aspect has better survivability due to the back still being empty and the crewels design. It also works much better as an anti air, be it drones, helicopters or planes thanks to its IRST.
When it comes to MBT lethality, from 9.0 to top tiers, everything kills the 2S38 the same way. They are not more or less lethal to the 2S38. The weak spots and kill areas are the same when facing a 2S38.
As for their armor, well duh. In my honest opinion you should not have a light auto cannon tank be able to shred through MBT’s frontal armor. The 2S38 never had any reason to face things like 9.3 leopard 1s and AMX
The 2S38 should primarily serve its SPAA role (which it does quite well against everything that is not a supersonic jet). It can still scout and easily disable/kill MBTs, just not like a MBT, but as a flanker, just like you have to use all other auto cannons around the BR (CV90, PUMA, VBCI…)
As you said, 2S38 is a premium, so speaking of it stock does not make sense. I think we will keep our disagreement at that, because I think the 2S38, while worse than the HSTVL, should not be at such a lower BR. But, compression and decompression at this BR already does not make sense. I’d rather compare the HSTVL to a light Type 10/90, to which it’s at a coherent BR imo.
My issue is not with the 2S38 being so far from the HSTVL, but with it still facing 9.3 which does not make sense to me
@vizender
IF Type 90 and Abrams got their turret rings fixed, I’d agree that 2S38 is 0.7 BR difference.
The only notable difference between 2S38 and CV 9040C are pen and speed, the difference is less than that of HSTVL which is double acceleration rate of 2S38.
Anti-air doesn’t matter because its BR is already higher than its anti-air capability.
If 2S38 was balanced around its anti-air it’d be 9.7, if it was mixed anti-air and anti-tank it’d be 10.0 again.
If HSTVL was balanced around anti-air it’d be 9.3/9.7.
If Puma was balanced around anti-air it’d be 9.0.
If OTOMATIC was balanced around its anti-air it’d be ~10.0.
I also didn’t speak of 2S38 stock.
So you want to buff it, cause any sort of balancing 2S38 around its SPAA capabilities are exclusively buffs. Lower spawn points, lower BR, etc.
The BR difference between HSTVL and 2S38 is shared among over half a dozen other tanks.
Oh, and CV9040C pens Leopard 1s at the same rate as 2S38.
Puma’s armor is better only when you completely isolate it from outside factors, i.e the match, i.e the vehicles it actually has to face (~130mm of KE protection in the grand scheme of things is, when you actually insert the vehicle into a realistic scenario, no different from having the 50mm that 2S38s armor offers), 100% of MBT grade projectiles have absolutely zero issues with making it seem like it doesn’t have any armor. The only vehicles that can and will struggle with it are IFVs with cannon calibres below 35mm and don’t shoot APFSDS, so ye, Puma has armor against most IFVs (only from the front), it doesn’t have armor against anything else, and MBT make up (from my experience) at least 80% of the enemy’s team composition. On the other hand, some IFVs also have ATGMs that make Puma’s armor absolutely irrelevant.
If you compare how effective their armors are against each other, its whoever fires first, as 2S38 has more than enough penetration for whatever protection Puma’s armor can offer, but in exchange it cannot deal with Puma’s 30mm either.
If you compare them based on what they face at 10.3, neither armor matters. What matters there is reaction time (gun-handling) and firepower, both of which are in 2S38s favor as its horizontal aiming speed is +/- 60 degrees per second (in comparison to 45 for the Puma), and obviously 3UBM22 is far superior to PMC287.
So you can remove that “more armored” from your post, and let “faster” stand alone. In any case, Puma and 2S38 being at the same BR is a mistake, and either Puma has to go down (not really), or 2S38 needs to go up (more preferable).
You have to remember that I didn’t come to a conclusion on Puma vs 2S38 cause I don’t find them comparable.
It should be Puma vs BMP-2M and other low-caliber weapon systems such as the new Japanese wheeled vehicles.
And Puma should probably be a lower BR than BMP-2M, while higher than the Japanese vehicles.
It’s possible decompression among low-caliber vehicles should occur.
@Matthgame231
Stryker is not a tank, and it’s power to weight ratio makes it slower.
Mobility, ammunition [which includes post-pen], and optics.
Everything else it’s on-par except for thermal generation as that’s the only thing where HSTVL’s age comes as a factor.
2S38 has better optics having 4.0x-9.4x while HSTVL has 2.0x-8.0x zoom.
Also has 6x more ammunition.
Nothing is on par.
HSTVLs post pen damage is almost non-existent
For anti-tank, reloads lower than 2.0 when penetration is over 200mm just flat out doesn’t matter. Either you pen on first shot or you don’t, and follow up shots take out the rest of the vehicle.
2 > 4 for minimum zoom, and 8/9.4 is effectively the same for maximum zoom.
Ammunition count matters for aircraft.
2S38’s post-pen is less than half of that of HSTVL’s, so any take you have on its post pen, your take on 2S38’s is still going to be that 2S38’s round is worse.
I adopted the “penning is better than relying on post-pen” attitude in 2019.
So yeah, I don’t care about post-pen personally which is why most of my posts in 2023 has me not caring about people focusing so much on post pen cause I was unintentionally being a tad rude forgetting to take into consideration their preferences in that regard.
I bring APCR in the 90mm tanks cause they’re the best pen, and penning to frag a cannon breech, ammo, or gunner is more important than bouncing with an inferior penning round.
90mm APCR are the only APCR with more pen than APCBC.