Why AA has ap ammo? Feels so stupid.
They have armor pricing belts to pierce armor
i understand if they can get bmps and that kinda tanks but mbt frontally, thats kinda stupid
Why?
Well I truly understand your frustration and annoyance, at low BR ratings the SPAA are quite possibly the most efficient anti tank vehicles, spewing an endless steam of god needles of death that shred through most if not all armour at that level, while at the same time being difficult to eliminate due to all the space between crew members and the poor realism of shells and the effects they have on crew morale and actual bodies.
Again realism or lack of it in the game, SPAA was obviously primarily for anti aircraft use with perhaps some use against troops and light skinned or very light armoured vehicles. Tungsten I believe was the core of a lot of the AP rounds, in short supply a critical war material needed in more critical areas than ammunition, most vehicles had one or two clips at the most not an endless supply.
Problem with the game is in order to make it playable a lot of realism has been removed, a lot of vehicles did not make into production because of serious flaws but in Warthunder the flaws are dismissed and you have vehicles/planes/ships which perform far more outstanding then they ever would in the real world.
“self defense”
And also because AP shells had a purpose in SPAA work but now all explosive shells can just rip planes in half with no issues, So AP was just kind of left with small anti tank role.
In case of the 35 mm automatic cannon Type KDA;
To increase the effect against armoured parts/such that HEI cannot perforate, of aircraft (think of engines or the A-10’s tub for example), aswell as allowing them to engange certain armoured ground targets without having to expend the limited amount of auxiliary sub-calibre ammunition.
Sorry for the poor quality, I only have a physical copy of the german version and I cannot be bothered to translate that rn.
PLD-044, DM 13/DM 13 A1 (same as DM 13 but diff. primer)
ballistically identical to MSD-042 HEI (DM 11 A1)
It did also have better effect at higher depth of penetration compared to the Mine-HEI shells (MSD).
Later on, new base-fuzed HEI shells were developed, which were better against aircraft and still retained the capability of dealing with armoured targets up to, and including, IFV’s (examples: SSD 048, SSD 052, DM 31 HE-MP-T)
Because they have them IRL??? Duh, next question.
Even the CIWIS has 20mm APDS rounds. Most of the cases its for self defense, and others like CIWIS for better speed and less bullet drop.
how many times have you seen some AA frontline going against MBT, 0
Thats irrelevant.
But anyway answering to your question, almost all ww2 trucks ingame, like flakbus 88mm are anti-air vehicles, later used as anti-tank. Also the flak 20mm and insurgent 23mm used as fire support.
Aso you see the same anti-air armaments, like the 40mm bofors or 35mm, being used by IFVs.
because realism should make way for fun. a game is supposed to be fun. if realism is prohibiting the fun, it should be balanced to meet the fun quota. only a select few are wanting for an actual tank simulator, flaws and all. where trying to accelerate in the kv-1 at the highest gear could break the gearbox because it was too weak to pull all that weight. in this game, half of the speed of the kv-1 is met at the highest gear. unrealistic. but not something you should push realism into.
same goes with spaa’s. is their intended target planes? yes. no question about it. but, in this game, the majority of your enemies will be ground targets. you cannot ask of players to simply sit quietly in the corner of the map, waiting for an enemy that might never show up. that would lower the fun so dramatically, that you will have players lose interest in the game.
look at the sidam 25. all it has, is 40 rounds, that are effective at taking out tanks. you literally see no one play it. its always the falcon. the chieftain marksman. the xm246. hell, even the m247 with only 38 pen, is still the better option, because it can abuse overpressure. it doesnt even have to pen anything, you just shoot an observation device and bang, all crew is dead. 38 pen and i take out t-55’s with it. dont ask me how, but i enjoy this ability very much.
you need to give spaa’s a way to hurt ground targets properly. otherwise, they become a neglected tank type, same as with bombers. no one wanna play bombers for viable gameplay. why? becuase gaijin ruined their usability. how the game is made, bombers have no purpose that a fighter or interceptor cant fullfill. namely, advancing the game.
IRL AA Tankers like to be able to defend themselves
to be fair it SIDAM should have (S)APHEI-T…
https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/iH08QFhWa0g3
Also can add that AP rounds weren’t only for self defense, but also for actually getting to vitals bits on aircraft, but since 6g of TNT can saw off aircraft in half leaves AP completely irrelevant on A2A duties and it is just left with “self defense”.
There in lies the whole problem of the game really. It is a shallow shoot em up with no real depth of play or long term strategy. You drive to a white circle, hopefully without being shot sit in it for a minute or two again hopefully without being shot, stay there and shoot other people trying to steal your white circle.
Adding all the vehicles that they do just for the Guinness World Record of most things in a game is really a recipe for the mess we now have. I have said before a lot of vehicles have no place in the game with how it is structured and played, these vehicles are often a hindrance to the side that is playing them and are there just as a novelty, so to make these vehicles not useless things are added/altered to make them a little competitive, likewise vehicles which were very good have things removed/altered so they are not too good.
It is very very annoying sometimes with the apparent luck that happens in the game, it is a poor gaming experience full of inconsistencies.