In nature, when an organism is exposed to poison repeatedly, it builds immunity.
War Thunder CAS is the same.
The more AA and SPAA Gaijin throws at us, the better we become at defeating it.
I’ve noticed I’m killing more anti-air than ever — and I’m not the only one. CAS content creators are getting more skilled, more creative, and more effective.
CAS isn’t being toned down — it’s evolving.
Why?
Because we’re being forced to adapt.
The strongest strategies right now aren’t even widely used yet. The players who do use them are dominating. Here’s what high-level CAS is shifting toward:
How CAS is evolving
More patience and flanking
Flying wide, coming in from behind or from unexpected angles instead of straight at the battlefield.
Heavy use of terrain and cover
Hills, buildings, trees, and valleys are now part of the attack path.
Decoy saturation (high-skill play)
Dumping 6–8 countermeasures to force SPAA to fire, then attacking low from a different direction with rockets or guns while they’re reloading or tracking ghosts.
Helicopter counter-AA tactics
Using rockets to intercept incoming SAMs, then striking back with AGMs.
This is difficult — but devastating when done right.
Aggressive maneuvering
Hard breaks, terrain masking, and last-second jinks instead of slow, predictable attack runs.
Better ordnance knowledge
Knowing exact seeker behavior, lock limits, splash radius, and guidance types matters more than ever.
Terrain-based attack paths
CAS now plays like a low-level strike sim — hugging the ground, popping up, striking, then disappearing.
And the late-game reality
By the last 25% of most matches, SPAA is usually sitting in spawn.
At that point, CAS turns into systematic AA removal — free dinner.
Artillery + helicopter spawn-to-spawn strikes
Smart players are coordinating artillery with helicopter spawns to delete AA before it can react.
I’ve even gotten bored of fire-and-forget AGMs — I’m running laser-guided weapons just to make it more challenging.
CAS isn’t dying.
It’s becoming more technical, more lethal, and more rewarding the more Gaijin tries to suppress it.
Great that you like it, because I do too. I said a long time ago that CAS players would adapt and keep destroying everything. Only TO and SPAA players keep getting better and better tools, yet they still don’t know how to play and never did. The only thing they know how to do is cry on the forum that tankers are being heavily oppressed and that they “don’t have” the tools to fight back. It’s so funny it’s actually sad…
We just don’t want to bro we like boxing, we don’t care your jiujitsu. You can train jiujitsu and play wrassling with your brother we are not interested in that and we don’t wanna know bro
And that is why it is filtering brain dead CAS player and before multi sam vehicle were added they were easily able to do CAS and now i don’t see a lot of them. CAS situation might feel worse now due to the actually good CAS players that don’t turn their heads off are the one that are doing most of the CAS. Also this is just going to get worse as more modern NATO ammunition like AGM-158, AGM-88, GBU-53, Storm shadow, Hellfire longbow, FNF brimstone etc
They would have to lower SP for CAP loadout then. Also that would also only be possible if the player has completed air tree and at that point they would just do CAS as well. Also that would just lead them to spawn planes and just not support the ground force at all
Your analogy is not correct. I would say: why come to a kickboxing competition if you only know how to strike with your hands?
Create a training session with your own rules, where only hand strikes are allowed (custom match), and enjoy. Or adapt to what exists. Oh, sorry — TO fans and adaptation are two incompatible things.
It’s not true that when you’re restricted and stuck in the same spot at the base the whole match because of the absolutely TRASH SHIT maps that Gaijin has in the top tier, how do you stop CAS when you’re playing on Ghost Factory? How the hell am I supposed to fight CAS if I’m playing on the map where I advance over Reno? Where the buildings block my radar, I have nowhere to go. I’ve been saying this for a long time, but nobody listens. The CAS problem also has to do with the maps, because the current maps prevent SPAA from doing their job. I’ll give you an example: on the Fulda map, which is the best map in the game, I had a memorable BUK match with over 8 kills in jets, because there I could hide my launchers without fear of someone being stuck at my spawn point 2 minutes into the match. That’s why I don’t even play GRB anymore, especially at high level, because of the map. But BVVD said that players, this bunch of kids, prefer small maps, and here we are…
The issue is that majority of tankers never bother grinding air let alone fighters. And free tanks implementation already showed what players are going to get if they want free fighter/strike plane. You are pretty much doomed on free phantom with just one 20mm vs su25bm with 2 r73 and 2 r60m (they can still carry agms with that btw).
As opposed to spawning in an AA system off rip and… not supporting ground at all? or all the players that W key right into battle?
Im terrible at ground, but the second its air engagement im having fun again. I would jump into ground battles just to play CAP with an AAA environment!
Ladies and gentlemen, we are witnessing the evolution of CAS players. Bro you aren’t Charles Darwin. Bro got killed by a good CAS player and now thinks the whole collective CAS community is evolving. I hate CAS with FnF missiles, but if it’s CAS who plays smart with dumb missiles/bombs respect in that.
All your points point to CAS needing to spend more time to position and maybe get 1-2 kills per run. This is still alot better then CAS hovering over the battlefield getting 5-6 kills. BTW I’m not talking about top tier CAS do don’t attack me, I hate KH38.