Once your commander is dead HSTV-L is a better vehicle than 2S38 from hull down positions. There’s no way to hit ammo from turret shots so your only option will be to use HE, meanwhile darts can detonate ammo feed in 2S38’s turret.
You forgot to mention that it has significantly better mobility.
Turret shots should result in way more damage than what is given in game, once pened in the turret section in real life there is no way you are operating the hstvl unless it undergoes factory repairs. If you pen it by machinegun or auto cannon you can still operate it unless critical components have not been hit.
You don’t actually need to hit the ammo to render it completely inoperable, which means that turret hits to a vehicle like the hstvl with crew inside it will be catastrophic. The hstvl like you mentioned is great in mobility and fantastic in ambushing however it does not have much armor. If the vehicle looses the so called bounces it gets in game then I believe it should go down in br. It will nicely complement the M1. We will then get great battles between the hstvl and the 2s38.
2s38 is definitely not a 11.0br vehicle, although some of its characteristics make it possible to operate at higher br.
The reason why it still remains at 9.3 is because it fires solid shot, compared to the 2s38 which fires decent apfsds.
Fully agree
me with Leopard 1 120mm L/44, TAM 2IP, Leopard C2A1 Mexas, Begleitpanzer 57, T72M1 and Gepard…
(oogling at Class 3)(potential room for Alpha Jet and both Bo 105 PAH helis)
I don’t exist
lol
Yeah, I also laugh at people thinking bias is real.
Most defenders typically do as to avoid losing the factual arguments.
Best of luck
Laughing is only thing left when you see those “arguments” that allegedly prove bias is real. They are easily rebutted by common sense.
Riiiiight.
Bagelpanzer is faster, has reverse gear, and a tiny silhouette. The only real advantage 2S38 has is it can be played braindead. 9.3 is far to lower for the bagel.
Trap shots into the ammunition rack is fairly frequent - it’s not like the AGS, where only the breech and barrel is visible. And the fact that you need to look onto your side for its gun depression makes it situational to when you can use it effectively.
9.7 would be fine, but that may be stretching it a bit.
Don’t know if that can happen since I’ve never experienced it. You might be right though.
This is the difference between full and gimped gun depression. It’s clear even the gimped version is better than anything you can find at it’s BR.
This is the gimped version against -10 degrees found on M1s.
And this is 2S38 from the same spot.
HSTV-L is a monster in hull down spots when compared to anything, let alone against a vehicle such as 2S38.
It’s identical in-game to what it is IRL at this time.
You are right.
I just personally don’t think the gun on the HSTV-L is better at 11.7 BR-for-BR than the 2S38’s at 10.3.
This happens far too often, and the reload makes it so that you can’t get another good shot in before it’s already too late.
I would rather play an MBT than it, and this is coming from 500 matches playing it before I got better, and then after I got better at the game. I honestly think the Type 90 can do a better job on the flanks than it can, other than on extreme cases where you get a good hull-down position and have the entire enemy team unaware of your presence while you chip away at each tanks’ crew, one-by-one, every 1.5s, until they’re all dead or you run out of ammo.
Here’s a clip from a while back.
I know my shot placement wasn’t too great here, but I must emphasize the lack of spalling the round creates, which should more than ‘compensate’ (as well as the penetration) for the lack of firerate the gun has over the 2S38’s.
Here’s an example:
I think it being at 11.7 is criminal, and should have really stayed at 11.3, or possibly even to 11.0, maybe give it Delta 6 and keep it at 11.3/11.7.
The 2S38 is fine at where it is at, for the most part, but it may be even fine to put it up to 10.7, where all the old 10.3s are.
I think the Otomatic is mostly fine where it is at, especially now that it gets access to twice the number of APFSDS, and all vehicles got moved up by 0.3, effectively moving it down in BR.
The Bagel may be slightly overperforming at 9.3, as (at least for me) it has a trolly frontal plate (that can often ricochet APFSDS), as well as the gunner / commander being at opposite sides of the turret, meaning that you must aim perfectly centre (where the breech may just absorb the shot), or only take out one of the crew members.
It probably could be fine at 9.7 now.
I haven’t had much issues with the gun per-se when playing it, my bigger concern was the amount of ammo it has. Although I played it before spall liners were introduced, so the “final boss” was something like 122B.
Those bags can be tricky since they have 220mm of KE protection, so they’ll eat a lot of potential out of that round. I’ve found out that shooting just below bags will detonate ammo inside much more consistently.
I would say this even for some higher tier lights that have 105mm+ cannons, they simply don’t offer anything special in most cases.
It’s still a 75mm dart at the end of the day, but at least it’s over 2x heavier than 2S38’s dart and has more pen which would certainly increase spalling. Those top tier Leopards were by far the hardest nuts to crack for HSTV-L, even before spall liners. In my opinion they are literal bullet sponges, T-tanks and others are much easier to OHK.
Before the spall liner update it was just fine where it was, but now it kind of got powercrept a little bit. I wouldn’t mind testing it out at 11.3 to see what happens.
It would mostly remain the same, so why not.
This is where I don’t agree. Also, didn’t OTOMATIC had 12 darts for like ages ? IIRC when I played the vehicle it had 12 as well.
At 11.3 it’s just a sad SPAA, that HE-VT is decent for helicopters and jets will absolutely curb stomp OTOMATIC. I don’t see how an AA system without missiles can be that high.
I also feel Bagel is really strong at 9.3 since it has enough mobility to outrun armored MBTs that’d make it’s life hard frontally, which isn’t the case for loads other similar vehicles like BMP-2M, M3A3 or even 2S38.
Fair enough, although I think I’ve shown you how it does not perform well at its current BR, moreso than what I think the 2S38’s gun does at its own BR.
I’ll try that next time I play the HSTV-L, although I think it’s quite an iffy shot.
Agreed, stuff like the IPM1 are kinda underperforming (especially when the M1A1 is at the same BR, and gets 120mm APFSDS).
Though high tier lights, like the CV90120 and Centauro RGO, get 120mm APFSDS that actually pen quite a lot and do a considerable amount more spalling:
While the extra pen and slightly better spalling is nice, I still don’t think it compensates for the 2x worse (3x as bad) firerate, that both the Otomatic and 2S38 get. There are many ways that better firerate can help, from dealing with more enemies at a quicker succession, to actually killing all crew members in a turret quicker, to taking a follow-up shot before a tank turns its turret towards you. The extra penetration is not as useful as you may think:
Where most enemies you face in a 2S38 will have the same weakspots as with the HSTV-L.
The only times I think the extra penetration actually counted was with not having ‘partial penetrations’, where less spalling is produced, which can be useful when dealing with side armour.
However, the fact that the spall liner / ERA blocks can eat up the first round, makes it fairly useless at its current BR. A 0.5s reload 2S38 would’ve had its first round eaten up, then have two more rounds to follow up by the time the HSTV-L starts shooting a second round.
Agreed, and this is why I think they should really be 12.3 by now.
Other than the autoloader sometimes absorbing shots, and the ERA absorbing shots to the side, I agree with this.
This is correct, however, SPAA now get ammo crates that can be placed whereever, whenever. So the Otomatic effectively gets 24 APFSDS rounds (still mediocre but better than nothing).
I understand where you’re coming from, but it’s an SPAA that can somewhat effectively kill tanks at its BR (other than in full uptiers). No AA at 11.3 can do that, until you get to 11.7 with the ADATS.
Let’s take another 11.3 spaa, such as the Type 81. It cannot defend itself at all against ground targets, and can only take care of jets from 10km away, with no way of fooling (via smoking) TV-guided munitions nor intercepting them, other than hiding behind a building. It can take care of helis somewhat effectively, but I’d say not as well as the Otomatic can.
Yeah, I think it would be fine at 9.7, especially considering most 9.3 MBTs have little to no frontal armour.
For me also some of the rank II and III SPAAs from Rus, US, Fra etc cause issues with their 80ish mm pen ammo. 80mm pen on an autocannon is quite alot in an WW2 BR bracket. Alot medium tanks like Pz IVs, Shermans, T-34 etc. are just too vulnerable to these.
For Ru the Gaz, ZSU, Zis should loose all high pen ammo which is above 50 or 60 mm. I mean the ZSU-37 at BR 3.3 sports a 87mm pen autocannon. Its the death angel vs. med tanks of that BR range and ru players spawn it with impunity. Some real tanks don’t have that much more pen on their single shot cannons. It makes no sense.
US M19 and M42 need to lose their 70+ mm pen ammo.
France has a 2.0 BR autogun SPAA with 70+ mm pen and ofc the AMX at 5.0 with almost 100mm pen autocannon.
These threats to tank gameplay need to be tackled. All belts above 50mm or 60mm pen need to be removed. Players tend to spawn them with impunity and have surely fun to autogun WW2 tanks on all these small CQC maps. I hate it. Its not immersive and a balancing nightmare.
Good thing about those, is that you can reliably 1-shot them if you so much so as touch them with a HE round with at least 400g of TNT. You can reliably overpressure after that. Most tanks at those BRs have such HE rounds.
