At Cold War BRs, Soviet vehicles are stuck with poor depression, forcing them to rely on strong breakthrough potential, yet Soviet tanks don’t have good mobility. The gameplay experience is really frustrating. Even when holding positions, you can still be targeted by Bullpup or bomb with CCIP, while the Soviet lacks viable CAS options. Also good AA.
Once key points are lost, the Soviet team has almost no way to turn the tide, and can only rely on the enemy making mistakes. This is clearly shown by game statistics: the Soviet faction has consistently had a below-average win rate in 8.X–9.X. Honestly, I could stick to Cold War BRs forever. The ground-air balance here is still fairly conservative, and you can judge whether your flanks are safe just by reading the vehicles’ mobility. By contrast, at higher BRs, this kind of prediction is usually unreliable.
We once discussed giving the MiG-15ISH two KH-23 missiles in group. Now I think I’ll bring this up on the forum to hear everyone’s thoughts.
They do have a pretty big gap from the Tu-2 at 5.7 until the SU-25s at 10.0, the premium Mig-15bis-ish is about the best you have in that range.
Nothing below 10.0 has any CMs except the Yak-28 that only has chaff, only 2 planes have any form of guided weapons the Su-17M2 and event Mig-21PFM which require you to point your plane at the target the whole time the missile is guiding in and if you move it to dodge a Stinger or SPAAG tracer the missile will just fly off, and you only carry 2 of them. The PFM is the same BR where USA and Israel have the A-4E with walleye/ER with 3.5km TRACK lock and the Su-17M2 is the same BR as the Swiss Hunter with mavericks.
Of course it’s not like Russia is the only nation with that issue. But it is an annoyance when making lineups at those BRs.
Although it may be better to move those F&F CAS up in BR and readjust the SPAA accordingly rather than adding equivalents to them to other TTs. Stuff like the Su-7 was really good before all the stingers where added, CCIP launched S-24 rockets are deadly to the SPAGGs, it’s just hard to deal with the stingers with no CMs.
i mean i prefer them over the boresight missiles of the russians, and if youre stable when you launch them they goes perfectly straight into where youre aiming so they are much better against spaag and manpads
Well, I can agree with you; without CM it is hard, especially for the Su-7 and Su-17m2, which can counter missile pulling 15G+. For lower BRs such as 8.0, it is a really nice early Cold War bomber; it does not have guided weapons, but that 3000 kg bomb can certainly do quite a lot of damage if used properly, and it is unlikely you will see any AA with missiles. For the Su-17M2, if you face any missiles and no countermeasures, I always used the rocket salvo, which helps quite a bit.
Unless Gaijin moves all the Geopard and its simliar products to 9.0. Then 8.0 - 9.0 CAS won’t have too many chances, no RWR, no CCIP. After 9.3 the situation get worse, HE-VT, AHEAD, and SAMs will make CAS hard to survive, the Free SPAA makes CAS have to against them the whole time
To be clear, I don’t think aircraft at this BR dominate the entire match. Let’s look back at some older maps—the Sinai Desert or theItaly. Once a Saab 105G shows up, it can easily punch through the defensive line on an entire flank. These maps always feature plenty of solid defensive positions. I’m not trying to criticize the developers’ map design, but the game’s genre simply makes such strong hold points an inevitability.
I know that starting from the T-72B3, Soviet vehicles gain formidable frontal protection, yet getting picked off remains extremely low-cost for attackers. This means taking out these defensive positions requires spending valuable spawn points on costly CAS sorties.
I’ve seen it countless times: American teammates spawn in A-4s right after dead, only to get absolutely nothing done in the air. They end up wasting all their spawn points, and drag the entire match to defeat.
Managing how you spend your spawn points is actually an interesting layer of strategy. Still, lacking viable CAS options means you’re missing an entire key method of securing victory.
Many players pick their spawn points without any thought, leaving their teammates’ flanks completely exposed. This then triggers: huge lost of vehicles, collapsing team morale, blame, and quickly hitting J for 3s then leaving the games.
I don’t see it that way, but I still think HEVT and AHEAD are way too strong. They leave aircraft basically no chance to fight back at all—you’re doomed the second you enter their range. Other AA vehicles are still in a fairly balanced spot. The worst performers by far are the Shilka and Sidr. When it comes to air defense, range is the most important thing.
It’s incredibly exciting, intense and rewarding once you figure out you can take a quick aim, fire rockets, then pull high-G maneuvers to take out enemy AA. I also think the damage of small-caliber rockets should be buffed again. Right now you almost have to launch your entire loadout just to destroy one AA vehicle. The reward is totally out of proportion to the effort.
AA has the lowest spawn point cost, yet taking one out wastes a full attack pass. In comparison, Zuni can take out multiple AA vehicles in a single run. They were nerfed in an older patch because of the prevalent helicopter rush meta at that time. Ever since Mi-24D had its CCIP removed in a certain update, the fun of playing the Soviet in Cold War BRs has dropped significantly.
For these low BR SAMs, I believe their function is not to use only one missile to shoot down the air target, instead they need to launch at least 2-3 missiles to force the air target to lose speed, then get hit, it sounds like suppressive fire, and that will make most CAS abandon the attack, even their loadouts. CAS around 9.0 is pretty hard to have enough energy or mobility to avoid missiles over and over again, such as SU7 or FJ4B
