I don’t think I’ve ever really posted here much but I wanted to share my ideas with the introduction of MITL ATGM’s on helicopters. Rather than complain, I wanted to actually give some solutions.
MITL is an interesting mechanic, but the issue is that the maps and gameplay are not adjusted for it. There needs to be a few things that need to be added/changed in terms of map design and gameplay.
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Helicopter spawns are way too close to the battlefield. Especially at top tier where these ATGM’s can have dozen’s of km’s range, heli spawns need to be pushed way further back (atleast 18km - 20km away from the team’s ground spawn). In some cases, even at the airfield such as in smaller maps. This increases the downtime for helis and forces them to fly away from their helipad. The increased distance gives longer travel time for ATGM’s and therefore reduces the spam of MITL missiles as they have to wait for their missiles to reach their target for longer before firing a new one. This gives any SPAA more time to react to ATGM’s coming in and increases the interval between ATGM’s. The helis can come in close to trade less time between launching ATGM’s for a longer downtime and higher risk by aircraft interception to travel back to the helipad. Heli’s may also opt to bring A2A missiles by bringing less ATGM’s to perhaps be able to more effectively fight back against fixed wing aircraft looking for them.
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Helicopters should be more detectable by air radar & more engagable by radar guided missiles . The rotor blades give off a large & distinct radar signature, helis need to be able to be detected by fixed wing aircraft at greater distances and while stationary. They’re unlikely to be hit or shot down by anything (strictly speaking about radar guided missiles) other than AIM-54’s or BUK (splash damage) as they’re usually low enough to the ground to multipath anyway. This way, they should be actively flying around the map and positioning themselves around terrain & obstacles rather than sit on the helipad and launch missiles then land again. These changes would make radar guided SAM’s with ARH missiles more effective against heli’s if they choose to expose themselves by flying high enough, while also increasing the effectiveness of interception by fixed wing aircraft.
Now these gameplay elements are mainly targeted at top tier Ground Realistic Battles and heli’s with MITL but I feel alot of these can be applied to lower BR GRB gameplay in a lesser degree or form.