You are measuring the wrong statistic. You need to look at air kills per battle to know if SPAA duty is being neglected by Coelian players.
The all-time stat you have posted shows the Coelian achieving 0.44 air kills per battle.
The January 2026 stat you posted shows the Coelian achieving 0.41 air kills per battle.
This is a minuscule blip and indicates the Coelian’s performance as an SPAA has not gotten worse in any significant way. People are shooting essentially as many planes down with it as they were before.
The ratio of air to ground kills has changed, of course. This is not because air kills per battle have decreased though, those have stayed the same. It has changed because ground kills per battle have risen dramatically.
The all-time stat shows 0.41 ground kills per battle. In January 2026, that number is up to 1.57 ground kills per battle.
This is hardly surprising when you consider that the Coelian’s tank-killing capabilities have increased while its air-killing capabilities have not changed. Factually, the numbers you’ve posted disprove your own point.
There was a bug report to get the guns changed to the correct model, which existed in metal. As for penetration, Gaijin does not use any historical data to determine the penetration of any shell, since different countries use different penetration standards and conduct tests very differently. Instead, it uses a calculator that is standardised across the board. Nothing unique to the Coelian in this respect.
They will never do this, not in a million years. Free to play MMOs rely heavily on the illusion of ownership. If you take away from people something that they ground out or paid for, it immediately reduces trust and disincentivises you from grinding something. Just imagine, for example, grinding out a 45k mission score vehicle over nine stages while knowing that at some point it may just disappear from your account. No. They’re not insane.
It was bug reported and they corrected an ahistorical inaccuracy.
The obvious solution is just bringing it back. Especially the Coelian. While the other two removed German vehicles could use a model change to correct some of their glaring abnormalities, the Coelian is no faker than the radar-equipped Falcon because “a radar could have been installed”, it is no faker than the ToG II in its “ideal, intended ahistorical configuration”, especially when its replacement in game is the Ostwind II, another iffy vehicle that requires some historical generosity to include in the game.
But apparently the devs aren’t ready for this discussion. Maybe in five more years.