Flakpanzer 341

tbh, I’d take WZ305 (even at 8.0BR) over both. Happens when you start donking helicopters from ages away with HE-VT, you just can’t go back to the vanilla ZSU-57-2.

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Tbh, it’s not that cut and dry.

Your team and the enemy can be legitimately contesting for caps. You are sacrificing the ability to influence ground by spawning in an AA at second spawn, but you are then presented with several problems.

Planes know where to expect you and can see the spawn from a very safe distance. They have the positional advantage on you at all times and if so equipped can even overpressure you by landing rockets in your general vicinity - a very asymmetrical engagement.

You need to leave spawn to be effective.

If you manage to get out of the spawn but the map is still contested, you’re also in trouble, because the moment you engage a plane “all of China knows you’re here”. Sustained fire, loud, travelling upwards, is basically an “arty here” beacon, even leaving aside the usual risks of operating on “the frontline”.

The best thing by far about this whole Coelian explosion is the fact that at the relevant BRs, CAS meets very stiff opposition because a lot of people have chosen a competent AA as their first spawn. Normally, Rank IV German teams just get CAS’d to death, now they’re actually using the intended counter…

There is a lesson there. Make AAs fun and viable to use, and more people will use them. How to do this without also compromising the ground meta is a delicate balance to strike, but I hope Gaijin is looking at this.

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yeah still would go through but gone will be the days of APHE killing drivers as well in a flippin wannabe grenade fashion

mostly to do with autocannons with a high explosive effect shell. anything that can overload the computations sufficiently can cause a failure of armour via a miscalculation

thing is, it should remain, however add it back to the game so they can find the true effectiveness of the vehicle and even uptier it since i really hate the wiesel 1a4 as an SPAA.
it could easily take that spot.
also they could adjust the belt composition for the coelian with the AA belt having no AP ammo and the anti armour belt having… and i hesitate to say this, only 1 AP round. (like the kugel)

it’s not an SPAA, it’s a light tank.

i am aware.
but i hate that its in the SPAA line and i gotta grind it in that way ykwim

Wiesel 1A4 is classed as SPAA in game though
(w/ SPAA spawnpoint cost too iirc)

Luchs A2 for example, is classed as a light tank but also placed in the SPAA line. (better suited than Wiesel for that role too imo, doesnt change that it’s the worse vehicle overall though)

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It’s 7.0 to match the other two removed German vehicles

Can’t compare the two, Flakpanzer has a decent amount of armor and isn’t an open top vehicle.

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Yes, but this is more to lower its spawn cost rather than make it an actual SPAA. It’s still very much a light tank and it gets scouting.

It is the ideal outcome for the vehicle as it’s more potent in these higher BR’s. It shreds mediums at heavies frontally in the 7 BR range, moving up just adds more lightly armored vehicles into the mix. Lots of videos out there with 8.3/8.7 BR 35mm APHE spamming SPAA running at top tier and clearing the field.

I suspect your safe from an APHE change. On the contrary, with its addition to the 341 Gaijin has shown it wants to add more of it into the game, not address the play imbalances it creates. Expect more SPAA to get this ammo buff.

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This is what people fail to understand.

Was this a buff to 341’s AT abilities (the APHE)? Yes.

Is the change relevant to the CAS situation? Absolutely.

The SPAA ability of the 341 hasn’t increased - but there are simply more people bringing a vehicle that is capable of anti-CAS. Be it, with their first, second, or third spawn. Previously, if you play Germany at that BR, you’ll know that many teams will spawn a KT… another KT… a panther… heck, even a SturmTiger, before they’re even willing to touch SPAA. You’d see people reaching for a damn Stuka before SPAA.

Increasing an SPAA’s AT abilities is a positive benefit for getting people in SPAA - handling the CAS situation, and showing allied teams that planes don’t cap. You’ll be seeing German winrates go up due to the simple change to 341.

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It actually did increased as the ammo in the belt became faster so its easier to use.

I’m not sure that the increase in 341’s is a significant benefit to clearing CAS. I don’t disagree that more GV’s killing planes is definitely better, but I’m not sure that the 341 drivers are paying much attention to planes.

At least I am not seeing a lot of “Flak 341 killed Plane XXX” messages. I suspect that a good chunk of 341 drivers end up being fodder for CAS because they are pretty easy to kill from the air. In the end a good CAS player is always > good SPAA…and that’s assuming the AT SPAA is actually paying attention to what’s flying (which I think is the exception rather than the rule).

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Are you speaking from experience in 341? German teams have been destroying USA this past week, and their attempts to use CAS have only resulted in them losing sooner. It has been absolute domination. Now, obviously, most 341 kills will be ground units and air kills will only make up a minor proportion of that. For example, my results in 341 over the past few days:

Spoiler

But it simply adds up when you have multiple - often 3 or more 341’s on the German side. Compare that to how many air kills your average King Tiger is getting over that period. You notice the difference.

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It’s just ridiculous players can’t opt for a belt without tracers…

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I’m not sure your argument is proving the 341 is the reason for CAS suppression.
Your ground kills outnumber your air kills by 4-5 times.
You have a ratio of 0.57 air kills per battle.

Going by the stats you have supplied the very limited observations can be made…

  • You are concentrating way more on ground than you are on air
  • The 341 is helping winning battles by killing ground units. Without ground units the other side will lose.
  • If players are losing a lot of ground units, they are not building up the RPs to spawn air.

The only correlation that can be made from your specific example is that the 341 is indirectly suppressing CAS by denying the enemy ground units the RPs they need to spawn air.

Six Flakpanzers getting 0.5 plane kills per battle translates to three downed planes per battle - which each could have gotten several kills otherwise, with all manner of knock on effects. Add to the fact that they’re being intercepted by AA fire much more forward than normal because the AAs aren’t just now respawning…

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I don’t deny that CAS is lesser in number to begin with. The best way to control Allied CAS spam is to prevent it in the first place. As a Falcon enjoyer, I feel at home in the 341 - like a TD that also shoots planes.

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I’m getting really sick of seeing these things, and even more tired of being frontally penned and destroyed in heavy tanks by them. Players in them have absolutely no fear whatsoever and will roll into the open because they know they can spray a hail of fire into a crowd and kill several enemies at the same time, without even caring where they’re aiming.

More to the point, tank combat hinges a lot on knowing when and where to fire. When something with a 120mm gun that fires once every 15 seconds is way less effective than something that can spray 10 kill shots a second, gameplay breaks down very quickly. I don’t care what its gun is. It should never be able to frontally pen most non-light tanks. Ever. To speak nothing of the fact that it kills props in one hit, no matter what, despite being so rapid fire. Nerf this thing into oblivion. I never want to see or hear about it, ever again.

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And the sad part is it has better armor than a lot of TDs.