This is another “CAS cope” thread, but this time, instead of ignoring it, i will give actual tips as an experienced pilot how to play SPAA properly:
MOST IMPORTANT - do NOT start shooting at a plane from a billion kilometers away. You will not hit it, you will reveal your position and the fact that you’re aware of the plane’s presence. If you do this, the pilot will either actively avoid you or plan an approach against you using terrain features.
Move away, but not too far away from the spawn. This is especially relevant at GBU-tiers where pilots will instantly check the enemy spawn(s) with the targeting pod. An SPAA sitting on the edge of the map will catch 95% of pilots off-guard.
Don’t get tunnelvisioned on a single target. If you see a plane flying far away, just keep an eye on it and look around more. This way you always have situational awareness and won’t die to a plane somwhere off to the side just because you weren’t looking at it.
Increase your attention span. If a plane went behind a mountain and you didn’t see it crashing in chat logs, it hasn’t disappeared, it’s still there. Most of my time flying if I get targeted by an SPAA I simply hide behind terrain, and, 5 seconds later, I see the SPAA completely forgetting about me and shooting at one of my teammates, leaving an easy kill (see point 3)
Anyone is free to copy-paste this into any other “CAS overpowered SPAA weak” theads
What if you play 6.0/7.0 israel and only have a tcm-20 and zsu-57-2 at your disposal to fight jets?
Use the 57-2 and learn the ballistics of the cannons. Don’t load AP, don’t go fighting tanks, just sit around the respawn and wait until a plane comes in.
How do you shoot down planes in low orbit?
You don’t? It can’t do anything by just flying around the map, wait for it to start diving onto a target and start shooting when it’s going straight within 2km of you
How to stop getting strafed to death as soon as you spawn in?
Don’t move. Spawn invulnurability lasts for 20 seconds or so if you don’t move (you can shoot), however, if you move, the invulnurability goes away instantly.
You don’t? It can’t do anything by just flying around the map, wait for it to start diving onto a target and start shooting when it’s going straight within 2km of you
Learn to lead the cannons from far away and fire from 5km or so. Strategic bombers are the only exception to the “don’t shoot early” rule, but, generally, it’s a job of fighters to intercept them.
Wow, someone with actually useful tips. Thanks :)
But I tis of having one more question, how do you figure out the (approximate) distance of an aircraft? And why am I so bad at SPAA duty?
This is very hard to do exactly without radar, but the Mk. 1 eye can be used to approximate. Playing SPAAs without radar takes very good aiming, which comes with some learning, and a lot of experience.
You can learn both in an easier fashion by playing arcade; both the point of aim and the distance is given. This allows you to learn quickly the general skills which can be applied in all modes.
At its respective br? I would say only fighters, I have only been shot down by Gepards when I brought it to 8.3 when flying above 1.5km altitude, down there where it’s belong I always managed to drop the 5 ton poop, if you want the number then it’s 8 out of 10 times, note that the PE-8 has enough 20mm to easily down the ass sniffers and I have down plenty.
It is always better to spawn another air rather than SPAA.
The main reason is that in order to change class if something changes on the battlefield with SPAA You have to die (give points to the enemy team or/and lose points to Your own team), while with the air You can despawn on airfield.
To those who want to get better at SPAA especially gun ones at lower BRs. Play AirRB.
Probably the easiest and fastest way to learn how to lead and predict planes movements is there. It will be much easier to transition then to SPAA. Besides at low BRs 2nd line for SPAA is best place to be at. This is because CAS usually will target front line to some degree and the closer you can get to front line the easier it will be to shoot planes down.
Usually pilots do not expect SPAA to be closer then spawn to the battlefield. So this catches a lot of people by suprise and bags an easy kill.
Bro, I wish people actually paid attention to incoming CAS. Had a Gepard 1A2 ignore a A-6E that was around 4km away above our spawn spamming Paveways lol Instead of shooting at it with missiles, it decides to drive off to shoot tanks and gets obliterated by the Jet soon after I spammed the Air Alert! and told him in chat to kill that plane lol Guy either def, blind or refuse to cooperate or playing on low volume… Happens a lot at low tier too with Whirblwind players…its sad… Curently grinding the UK and they don’t have a reliable SAM system. The 8.3 SPAA don’t work against these jets at 9.7+ battles so really gotta use a fighter to do CAP duties.
And yes, CAP is better to do when a nation lacks certain SPAA/SAM or a player who have yet to unlock them have a reliable SAM or SPAA to use.
Sweden has decent SPAA. It’s mostly close range like withing 4km compared to the other nations. It gets beam riding missiles, but the elevation is garbage just like the French Roland 1. The Lvkv 9040C is the only SPAA with 50 degrees of elevation and is only good at 3-4km. The ASRAD has bolides which are 9km beam riding missiles, but become useless at around 5-6km because the slightest movement while aiming make the missiles auto correct and got everywhere but straight. Same with the Lvrbv 701 only difference it 7km max range missiles. But both of them have 35 degrees of elevation btw and are meant for short range.
Another good tip you might want to add is for Radar SPAA to not constantly lock planes unless they’re engaging. A lot of SPAAs will lock planes well out of engagement range, letting the plane know there’s danger and giving them time to start evading. I’ve found it’s best to lock once to find the plane as well as its distance and heading, and then track it optically until I know it’s in range for me to shoot it down.
Premium CAS? Like what? Germany doesn’t have premium cas, neither does Britain, Japan, China, Italy, France, Sweden, or Israel.
Hell, the only REAL cas aircraft that are premiums are the A-10A and Su-25, both of which are gimped in comparison to their TT equivalent.
SPAA hasn’t been nerfed in about 2-3 years, and even then it wasn’t a nerf… It was a realism update to make missile not act like magical levitating laser beams that are 100% accurate.
Most planes at the tier where SPAA still lock with the radar don’t have a RWR. And at tiers where RWR appears consistently, most SPAA have switched to IR lock. Besides, just having the radar in SRC already gives the pilot enough indication that there is an SPAA and even what SPAA it is
