I’m sure that everyone knows what I mean when I say that this specific range of brs (approximately) has an obscene amount of indirect fire artillery vehicles forced into direct fire roles. There didn’t used to be this much, and vehicles they were were relatively unique.
But alas, more and more have been added over the years, and now every tech tree has at least one SPH, some having much more (Britain now has the M109A1, G6, AS90, and GBT155). And the lower tier American M44 and M55 have been mass added in many trees at once.
Why do I believe this is a problem? Gameplay between them is incredibly similar. I played through every tech tree except the USA, but don’t have any at top tier. Why? Because I enjoy playing different vehicles every day.
But SPHs are just not that different. Each one has almost the excact same penetration, and save for a few, the exact same strengths and weaknesses. Some are better than others, obviously, but once you have played one, you have played a lot of them.
They are also all clustered together in every tech tree that has multiple, so if you don’t like the British M109A1, you are stuck going through the G6 and the AS90. If you don’t like the Israeli M109, you have to unlock literally the same vehicle with a longer barrel.
So what do you think? Is this really the problem I think it is, or I am just schizo? I would like to hear everyone’s thoughts.
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Now I am not saying their gameplay is bad, and I do like some of them quite a bit (the G6 is my queen), but I just think that the same idea is being repeated too much.
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Repetitive play (and grind) is a common complaint of War Thunder.
Even having to unlock duplicates of vehicles you like gets old.
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Playing SPGs in ground battles is the equivalent of playing bombers into air battles.
Both are vehicles that aren’t all that interesting to play, based on their intended role.
With bombers you’re only making the decision whether you bomb a specific base, run from fighters or play bomber gunner.
While with SPGs you’re just playing paper TD.
Indirect fire is as interesting as bombing a base.
Well, maybe it would be interesting, if it had some purpose for the game.
Would make sense, if ground battles also had AI targets and bases outside the battlefield for planes and SPGs to engage.
Like, you could request artillery support while flying an aircraft, marking a target area for SPGs to fire at AI positions or convoys, earning SP or bringing down tickets.
So fighters had something to do other than patrolling the air and/or targeting light armored players vehicles.
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Id be fine with SPHs if they remained a gimmick. Annoying at times but ultimately inconsequential in grand scheme of things.
However what I do have issue with are LRF equipped arties facing early cold war tanks.
That stuff needs to go.
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Artillery is one of gaijin’s prime choice vehicle types for their lazy copypaste job that they’ve been doing for years to fill tech trees. Most nations are using the same handful of artillery pieces so they use that as an excuse to fill the trees with unnecessary bloat to draw out the grind instead of putting any effort into literally doing anything else that would be beneficial for this game. Artillery never should have been added to the game as glass cannon tank destroyers time traveling back to face WW2 equipment just because the way this game is designed artillery cannot be used as artillery as maps are too small for arty to work as intended, but it’s too late to change it now.
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They should probably give the HE shells more penetration and increase their BR. I, for one, plan to use the SPGs alongside tanks from that era. I already used the M44 at BR 8.0 and it performed reasonably well. On the other hand, the M55 seemed absurd to me, since it takes longer to reload than the M44 and penetrates almost the same amount, even though the M55 has a 203mm barrel.
Barrel length has nothing to do with penetration when discussing HE ammo.
HE is all about overpressure = non-pen explosion on outside of target.
I think they were comparing the 155mm vs 203mm shells not barrels.
Not quite. Overpressure = tries to simulate the blast wave causing a plate to fail and/or fragments to penetrate. Otherwise HE would have no effect on any closed vehicle.
I know that, in any case, kinetic penetration would depend on the bullet’s speed and weight.
What I’m referring to is the chemical penetration of HE rounds, which in some cases seems low to me, and that by increasing that penetration, the armor rating of tanks that primarily use HE rounds could also be increased.
For example, this image shows what an HE shell from the American 75mm cannon generates in reality, while in the game it is impossible to damage it.
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A 75mm could also penetrate a Tigers lower sponson floor armor. Thats 26mm.
Soviet tests showed that a 75mm HE could knock out a T-34 with a hit below the turret, penetrating the 20mm hull roof armor.
They also could penetrate Pz III or IVs side armor with 76mm HE.
So low and medium caliber HE shells are definitely underperforming, both in „kinetic“ penetration and chemical.
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