Helicopters are unfairly nerfed

I think we did, Kamovs are left to defeat almost a dozen missiles with nothing more than a handful of dumb rockets.

That’s the problem - they only really work well in open areas, like sands of sinai.
This is not really the case with direct-fire missiles, like the Vikhirs, and even with laser-guided missiles.

Starter helicopters tend to have really poor optics, no target tracking, and the AGMs they use have very poor maneuverability and damage.
Things like Gepards also tend to be able to take care of them, or at least throw off their aim.
They are fine at their BR, at least from how I see it.

Yes, IR missile SPAA tend to struggle with helicopters, and that’s simply just a hard counter.
Jets often hard counter helicopters, and I don’t think these helicopters are necessarily too OP.

Optical tracking found on the Strela and Type 81 can hit helicopters around 4/5km, at least from what I experienced. Although, at those BRs the AGMs also tend to have a better effective range than that.

I disagree. Top Kamov players often can overwhelm the SPAAs as long as they know where they are. The SPAAs always have to react to them, and can never strike first. They must predict when they will pop up if they want to hit first.

Here’s an example of what they do:

Even with the SPAA having faster missiles, the Kamov’s vikhirs are already 4km out and is now just 5km away before hitting the SPAA, for example.
The Kamov can also move backwards so that the SPAA’s missile needs more distance to travel (until you hit the 10km max range limit).

You will lose 9 times out of 10 to an experienced Kamov player.

Yup.

Well, you don’t have to be 9km away from the battlefield. The f&f helicopter can only lob their missiles at around 7km. Not only that, unless they are on your side of the map, they will also have to be somewhat far away from the battlefield (so that they don’t get killed by your SPAA / to try be as effective as possible).
This means that they only really can shoot you if you’re around 2km/3km away from the battlefield, assuming you are on your side of it, and the F&F helicopter is on theirs.

implying they’re nowhere close to the ground and are out of vikhrs? i usually send a few (depends on the spaa im attacking) and descend to the ground, where either the trees protect me or the proxy disables.

you have to keep in mind that they do slow down and drastically lose mobility after about 5/6km though

They still keep their momentum enough to out-range most SPAAs. And this happens with the SPAA’s missiles as well, although probably to a lesser degree.

They won’t throw your aim as you have sight stabilization.
Gepards can only harm very bad pilots from 3km out.

Them not being able to be countered from the ground is the problem.

I think radars exist just for that reason.

All of this implies that AA isn’t hidden and the whole map is surrounded by hills.

oh sure, but one more thing… where do you meet the so called top kamov players? sounds like a legend to me. their count must be in single digits, after so many battles on 3 servers as ussr, i’ve never met one

edit: typo

as it should. AA players that know how to hide or go hull down are so rare, they don’t even appear in my dreams

We’re talking best vs best.

Not in the way I meant.
I meant that you still would have to dodge their barrage of 30mm, which can throw off you aim.

Sure, but it doesn’t mean that they cannot hit them.
Even the best pilots can succumb to the sheer mass of lead coming their way.

Sure, I can understand that. Unfortunately it shouldn’t really go any higher, nor should the SPAA get any better at that BR.
Heli-specific SPAA, like the Roland 1 and Lvrbv 701, can deal with them fairly well, at least from what I can remember.

Problem with that is that you can’t use radar to find enemies behind obstacles, like hills / mountains.

SPAA can often be found via radar ping, MTI, or friendly drones. They also are found quite commonly in spawns. And if it is hidden, the Kamov can just attack the tanks instead and wait for MAW to alert them of any missile launches by the SPAA. You cannot kill the Kamov in that case.

Sure, although you don’t strictly need hills for this to work (it’s much more difficult, though). Using trees or any cover (given enough range), you can pre-fire Vikhirs towards the SPAA and then peak over the last obstacle where the SPAA is found.

This isn’t just theory, this works in practice and is utilized by many top players.

Most players in this game are casual - and thus you can rarely find them.
If you play squadron battles, you’ll see many, especially against top squadrons, like AVR.

in that case the kamov parries every missile that gets sent against him and “bashes multiple heat warheads into the spaa”. or just forces the spaa to retreat into cover, and the process repeats after they reload or get third party’d

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Once the Kamov forces the SPAA to take cover, it’s over for it.
The Kamov can keep spamming missiles until the SPAA gets killed by splash damage, have their cover gets destroyed, or have their cover stop working (like a simple rock after the helicopter balloons to higher altitudes).

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and the hidden method: scout rocket xD

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not on maps like sweden, and most spaa gets tanky at top tier so splash isn’t that reliable. also the radar tanking tandem heat incident

Some maps it definitely becomes less effective, like Sweden, but so does it hamper most CAS - even the SPAA itself sometimes.

Dodging those is just A-D spam, it’s so basic that isn’t not even worth mentioning.

Their guns will overheat after some time and most don’t have thousands of rounds to throw just to suppress a single helicopter.

They can, but those are found only in 20% of nations.

Fair, but still gives you ample time to hide.

Getting a radar ping means they have your position as well.
Friendly drones can also look for helicopters.

Not a single helicopter played correctly with MAWs can be killed, their efficiency can be neutered in some cases.

That’s the catch.
FnF helis can just ignore AAs as they barely even affect their efficiency.

Again, that can get you less focused on hitting the vehicle (especially if they frantically move around) and more on making sure you don’t move into one of their bursts. They can also just hide behind cover, too.

Yeah their guns can overheat. However, now all SPAA have twice as much ammo.

Maybe Gaijin could add more, but I am not sure what they could add.

Hiding means you are less likely to be able to help your team against them.

Only if you peak over and allow yourself to have that happen.

Yes, that is true. However, the Kamovs and F&Fs in particular can kill targets more easily due to the nature of their weapons.

Sure, but that’s the only thing they can really do well, especially the ones with only 8 missiles (unlike the Israeli AH-60). The SPAA can also intercept them if needed, or tell ground to smoke up or have them get into cover (even accidentally). F&F missiles also rarely do any reliable damage, so you end up having to shoot a couple or even three against one single enemy.

Here’s some great examples of what I mean:

@MotorolaCRO


You move based on their bursts.
They can hide behind cover, but focusing them at all isn’t even necessary.

That’s true but reloading takes a long while. You also have to leave some for personal protection against tanks.

Yeah I’m also not well versed in that field as well.

Drawing fire on yourself and wasting their missiles should count as some help, as they won’t be able to engage others when they’re focusing on you.

Yeah that’s why I said RWR pings work for both sides.

Agreed, helicopters with Hellfires are bottom of the barrel.

Most AAs would need to spend 50% of their ammo to intercept a single volley of FnF, where helicopters are much easier and faster to reload.

I think it was yesterday that I watched a Spike related video and most (if not all) hits did substantial damage or OHK’d.
They can be funky though.

I got an aneurism watching those shaky replays lol.