Helicopters are unfairly nerfed

Machinery of War Discussion Helicopter
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93

Yeah, I guess so.

Yeah reloading can take a bit, although it’s definitely workable.

I don’t think you need much ammo to deal with tanks (let’s say around 150).
You shouldn’t really be dealing with tanks in the first place (unless you are asking for it by going into the front lines), as it’s up to your team to help you help them against their air.

Most of the time, you will not be able to intercept missiles that aren’t coming directly towards you(especially missiles like Vikhirs, which go 600m/s).
Wasting your own missiles for them also means that they are at an advantage, as they can simply rearm on their helipad whereas you can only rearm one more time (with the ammo crate). The only exception to this are in maps where your side has a capture point.
SPAAs with only 8 missiles for their ready-rack also means that you cannot afford to miss a single missile slung from a F&F heli (apart from the Israeli AH-60), and it also means that you cannot intercept every missile from the Kamov (which has 12 in total).

RWR pings for helicopters are generally more useful than RWR pings for the SPAA.
It’s much easier to change position with a helicopter than an SPAA, and the SPAA may not even bother changing positions at all - especially if there’s not many places elsewhere to go.

This is true.

Maybe. I do remember my friends still complain about them being unreliable, but that may have changed considering Gaijin did change some aspects of them a little while back.

Hah.
Though, I do think you understand what I mean?
Kamovs don’t really suffer against SPAA, at least not to the degree of laser-guided AGM helicopters, and even F&Fs.
Kamovs can guide the vikhirs in behind cover (so that the SPAA cannot see them) until last second (so that they hit). Example of this is especially the 2nd video I posted.
They tend to be much more oppressive than F&Fs.
The F&F helicopters would first have had to expose themselves (whether it be their entire helicopter or their camera), and then shoot their missiles one by one before going back down. Sure, you may not be able to get killed by doing that, but you are also having to rely purely on the enemy to not get into cover, or smoke up, or intercept the extremely slow PARS / Spikes (which go 309 m/s and 180m/s respectively) before they reach their target.

Here’s an example:
At 7km (assuming the Vikhir, Spike, and PARS all go their maximum speed from start to finish), the Vikhir would reach their target in 11.7s (excluding the fact that the helicopter (and sometimes even the missiles) will only be seen until much later on (when there’s only ~4s left in some cases like the second example video)), while the Spike and PARS would reach their target in 38.9s, and 22.7s respectively.

The only other helicopter that is nearly as good (if not better) at taking out SPAA is the British Apache, which can use Starstreaks from up to 7km away.
It takes them around 6.2s to reach that target, but it only gets 4 and the damage against SPAA are quite unreliable.
The British Apache also only gets hellfires, which generally are much worse than Vikhirs at doing anything, and you have agreed with me that they are worse here:

94

Ammo boxes are indeed nice addition, but they make some players go nuts on their ammo consumption as it gives them false sense of “security” they’re gonna have enough.

AAs going after tanks is a really complicated topic, as you can spawn the vehicle and get absolutely no air contacts so you’ll either die of boredom waiting for something or try to do AT plays. Enemy tanks can also push your spot if you aren’t 24/7 glued to spawn.

I don’t even think of intercepting the missiles, just the fact Kamov is firing on you should count as some help to your team, at least in my opinion.

That’s one of the reasons I think helicopters are too strong.
They are relatively close to their helipad, can reload infinite times and can even do the reload process in 10 seconds with Ace crew.

Agreed, although on some maps helicopter movement can be also pretty limited.
Small ground maps also play a role in all of this.

He said (JustinPlays) that he noticed Spikes worked better when you’re playing outside peak-hours, so their performance might be related to server load. I think this theory is worth investigating if someone’s has the time to do it.

Yeah, I was just laughing at how bad replays can look.

Blindly guiding Vikhrs until there’s like 3-4 seconds left before impact will lower your efficiency as you don’t have much time to decide who you’re end up shooting.

Yeah no one can deny Hellfire slingers are meh at best.

1 Like
95

Yeah. This is also why I oppose the removal of AP / APDS belts on SPAA.

The problem is that you may just hide and the Kamov would not go for you then.
And by the time you realize that, some of your team is dead and the Kamov player can just go for you once you start peaking, or go back to cover once you start opening fire.

Yes.

Yeah, probably worth checking that out.

I see xD

The thing is that it’s not necessarily blind guiding.
If you know that an SPAA is almost 100% going to be around the area you’re about to go over (object permanence), at least one out of the 4 you shoot (for example) must hit, which should be fairly managable. This is especially true with clueless SPAAs sitting in their spawn.
Not only that, squad pings / drone ping also can help with that.

Unfortunately some do, especially on this forum.

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96

AAs are pretty hurting at the moment.
They are often times boring as vehicle type they’re made to counter doesn’t even need to spawn once during the game.
Not only that, when they spawn there’s a big chance you won’t be able to counter it reliably.

It’s like worst of both lol.

I think that just making his life miserable and annoying him with MAW alerts is something to take into consideration.
If you fire, he has abort guiding his missiles at someone and hide.

As you said, Vikhrs need ~12s to travel 7kms and let’s say you blind guide it for 8 of those seconds. A lot can change in that time frame and you have no visual confirmation of what’s happening.

Drones are kind of busted in full squads.

I believe those are mostly rage baiters, which are common around here lol.

97

Yeah.

He could guide his missiles towards close targets and then switch to the SPAA, but I agree that in other cases they would be forced to get back into cover and relocate / use the tactic against the SPAA like I’ve shown you before.

Sure, although I really doubt 8 seconds is enough to completely leave the area in something as large and slow as the Pantsir.

Agreed.

I’m not quite sure. There’s some people I think that actually believe this.

98

ha. that’s what I do - “oh you are hiding from me? well, I am just going to kill your friends, one by one” usually the sense of guilt or something takes over and they go after me.

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99

Yeah I’m mostly trying to say FnFs can more or less ignore AAs and focus on spamming other ground units.

I’m not necessarily only talking about AAs, but other ground units as well.

I wouldn’t be surprised anyways, it’s WT forum lol.

100

I guess, but it often sacrifices the reliability and quick response of the Vikhirs.

Well, you don’t need to do that tactic for ground vehicles, just against SPAA.

Yeah.

101

That is true, they throw blows considering if there’s an AA present or not.

Yeah, but against someone smart in AA you might not be allowed to just hover and guide the missiles through their full flight, nor you would be able to easily dispose of them.
That’s the annoyance part I’m talking about.

102

But as I have shown you, competent SPAA players from Top Squadrons like AVR can struggle with them too (even more so than other helicopters lol). Look at the first video example.

103

Yeah I get that but as I already said, AA’s chances of shooting down any competent helicopter pilot is close to zero. The problem is that Kamovs have to apply tactics that reduce their efficiency, meanwhile FnFs are barely impacted by the presence of AAs and can just play their normal game.
That’s the point I’m trying to make.

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104

There is?

105

I enjoy flying the German helicopters and would describe myself as an average player. Of course, I lack a little experience with the 10 and 11 BRs. They simply don’t exist in the German tree. Lately I’ve been flying mostly the Tiger UHT. After a long break (triggered by the incredibly bad PARS, which didn’t do any damage), I have to say that it is now working well again on its BR. The PARS destroy targets again quite safely with 2 hits. To compensate for this, they obviously made some adjustments to its flight characteristics. He is no longer truly fast or agile (which he should be according to reality). Ultimately, it’s always a game of cat and mouse with the opposing AA, where the UHT may have an advantage over other helicopters thanks to its Osiris. The only thing I would like to have is the option of guiding the PARS to the target with a laser. After all, this is also possible in reality.

106

My point is that the efficiency of F&Fs are very unreliable and extremely map dependent - which isn’t nearly as much of a problem for the Ka-52, and sometimes even the Ka-50.

Because of this, I’m arguing that the Ka-52, in general, are more effective at killing SPAA (by using the tactic I said previously) and then dealing with tanks (whether they are smoking, or hiding behind foliage) than almost any F&F. F&Fs, if they don’t bother dealing with the SPAA first, must stay relatively low to the ground, which means small rocks, foliage and especially buildings can randomly get inbetween the IR seeker and the tank, effectively making it futile. The chances that the missiles will get intercepted or stop being able to track with their ~25s flight time are pretty high.

And the Ka-52 is usually better at taking out other helicopters, or even jets, than the Israeli AH-60 or other F&Fs…

It is just that the Ka-52 perhaps performs slightly worse in some cases and some maps, but much better in all others and aspects that really makes it one of the best helicopters in-game at the moment.

107

There is a keybind to turn countermeasures slaving to MAW off, but I think he’s trying to say is there any way to have it be turned off automatically at the start of every spawn.

108

I never really claimed otherwise.
Just tried to say their efficiency doesn’t drop substantially if there’s an AA present, they’ll continue doing whatever they did.

FnFs don’t really have to deal with them, as they can simply target much more unaware enemies.
Kamovs are better against tanks when there’s no AAs around, but you have to work for that to happen and will waste your time and resources.

That is true, but I’m talking about their efficiency when there’s AAs present.

Kamovs are much less useful until you kill that AA.
Smart players will know how to hide and be a nuisance, making you waste your missiles or hard focus them before anything else happens.

109

Sure, but what effectiveness do the F&Fs have when they have barely any in the first place, especially when they have to stay low to avoid getting killed by the SPAA.

Depends on the map, and if the spaa calls out to take cover or not, which they often can considering the missiles are slow enough for ground vehicles to react on time.

Unaware enemies can even have their missiles miss accidentally because of various things in the way.

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This includes:
Sands of Sinai, European Province (for the most part), Fire Arc (for the most part), Sinai, Fulda, Mozdok, Fields of Poland (for the most part), Red desert, Campania (for the most part), Artic Base, Flanders, Attica, Second battle of El Alamein, Spaceport (partially), Large Ardennes, Aral Sea (partially), and Maginot Line.
Around 17.

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image1022×547 38.4 KB

This includes:
Pradesh, Red Desert, Frozen Pass, Ash River, Karelia, Carpathians, Kuban, Sands of Sinai (partially), 38th Parallel, Japan, Campania, Vietnam, Jungle (partially), Middle East, and Mozdok (Partially), Abandoned Town (partially)
Around 16.
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This includes:
Jungle, Battle of Hurtgen Forest, Finland, Eastern Europe, Berlin, Karelia, Normandy, Poland, Advance to the Rhine, Stalingrad, Small Tunisia, Abandoned Factory, Ardennes, Middle East, Maginot Line (partially), Campania (Partially), American Desert, Alaska, Vietnam (Partially), Cargo Port, Sweden, Seversk-13, Breslau, Spaceport (partially), Sun City, Aral Sea (Partially), Abandoned Town, Golden Quarry, Iberian Castle, Test Site - 2271, and North Holland.
Around 31.

KA-52 is worse than F&F helicopters in around 25% of the maps with SPAA around.
KA-52 is equal to the F&F helicopters in around 27% of the maps with SPAA around.
KA-52 is better to the F&F helicopters in around 48% of the maps with SPAA around.

So if you agree with most of the maps I judged based on their openess, mountainous terrain, and urban areas, then you can see majority (around 73%) of the maps the KA-52 are equal or better than F&Fs with SPAA around.
The KA-52 is outright better in all maps without SPAA.

And what hard focus can they do when they are helpless to do anything in a 1v1 situation. 9/10 the Kamov will be able to get the first hits in due to the tactic I’ve shown previously.
No hiding or wasting missiles can really help in that situation.

So if you want to take that into account, most of the time the KA-52 will not have to cope under the iron fist of an SPAA, as the SPAA would’ve already been dealt with off the rip. Then it’s just an 9/10 or so in almost every map.

1 Like
110

Damage of IRs is a mixed bag I believe. This is an obvious tradeoff I’m aware off.
Their advantage is that you can get rid off of your payload much quicker and send more ordnance down range in total.

Kamovs need like ~100 seconds to fully guide 8 rockets from around 7km away. I would say in that time, FnFs would already reload and start their next attack.

Calling out to hide is a fair point, but it’s also fair to note that call out will mostly fall on deaf ears in a random game.

All ATGMs are susceptible to this, which is why ATGM carriers tend to struggle outside open maps as their missiles are simply to slow for the ranges they’re operating at.

First of all, great job on that list.
I do agree with most of it, but I would like to add maps like Pradesh, Big Tunisia and Big Volo into this, at least partially.

Also, some maps from your list can’t be played on official servers with a 12.0 helicopter due to their BR limitations.
Frozen Pass, Ash River, Karelia, Kuban, Jungle, Stalingrad and Berlin all have BR limits set in place.

This is correct.

Killing helicopters isn’t really a possibility in most cases, but annoying them with constant missiles can throw them off, and dealing with good AA players on some maps is also not an easy task.

111

Yes, their advantage is that you don’t have to do much, but I think it’s important to have more reliable kills than mixed bags - at least for competitive matches.

Usually they fire two or four at a time, but it depends on the target.
This lets at least one hit the target in question, where as the rest may not hit due to obstacles. You can argue that you can do the same with IR missiles too, but you get only 8 instead of 12 on most F&F helicopters (other than the Israeli AH-60), as well as the fact that you must have visual lock on the target, so either all of them miss (as they see the obstacle) or you must wait for the target to get away from the obstacle to lock them on again with another set of IR missiles.

As for ~100 seconds, I think the 11.7s for each volley (of 4-2) means it’s around 3-6 pretty guaranteed kills. 11.7x3 = 35.1s or up to 11.7x6, which would be 70.2s (assuming you keep shooting after every volley impacts). ~100 makes somewhat sense for any downtime, but you could say the same for the F&Fs which often have more problems with getting guaranteed kills too.

Yeah. For random battles, I can understand that being a problem.
For competitive matches, though, these things can really help, which makes F&Fs less viable.

Agreed, but I cannot understate how much worse the F&Fs are with that issue.

Thanks.

Yeah that’s fair enough - although I think I did add Pradesh and Big Tunisia in at least one of the three lists, unless you’re talking about adding them to the another list(s) I’ve mentioned.

You’re completely right.
However, I am somewhat basing this off of SRB matches (Squadron Realistic Battles), which include those maps too.

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112

Sure thing.

Firing two or four on a single target that gets behind cover last second must be painful experience lol.

I don’t like to talk about guaranteed kills when talking about ATGMs for reasons I mentioned.
I think they are fairly unreliable at doing that.

Of course, FnFs will probably get less kills per load, but their load takes much less time to go through, so in the end you’ll end up firing more but with less efficiency.

Yeah competitive games are a whole different level, where things like scout drones are brokenly OP.

I do agree with you on this.

I was talking about adding them to “Open Maps” category, as they have large portions of open terrain.

Didn’t know that, I was focusing more on GRB.
For SRB, I mostly agree with your choices though.

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