Helicopter's max BR needs to be increased

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
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The BR placement for helicopters is really compressed.

  • Some helicopters are flat out better than others while being at the same BR.
  • Some completely outperform spaa whiling being the same BR.

Increasing the max BR to 12.7 allows a lot more breathing room for top tier helicopters

However before talking about the BR of them, we need to have a conversation on what makes a heli good. I believe that there are 4 factors that dictate how effective they are.

  • Maneuverability
  • Weaponry (offensive and defensive)
  • Countermeasures
  • The spaa it faces

Maneuverability: How fast in which helicopters can increase/decrease in altitude. It helps with dodging missiles being fired from SPAA.

Weaponry:

  • Offensive: How many offensive weaponry the heli has (agms, rockets, cannon) and how effective they are while in combat
  • Defensive: The amount of options a helicopter has to defend itself from aircraft (A-A missiles, cannon) and how effective they are.

Countermeasures: What are the ways a heli can defend themselves (MAW, flare count, IRCCM) from incoming missiles/projectiles and how effective is it.

SPAA: With the things said above, how does it hold up against spaa?

I think most can agree on these factors. What we probably won’t see eye to eye on is the lethality of certain weapon systems.

1 . Beam riding missiles are the most deadliest AGMs.

  • They are extremely accurate, can hit targets behind smoke and is generally faster than top down AGMS (hellfires, spikes).
  • One big downside is that they generally have less penetration and weaker post pen damage than top down missiles.

2 . I’m unsure where to place FnF AGMs. It allows helicopters to be played with near impunity though I don’t know if that outweighs the inconsistency of them.

3 . Lastly SALH AGMs. these are the weakest missile purely. Lets take a look at hellfires for example.

  • They have excellent penetration and post pen damage however what’s the point of that if it can’t hit targets effectively.
  • It is terrible at 5-8km because it loses so much speed where it either drops out of the sky or over corrects and misses the target.
  • The time it takes to hit a target is significantly longer than beam riding agms.

There are a few exceptions like the Mokopa where it’s significantly faster or the AKD-10 where it can maintain it’s speed for a lot longer. But, it still has the downsides of SALH.

Now with the BR placement of these helicopters. This is where I need your help. I’m confident in saying that the KA52 is better than the Apache. But for the rest, I’m really not sure.

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Why? 12.0 helicopters are already bad at this time, why make them even more unplayable?

lol This was only true in 2022. Especially now that it’s firing one at a time.

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Some helicopters are useless at 12.0 hence why I said we have to judge them on multiple factors. The KA52 is one of the best helis at 12.0. The apache doesn’t deserve to be 12.0

I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that you haven’t played these systems in while. I encourage you to take it at least once on a test drive.

I also encourage you to re-read our prior discussions that we’ve had regarding the Vikhrs and hellfires. Some of the thing you’ve said in the past are just false and even when disproving them, you still spread false information

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@HondaCivici
Apache and Ka-52 literally have the same 8km range.
Literally the same chance of dying to SPAA.

You should indeed fly these helicopters as a lot has changed since 2022.
Yes, I’ve disproved a lot of false things and have never said false things about these systems cause I play them to this day and keep tabs on changes.

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This is not true.

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You’d first need to decompress the air at those BRs, as most 12.3 / 12.7 aircraft completely make helicopters inferior, at least in most cases.

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When hovering and at tree level, both systems have an 8km range against moving targets.
When at speed and a bit of altitude Vikhrs can go 10km against static targets, which doesn’t matter since SPAA range is 12km

Only F&F missile platforms have a chance when SPAA is up.
There’s a reason helicopters are never seen at top BR, and when they are seen it’s usually a SPIKE/PARS slinger.

Vikhrs were changed to be that range back around 2019 and they perform that way as of current.
On top of having a warhead that can’t pen Abrams or Leopards unless it climbs high into SPAA threat, let alone APS having tanks.

Cause unlike other missiles, Vikhr doesn’t loft so it’s always LOS. And AGM-114 has a similar issue after lofting that’s mitigated by the laser.

Also helicopters were decompressed years ago.
A Ka-52/Apache equivalent aircraft: A-6E TRAM sits at 10.7 ground.
Of course aircraft are forced to fly forward, so these 12.0 BRs while arguably over-BR’d are still “fine”, cause when SPAA isn’t up Apache devastates entire teams, and Ka-52 does damage as well.

The last time I saw a non-F&F helicopter was sometime fall of last year and it was destroyed instantly by a Flarakrad.

Edit: Not even 3 search terms I find a match post-FlaRakRad addition.

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Russia has the best helicopters which is why they lack FnF capability and the Lynx is 10.7.

Anyway I agree that helicopters are pretty poorly balanced in general and they need a rework. Especially with regard to their economy/methods of playing.

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If I say my Honda Civic is equal to a Ferrari because it has the same range (for the sake of argument), do you know how ignorant that sounds?

Please think about this analogy

then you would know that you can ripple fire with beam riding agms. It’s not like Hellfires where you can fire all of em at once. you can fire three within a span of 2 seconds.

misleading. hellfire are extremely inaccurate against tanks that don’t follow a straight line (unlike bots)

Then you are playing helicopters wrong. In GRB (not PVE), the point of helicopters (that require LOS) is to ambush spaa then move onto tanks. Or hide from spaa and only go for tanks. Not go toe to toe with one. Helicopters with Vikhrs are the best at this because they are fast, thus

reduces the time for spaa to react.

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Last time I checked, helicopters aren’t at ground level shooting at tanks.

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Again we’ve had this conversation before. at a slight increase in elevation, you ignore the strongest parts of a tank.
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Vikhirs at tree level can hit stationary targets at around 9km, and possibly moving targets at around 8km.

Hellfires, on the other hand, can just about hit stationary targets at around 8km, but you can clearly see how they struggle to even stay flying.

I have no doubts that the Vikhirs can hit moving targets at 8km, but with the number of matches I have played with hellfire helicopters, you’d want to stay at around 4-6km at least, to get them to hit.

This is completely not true, and is demonstrated countless times by experienced Kamov players:

Kamovs have high skill ceiling, and somewhat low skill floor.
Of course you barely see them, unlike with the low skill ceiling and low skill floor of the F&F helicopters.

APS can be easily overwhelmed by spamming 3 or 6 at a time. You can guide multiple as long as it’s within a 3s time frame from the first launch… this is basic knowledge to anyone who knows how to play Kamov.

Vikhirs have 6.87kg worth of TNT, which is enough to overpressure the turret-ring area of a 2A7V…

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And overpressure the roof…

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And even without that, you cannot tell me that just because you have to aim a bit better to kill an MBT automatically makes Vikhirs inferior to other AGMs.

It not lofting offers many benefits, like getting to the target quicker (along with it being a faster missile in general), and being able to guide them into smoke (which you cannot do with laser-guided AGMs nor F&Fs).

And they still need further decompression.
The Ka-50 and Z-19E being the same BR makes sense (at least to me), but they shouldn’t be the same BR as the YAH-64.

Sure… until they start smoking up.
Not to mention that the Apaches are worse at dealing with air targets than most top tier Helicopters, other than the Tiger UHT.

And the youtube video that you posted was that of the British Apache, which is much more useful than the American / Israeli / Japanese ones due to the starstreaks, which is potent against SPAA, helis (most of the time), and sometimes even jets.

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Nice 1.5km range imagery. Cause helicopters are always 1.5km away when they fire missiles… /s

I get you and @rainy2000 want to defend the Ka-52 and push propaganda for Kamov, but it’s not the best helicopter in-game and never really was. It was tied due to weak SPAA in the past. Ka-52 hasn’t been a top 5 helicopter since 2022, before the addition of SPIKEs and fixing the physics of SACLOS missiles.

British Apaches use the same ATGMs as every other Apache.

And no, I didn’t ignore anything in your posts. All the evidence you provided is evidence I provided in the past and all of it proves my points.

Ka-52 will never be more than a 12.0 helicopter. It’s good, it’s just not OP. If you want OP go talk about F-16C, Su-34, etc. Helicopters aren’t it, not even the most powerful of them: Rooivalk for non-F&F and Blackhawk/Tiger for F&F; they’re not OP either.
Well in a vacuum Rooivalk is OP for not being the same BR as Ka-52 and max Apaches, but the game isn’t in a vacuum and where SPAA currently is Rooivalk is “fine”.

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We literally do not care about how they performed in real-life or what nation they were created by.
We are talking about how they perform in-game.

No?
No competitive player has ever said that (and for good reasons), and I would love to see you duel them with your apache.

You completely are ignoring the fact that what makes the British Apache much better than the other Apaches is because of its starstreaks.

Sure you did.

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@rainy2000
War Thunder isn’t real life. I implore you retract that detail in your post about WT and real life being the same, especially since you agree with me that they aren’t the same in the following sentence.

Heli PVP isn’t a game mode anymore, there is no heli dueling.

Starstreaks were great in heli PVP, it’s still not a game mode.

Your posts’ takes are all of 2022 War Thunder… play the game, get new information.

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You misunderstood what I was saying.

We aren’t conflating the two.

We are talking about how this vehicle (called the KA-50 / KA-52) performs in this videogame.

We are not saying that the KA-50 / KA-52 in-game performs the way they should in real-life, so there is no ‘propaganda’ to spread.

You do realise SRB exists?

I assume you do not know that SRB exists.

I am convinced that you have built your own echo chamber.

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@rainy2000

Then I’m glad we agree.

SRB isn’t heli dueling either.
Also the fact your post calls the WT community an “echo chamber” is enough for me to not take your posts seriously. Anyone or any post that demeans others, especially a group, is not to be taken seriously.

The point stands that helicopters are no where near as powerful as even AV-8B let alone the top F&F aircraft.
Especially not Apache/Ka-52/Mi-28NM/Z-10, not even Rooivalk despite it being the best of the non-F&F helicopters.

If you disagree about those vehicles, fine. It’s okay to disagree, it’s not okay to demean others.

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At this point, I have no idea what you’re arguing about 🤣. Of all the things I’ve said, you decided to talk about my 1 min drawing?

Do you honestly think vehicles in war thunder are accurate to their real life counter parts?

which are…

@rainy2000 did a pretty good job on countering the points you’ve said.

That is rich coming from you.

please point to me where the community is saying the KA52 is fine at 12.0

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Most of your post is minor details that I don’t think we should be arguing over.
Or perspective that’s mostly personal, which we shouldn’t be arguing over.
It does not matter if we think Mi-28NM or Apache is better than the other, cause all of the non-F&F helicopters are worse than the F&F helicopters, and the F&F helicopters are worse than the fixed-wing CAS.

My entire point is the helicopters are fine at their BRs currently.
IF SPAA BRs change, helicopters should change with them, that is my primary statement about helicopters.

Also you are the first ever person to claim Z-10, Rooivalk, Ka-52, Mi-28NM, etc are more powerful than 12.0 BR.

All the takes of Ka-52 being OP where when it was 11.3.

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You haven’t played top tier SRB then.

I am saying that you have made your own echo chamber, not the community.
I have had many cooperative and useful conversations with people - namely with @MotorolaCRO.
This is distinctly a problem that you seem to have, and what seems to be the case with other people that try to have a meaningful and good-faith discussions on different topics with you.
You seem to never be able to admit when you are wrong on a certain topic (especially by discrediting and making it seem like someone is spreading ‘propaganda’), and makes it harder for others to accept when they are wrong as well.

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@rainy2000
Well, when you decide to play top SRB, I recommend it; especially for SPAA grinding, cause it’s the easiest mode to play SPAA in.

Also I listen to the entirety of the WT community, keep tabs on takes. Thousands, ten-thousands.

Also I’ve admitted to having wrong information hundreds of times in the last year; just cause you don’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
When there’s a change I change, as one should.
When Su-27SM changed, I changed.
When Vikhr became fully fixed in early 2023, I stopped calling it OP cause it no longer was.
When Apache’s AGM-114s started tracking helicopters correctly in late 2019, my position on them changed [that’s where all my AH-64A Peten air kills came from, fragging Ka-50s in heli PVP using AGM-114s].
When F-15E was nerfed hard, I changed again.
Hundreds of changes in the last year for hundreds of aspects of War Thunder.

Non-F&F helicopters are not OP at this time. They may have been in the past, and were in many instances; currently all but Israel and Japan have on-the-ground counters to them.

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All those changes, and yet your takes, especially about helicopters, seem so wrong.
Maybe it’s just the difference between competitive matches and casual matches, but the reason why all top helicopter players during 8v8s play KA-52, AH.MK1 or (sometimes) Z-10 is simply because they’re just superior to everything else in most aspects.
Why would they pick those if they could just pick the ‘better’ F&Fs helicopters?
Either you are talking about casual play, or you don’t believe the top helicopter players are playing the right vehicles.