I think that Helicopters should be put at 9.0 B.R. and above because it’s too hard to shoot them down if there not at least 1.35 km away from you. Which they can kill you from 3.00 km away. I mean it’s a 50 / 50 chance right now that it’s going to be either your match right now.
Eeeeeh no. Starter helis should not see 10.0. And there are some starter helis so bad they could be 6.7 and they’d still be bad.
People should be asking for more SPAA options and better abilities for vehicles to spot helis and actually do things about them like giving them tasks to do rather than going straight to the field…
YES SIR! Helis can go to hell or toptier for all i care. Atleast just the ones that fire ATGMS
helicopters definetly need to go higher in BR.
In GFAB it is possible to meet Tiger UHT and other top tier choppers at 9.3
Spoiler
and that assuming that helicopters also use the +/- 1 BR spread.
It’s oh so fun to meet helicopters that outrange all available SPAAG, some with F&F or laser guided munitions.
The same helicopters are a FULL BR higher in other game modes.
Helicopters have for my experience the following problems:
- Damage model is broken and inconsistent, one time you head snipe pilot with single burst from MG, another time it tanks multiple rounds;
- After being killed “Message displayed”, helicopters are still mostly functional and can and will still get kills;
- Still haven’t figured out why Gaijin has put a restriction on GF firing SACLOS ATGM, which can only be launched below 10-15 kph, but a helicopter firing basically the same missile SS-11 <> AS-11, HOT, with the same control method can fire ATGM at full speed?;
- these high tier choppers have counter measures, so even an Ocelot is useless against them, they just pop their 64 flares;
- helicopter and other CAS still spawn in way to often behind our spawn, which is ridiculous;
This BR thing is rather strange since most things a on a higher BR in GFAB, then GFRB, with some exceptions, and for helicopters they switched it around, very strange indeed.
Some starter helis dont have atgm you should keep that in mind.Some of them can only use rocket pods.
I agree completely, I have no problem with just the ones that have machine guns or just unguided rockets but, the ones with ATGM’S or controller guided missiles needs to be put at 9.0 B.R.
Absolutely. I have no issue with the helis going in guns blazing, that adds to healthy pace of the game, not unlike the ATGM helis that sit 3 km from the ground battles lol
I think that low level helicopters that either have just have machine guns or just unguided rockets are completely fine at tiers below 9.0 B.R., because you can still kill lightly armored vehicles light tank’s, SPG’S, SPAA’S, and anti-missile tanks with the machine guns and the rockets can kill all. Rockets don’t have a high chance of killing you from far range because there unguided and there hard to hit anything at range.
Let’s talk about helicopters that are below 9.0.
Most of them aren’t that great. A few of them don’t even have ATGMs.
Look at the H-34 (France) at 7.7.
It has 2x AS.11 ATGMs with a 3.5km range. Sitting at 3km from the battlefield, it will gets deleted by Gepards and has a hard time hitting anything that isn’t stationary.
There are decent ones like the Scout or the Alouette, but those are 8.3 and have the same missiles as the H-34.
But I don’t think any of the helicopters you face below 9.0 (or even 10.0) have anything really scary. They’re shooting slightly better missiles than the AS.11. But they start facing missile SPAA and IFV vehicles that have no problem shooting them down even at their max ATGM range. And not to mention jets.
I think the issue is that you see helicopters kill you, but you don’t see all the helicopters getting shot down or missing their ATGMs and accomplishing nothing. Any helicopter you see at or below 9.0 requires more skill than you think. They can only really shine if you let them. If you spawn a plane or SPAA that is BR appropriate, you can shoot them down or suppress them.
because it’s too hard to shoot them down if there not at least 1.35 km away from you
By the way, I don’t know if you’re expecting to shoot down helicopters with your top-mounted MG or what, but just like planes, you need to counter them with the appropriate vehicle.
I’m talking about helicopters below 9.0 btw. Not talking about anything with 10km ATGMs.
because you can still kill lightly armored vehicles light tank’s, SPG’S, SPAA’S, and anti-missile tanks with the machine guns
You should really try doing that yourself. Most rocket runs end up badly. First, it’s really easy to cripple a helicopter with a top-mounted MG if it’s nearby, and it’s really hard to hit anything in a helicopter if you’re not stationary or headed straight towards your target. Second, finding those targets before getting shot down is also hard. Third, the vehicles you listed are counters to helicopters, IFVs with rapid fire autocannons, SPGs with HE-VT, and SPAAs will decimate any helicopter. You probably wont even have time to get your gun on target before dying. Of course that’s assuming they’re paying attention.
Rockets don’t have a high chance of killing you from far range because there unguided and there hard to hit anything at range.
Rockets are much better than guns since you can fire them from range. Better miss with your rockets and go rearm then get close with your gun and die.
From this I think you haven’t played a lot of helicopters, I encourage you to try out a few. AH-1G only has rockets, you can try that out. Or the Russian/German ones, they have ATGMs.
The point is that every Helicopter pilots have gotten good enough that now in every match there’s a player who sits at 3.0 km away or far enough away that your guns our useless. My point also is that rockets really doesn’t matter where your firing from because as long as your close enough they will kill. Whereas with machine guns your limited to lightly armored targets.
I don’t think this is true, from my experience it’s rare to see a helicopter really wrecking havoc below 9.0/10.0. I usually see AH-1Gs fly around to their death or a Scout late-game hovering above the battlefield, well within SPAA range. At worse there’s a Mi-24 sitting shooting ATGMs, but it’s definitively not every game. And that’s a 8.7+ helicopter.
What BR/nation/server are you playing on?
I’m playing on the West coast server, 8.7 B.R., and Russia or Germany.
There’s also the swedish helicopter at 7.7 with bantams… easily the worst ATGMs ever. Slow as a snail, 2km range. And it may just be me but the damage is horrible.
So the HKP3C should start at 9.0?
I can’t speak for other helicopters but the Hkp 3C with the RB 53 Bantams sporting a velocity of an astonishing maximum 85 m/s (compare to SS.11 with 220m/s) is a royal pain in the ass and should not be bumped up to 9.0 under any circumstances. While a well-placed hit will kill most vehicles, you rarely live long enough to get that well-placed hit, and if you do; the opponent has either not moved or moved minimally in fairly open terrain. Please note the use of the term “well-placed hit”, because 80% of the time you either just critical hit or maybe at disable a component.
However, I understand your frustration to 100%, I do not enjoy being sniped by a helicopter pilot from outside the effective range of my otherwise very capable VEAK 40, and I do hold the opinion that something needs to be done about aircraft generally in ground RB, either by raising their spawn cost or limiting the maximum amount of aircraft a team can have at any one point. Ideally though I would prefer to see a ground RB mode without aircraft (fixed and rotary wing) all together.