Since the Tusk Force update, helicopters feel much more oppressive than before. With Russia, China, and the United States now having access to extremely powerful IR guided ATGMs paired with DIRCM, it feels like counterplay is almost non-existent.
Most of the time, enemy helicopters can hover 7 to 8 kilometers away and pick off tanks with little to no risk. My team’s SPAAs often cannot reach them effectively, and it does not feel like the helicopter pilots are putting in much effort. They can safely hover and point and click with IR ATGMs.
For me personally, it is rare to get destroyed by enemy tanks anymore. Around 80 percent of my deaths are from AGM-179s, LMURs, or CMs. What is frustrating is that these new missiles do not even need to be manually guided. Helicopters can fire and retreat to cover, while players on nations without equivalent tech, such as Japan, still have to manually guide their missiles and lack DIRCM defenses. The AH-64DJP for example does not even come close to the capability of its peers.
Before this patch, I at least had fair ATGM duels with enemy helicopters. Outmaneuvering guided missiles required effort and skill, and it felt rewarding. Now, dodging only delays the inevitable because the IR missiles just do all the work.
At the moment, it feels less like tank battles with occasional CAS involvement and more like whoever spawns a helicopter first with IR ATGMs wins. I know some will say “git gud,” but that does not apply when you get destroyed in spawn before you even reach the battlefield.
I guess the next update would give any NATO nation a Guardian helicopter with CIRCM to balance things out with more AAs (patriot…etc) you’d just have to wait buddy.
That is exactly the issue for me. Japan does not really have any helicopters that could realistically get access to IR guided ATGMs, and as far as I know neither the Thai nor Indonesian sub trees have them either. So even if Gaijin wanted to add something equivalent, I am not sure what they could actually give Japan that would not be made up.
I get that NATO nations will probably end up getting something like the Guardian with CIRCM in a future update, and maybe more advanced SAM systems like Patriot will eventually arrive to counterbalance. The concern is what happens in the meantime. If your nation does not have those helicopters or comparable AAs, you are stuck at a serious disadvantage until the next major update.
Ground RB is the only real outlet for Realistic mode players who love helicopters.
. . . . now. . . . IF gaijin re-added Air RB EC, they could reasonably let heli’s spawn THERE and then YOUR predominantly tank game mode would be less saturated with them because there would be another outlet.
Yup I would love helis in air sim. They’d be a fantastic addition. Like player runs servers in DCS were able to really balance out having fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft occupy the same airspace, without load out restrictions, and still be very balanced an engaging (DCS Contention PvP). Like, there were even subsets of players who only flew the Mi-8 and Hueys doing logistic runs all night long, doing just fine in Fox 1 and Fox 2 environments, even in Fox 3 when they had them enabled on occasion.
Give helis forward spawns, allow utility helicopters to land near bomb bases and capture them, or drop of “troops” near the frontline targets giving you a kill every minute or something, give them the ability to spot and buddy lase for fixed wing to help with those superhuman AI convoys, etc etc. Lots they could do really turn it into a great mode for both heli and jet enjoyers.
Like war thunder really has the opportunity to pull people away from the DCS crowd, especially with all the crap going on with the Razbam situation, if they would just put a little work and TLC into sim. We don’t need a button simulator and clickable cockpits, just engaging flight models fun objectives.
I meant more so that it was possible to actually have ATGM duels, where both had to guide the missiles in, rather than one just F+F and the other only dodging.
The same argument can be applied to CAS and Bombers in general. Air RB sucks for anything not a meta fighter. At best your team wins in spite of you using that suboptimal vehicle, or the enemy team using superior machines so insanely poorly that a terrible machine can carry once in a while.
All those ground attack planes have nowhere to go because in EC maps even, convoy AA are cracked beyond any level of acceptability. Bombers instantly perish if under 3000-4000m when trying to bomb airfields or even bombing bases due to various anti-zomber neuterings over the years. So where do both go? To bomb tanks in Ground of course.
RB EC alone will not fix the problems.
CAS needs a complete overhaul in how it is accessed, how it is countered, what its objectives are, what tanks’ objectives are, what the maps are like, and much more. There is no easy fix for most of this.
But to my knowledge that one doesn’t have access to IR ATGMs or am I wrong? From what I’ve read the indonesian AH-64E only fields the regular 114’s. But maybe Gaijin will ignore that and give it the 179 since it can technically carry them.
I think it would really come down to adjusting conditions for spawning air vehicles. In most games I see Mi-28NM’s in the air after just 2 kills. Considering how powerful it is though, it is way too easy.
An easy fix to begin with would be to enable missile diamonds in GRB. That way I’d at least know that I have something incoming. I think nothing is more frustrating than getting blown up by something you had no chance of seeing comin.
