So, this is not an accurate or appropriate comparison at all.
HSTV-L has a top pen of 269mm mm, and 2S38 is 221mm mm (48mm difference). Strf 9040C has a pen of 142 mm (79mm difference). It is nearly double and below 200 mm, which means that, unlike the 2S38, it has a more challenging time penning anything frontally. Unlike the 2S38 or the HSTV-L, that vehicle cannot pen the diver port of an Eastern tank.
Faster reloading is crucial when firing a small round with low spalling. The 2S38 does not have much spalling like the HSTV-L, but its high fire rate compensates for that.
It’s not marginal; go on any long-range map. Increased visibility of a target allows for better accuracy on weak spots, which is essential for a tank with a low pen.
No, fight leopards in the HSTV-L, and you will quickly run out of ammo. Also, you need to budget the amount of ammo between proxy and darts compared to the 2S38.
Somewhat fair, but overpressure is easier on the HSTV-L because it is not crewless. A smaller crewless turret also creates less spalling, meaning you are less likely to damage a critical component like the turret ring.
Out of everything you mentioned, it shows you have likely not played both tanks. They are both very similar in game in terms of playstyle. And your post is incorrect about thermals and reload.
I think the 2S38 is a bit easier to deal with now that it has more modules and the frontal fuel tank doesn’t eat every single round, but I find it more disturbing that gaijin gave the HSTV-L a 33% faster fire-rate as well as proxy shells and IRST and didn’t think it needed to be moved up (because obviously its been meh for years). They clearly know this thing isn’t worth the BR placement of 11.7 and I have absolutely no clue why they don’t change it. It should easily have been 11.0 before the buff to fire rate and even after I’d still say 11.0/11.3 is generous. I also don’t like how they folded so easy under pressure from a single youtube video to change something that players have been reporting for years with primary sources, it shouldnt take threatening their sales to get balance and historically accurate vehicles within their game.
At least you warned me your post was going to be inaccurate.
100 meters 60 degrees:
HSTVL: 310mm.
2S38: 256mm.
Strf 9040C: 194mm. 142 never shows up on the statcard.
Thickness of steel plate /cos 60 = amount steel material penetrated.
Spoiler
2- Relying on spalling for frags is what gets you fragged.
I recommend getting good with APCR with M26 so you improve as a player for these APFSDS rounds.
Your reload only needs to be faster than the MBTs you’re attempting to frag.
3- Thermals is thermals, and gen 1 thermals retains my longest range ground to ground frag at 3.3km: IPM1.
4- I already have, Leopards usually take 1 - 2 shots to frag, well within their 6.3 second reload. The most one took was 3 cause I had a skill issue. I never bring proxy with HSTVL and never will, that’s not its purpose.
@SolareHQ Proxy and IR tracking doesn’t move BRs of vehicles. They don’t increase capability when they’re already above 9.3 in BR.
Then why would it ever be given it? It does have a purpose, and a very good one at that, in the game. I’ve heard from plenty that they use their HSTV-L as a replacement for the ADATS solely because of its proxy. Ignoring this tells me you are already biased and not open to discussion. And you indeed suffer from an ammo problem in the HSTV-L since you sacrificed a good shell for more darts. Do you only take darts in the 2S38, or do you have both? Gaijin could also improve this problem by simply giving the HSTV-L a more reliable shell. Then it’d make more sense to have it at a higher BR than a tank that plays nearly identical to it at a much lower BR.
Properly played aircraft won’t ever come close enough for you to use HE-VT.
Helicopters with ATGMs can also be countered by M1s and their proxy HEAT + LRF.
HSTVL only plays identically to HSTVL. Only Russia would claim 2S38 is anywhere close to HSTVL in capabilities when it so obviously isn’t>
2S38 is significantly slower with blatantly worse ammunition.
It’s why you see F-4s, A-10A Earlies, and Su-25s rocket rushing.
Well, in defense of the Su-25 players, there’s 0 competent SPAA to actually stop them, so there’s no reason for them to even consider that rocket rushing at toptier would be dumb.
I would agree, but it may just be me. However, the M1s proxy feels incredibly unreliable compared to a few years ago. It seems to go off way too early. But at the same time, I’ve had more luck with the proxy on an HSTV-L or 2S38 killing aircraft (since they get no warning) compared to an otomatic.
Again, a higher fire rate compensates for worse ammo. The Type10s do not have a special round or armor. What made them highly deadly a year ago (before everyone got a 5s reload buff) was that they had a pretty fast reload for a 120mm round. Volume of fire can make up for poor performance; this has been a known idea for hundreds of years.
The type 10s boast enough power to hit any weak point, it lack armor and survivability.
Meanwhile: an abrams, can eat a round to the breech, totally hull down and only lose a cannon.
2s38:
-reload speed
-can float
-various ammo types
Hstvl:
-gun depression
-speed
-higher pen
-bigger shell / more spall
-vastly better chance to bounce / eat rounds.
-can play any map with realities ease
-far lower profile
Thermal generation doesn’t matter. It’s meant for acquisition. Irl it would really indicate range in which and enemy would be visible (gaijin doesn’t model this).
more depression, more mobility, and because of the p2w and russian bias the 2s38 is much lower than it should be. HSTVL is somewhat still better though
Type 10 dart is far from being the worst top tier round.
What made them deadly is the combination of great mobility, good optics and insane fire rate. If they had some more armor and gun handling, they’ll be blatantly busted at 12.0.
yeah, 2S38 kills any modern tank in this game in 2-3 seconds (4-6 shoots)) from 1500m - and ofcourse centrally - how it’s posiible that 50+mm gun has so much power in ling distances??. It has so many advantages over HSTVL and is 1.4 BR lower - it is joke.
It can swim, has many rounds (HSTVL often dies because of low ammo count, when you are empty, you can do nothing), it has great optics, has better hull angles when hunting planes, much more armor for a planes (HSTVL it is very very limited, usually 5-6 for planes only), in 2s38 U can spam on planes, it has laser warning, engine smoke, better side armor.
2S38 should goes up, even higher then HSTVL, but it would not happened - it is pay for win machine, and everyone knows it.
There was many polls on old WT forum - 80+ % people wanted to change it’s BR up, but Gaijin updated to a new forum without polls - great movement.
The comparison for the 9040C Vs the 2S38 is silly to me as they are very different. 9040C cant track air targets and has no remote control turret. Its limited to 24 rounds before needing to wait 1 min 20 sec to reload. Vs the 2S38 which has more pen, better survivability and a full ammo loader to fallback on. Imo the HSTV-L is more comparable to the 9040C since limited ammo capacity. So the 2S38 gets the better weapon system ober the 9040C while having better hull down which works on more maps. Idk seems more like money bias than anything else.
Imo HSTV-L, then 2S38, then CV9040, this is my list of best gun only IFV’s when it comes to pen.
Imo it should be a step up from the 9040’s so 10.7 would be the best spot for it. Since i also disagree with Alvis that the 9040 and the 2S38 are equal rather the puma and 9040 are better counters. Puma loses pen for armor and survivability along with prolonged reload. Though idk if id say they are exact equals. Some matches i do good in the puma other i do bad.
