The feeling I get is that the HSTV-L is one of those vehicles where it’s BR doesn’t really matter.
It’ll out-maneuver anything, out-reload anything, out-accelerate anything, it’ll be vulnerable to anything, etc. regardless of whether it sits at 12.7 or 10.3.
It’s a vehicle with only two drawbacks: Post-penetration damage and penetration.
The lack of penetration isn’t felt that much considering you can just aim for weakspots and you’re usually firing at the sides anyways.
That just leaves the post-pen damage, if this were buffed to be equal to M774 the HSTV-L would instantly be the #1 tank in War Thunder.
I think they should correct the penetration and improve the consistency of spalling, but not quite on-par with main gun APFSDS, then move it to 12.7.
There are two rounds they tested with HSTVL as well.
The one we have in-game was the primary test round for years.
Then they did a limited test run of a higher powder charge before writing off the barrel, which has that alleged M774 performance.
I don’t remember the barrel wear conclusions though.
Either way, if we got the limited test run… easily 12.7.
Having 400mm penning APFSDS being fired so quickly would be insane.
It’d be as if you turned the French VBCI into a 2S38 and then increased the 2S38’s mobility even more.
Thats called balance, do you expect to have a missile with an advantage in every way imaginable, well i guess you dont have to the kh38 is already in game.
Even if it had 600mm of penetration it would still be suffering from poor post-pen damage output.
It’s the lack of damage that can get you killed, not the lack of penetration.
How?!
You can one-shot it by aiming nearly anywhere, you’re significantly more mobile than it and it has trouble penetrating the vast majority of your frontal area (M1 KVT).
Doesn’t change the fact that you’re massively more mobile than it, you can penetrate it FAR more easily than he can penetrate you, and you’ve got massively better survivability than the 2S38 does.
The only way a 2S38 should kill you is if you didn’t even spot it in the first place, but then practically any tank will be lethal.
Again, 2S38’s are food for the M1’s and they don’t deserve to be at the same BR as a M1 or Leo 2A4.
I thing you maybe seriously overestimating the Shilks, their radar has an extremely slow scan rate and they are really only effective out to ~1km, maybe a bit more on something big and slow.
not if it flies into the battle field, but if it sits back and shoots mavericks from 7km not even stinger SPAAs can shoot it, but I was referring more to things like F-16s and Bombcats. that would boost up to 10km and then just rain mavs a paveways on you.
The specific issue was they where pushing night battles, so not only did the IR maves have a considerable lock range advantage in day battles, the Kh29s could not be used at night at all
which is why some people myself included said that the KH-29 with IR seeker should be added instead of the KH-38, if any 38s are in the game they should be the only SAL ones and only on the Su-34.
There are only a few darts in this entire game considered “long”. You can see the difference between “Long” and “Short” if you watch the animation of the projectile.
The only way the HSTV-L’s APFSDS will spall more is if it gets extra penetration.
As I said before, the HSTV-L’s APFSDS should be on par with 105mm M774. That is the only historical performance of this gun. What we have currently is no more than Gaijin’s denial of US testing.
Nah the 2s38 trades off a radar and a bit of penn for way better mobility and survivability with a great rate of fire. Not to mention the oto only carries 12 rounds of darts.
Is this fair? When one even has dynamic protection that breaks the projectile’s trajectory and a spall liner that nullifies the projectile’s energy, while the others were given nothing.
Several other MBTs where given spall liners, my point is there is rock solid evidence of the existence and effectiveness of spall liners on T-55s, 62s, 64s, 72s 80s and 90s only one of which has been implemented.
As for ERA I’ve spent enough time talking about it the last few days and there are several other threads on it, lets just say Russian and early NATO ERA follows different design philosophies and I don’t know enough about modern NATO ERA to comment, although I believe at least TUSK kits ERA (ARAT) is intended to counter RPGs and IEDs it claims no protection against kinetic threats.
