You kinda need AP for A2A combat though. It’s the most reliable way to pilot snipe or wreck engines as HE will fuze on the fuselage and explode behind the pilot.
Different calibers being compared because I can’t take screenshots in-game right now, but it demonstrates the utility and I’d say - vitality - of AP rounds/shells for air to air combat.
The .50 cal AP kills faster than the 20mm HEI (if you remember that it’s 4 bullets hitting for the .50 cal so that orange turns black in a real example.)
I have … mixed opinions on that actually. I tend to find running pure stealth belts and thus mostly HEI on the Spitfire tends to work quite well. With how badly modeled the damage models are. Blowing the entire tail or a wing off with a single hit generally has proven quite a reliable way to kill for me.
Also the added bonus that they cannot see you firing at them and so defend differently / too late
Helicopters can spawn with unguided rockets and AAMS for like 250 SP so I see no reason why aircraft shouldn’t have a spawn with none ATG ordinance or AAM loadouts for nearly the same cost since you can use helis as a makeshift SPAA platform all the same.
I figure a bare jet costs 400 SP, AAMs 50+, Rockets/Bombs 200+, Laser/GNSS 300+, IR/TV 500+
Also, why tf do belts still cost 100+ SP!!! I have to use default belts on the F-16C and F-15E rather than AIR BELTS which is annoying to switch between for both AIR RB and GROUND RB
Yeah, the most effective (and quite frankly) only anit-air I currently have for Britain at top tier is to spawn an aircraft. Which costs 10x more than an SPAA, is really annoying. Not quite as extreme without Fox-3s but still insane that if I play say 7.7. I have to choose between a 5.3 SPAAG for 70 SP or a fighter for 500+ SP.
This is one thing that really should’ve been implemented quite some time ago.
Another idea to significantly reduce the negative impact of aircraft in a fair way is to refund SP to those on the ground who were killed by air assets.
I’m sure it’s a controversial take; removing the SP drain of a death is removing the “punishment” and “reward” for dying/killing, but that’s a limited understanding of design and game theory. The reward and punishment remain, but in rebalanced forms. Destroying an enemy with CAS is still rewarded (your team can now advance beyond their position and gain control of the area that player may have been denying, etc) and the punishment for the player who dies is still there in that they have to return to the spawn with a new vehicle from their lineup that may be weaker/use a backup and still drive back into position.
Hopefully. The dev stream comments didnt fill us with a huge amount of hope. They specifically mentioned the SAM system used by France and Italy, but nothing for Britain
Although a Ground Only mode is the real answer, we know that will never happen. So, a couple items that would help with the gross imbalance of CAS over GV’s…
Make CAS actually realistic in “Realism” mode. That is to say get rid of the arcade 3rd person view and bind the pilot into the cockpit.
Allow SPAA to spot AC and mark them just like a scout does with tanks.
