Not in Vietnam , North Vietnam won on 30 April 1975. 40mm VT shells started production some time in that same year.
But the M-42 was in service with the US National guard until 1988, Austria until 1992 and Japan until 1994 (along with several other nations that used them until between 1985 to 89). There are also Thailand, Tunisia, Greece and Taiwan that are listed as using it, but do not have a date of decommission so its possible that they are still in service, or at least maintained as reserve or training equipment .
So I would be surprised if non-of them at least tried using VT rounds in it during that time.
What if they give US more opportunities to leverage air superiority, as it was meant to be
I’m sure they will but I think the spawn cost for achieving the air superiority 600+ points vs. spawning a ground SPAA wouldn’t be as efficient. Not to mention, not everyone plays both ground and air so it’s leaves some without an option.
Maybe if they made it cost no SP to rearm with different weapons a fighter could clear skies then rearm to support ground, any aircraft gameplay is going to feel more fun and active than spaa, they should really lean into it for US. But for everyone who didn’t research US air tree (which is kinda surprising as to why someone would do that bc where US dominates is the skies and it’s what our military is most famous for) there are all the spaa suggestions on this thread
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About all they are good for .
Yeah, that too, but uh, issue is how it would be in game, essentially making the C-RAM a better choice (I.e. its a fully-automatic system)
Interesting to note. So there is some plausible basis to give them that shell.
Gaijin is too inconsistent on the whole Could use/ did use thing, given that we have the M-19-A1 and M-42 at the same BR and are, for all practical purposes, identical I would suggest that the M-19 stays as it is and the M-42 gets VT rounds and goes up to somewhere between 5.3 and 6.7 to fill the gap and remove a redundant extra SPAA
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I think too many SPAAGs are badly overreacted to when they are able to kill common tanks through the sides.
To me, a long-term player, an SPAAG able to reliably melt tanks’ sides is actually balanced. It means the average player will actually move outside their own spawn with the thing more often due to being able to defend themselves if needed.
This does not mean to repeatedly uptier an SPAAG until it becomes unable to harm common tanks it meets. Such as is becoming the case with the PG87 for China, which only pens 65mm point blank.
For the Duster, I would give it HE-VT, APDS, and globally give all SPAAGs a short-range lead marker out to no more than 1.0km-1.5km for a stock/aced crew. I would then intentionally place it “too low” to make it impossible to overlook and worth using even for the average pleb, probably 6.3 tops.
The “Raduster” suggested elsewhere, which has a radar unit but would be otherwise identical, would be 7.0, tops.
I would downtier many SPAAGs to be more in line with the likes of the Duster, give them any missing shell types they have to increase antitank potency, and generally make SPAAGs into effectively pseudo-IFVs in the lower ranks.
In order to make SPAAG “too good not to use,” they need to be able to murder tanks who do things no more stupid than would get them killed by most other tanks at the same BR, with an added bonus of melting planes that get close.
Then SPAAG have no excuse to not be used by anyone, helping kill one of the arguments keeping the embers of tank-only mode alive (that SPAAG are useless and totally outmatched). I want that argument dead, and the threat of more boneheaded global CAS nerfs dead with it. Such folk go and say “but snail did that, we didn’t.” Well whose whining provoked the snail?
Sorry if I started rambling too much. I see the entire CAS argument as the biggest poisonous self-inflicted wound to the game after BR overcompression, because changes meant for one mode all too often ruin something or occasionally many things in other modes that weren’t even part of the problem.
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This.
This works SO much better for the US than the Skink would.
The US never used or ordered the Skink, so it’s why Britain got it as they ordered the Skink.
Yes I know the German Airforce ceased to exist by that point, but my point still stands.
The T77 would be around the same BR as the Skink if we go off of the closed top aspect.
Skink went from 4.7 to 5.3 because it’s armoured (also because Britain moment)
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The skink has 20mms and the T77 only has .50 cals. Depending on the targetting speed, i think it would be 5.0 max.
Here’s the 20mm:
And here’s the 50cals:
But yeah, at this point, the 50cals are better, add to the fact there’s 6 of them.
Main downsides to the 50cals would be the reload time.
But yeah, depends on the turret traverse and how armoured the T77 is.
I can see the T77 being around a similar BR to the Skink for sure.
I grabbed the 50cal info from the M16 wiki page.
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Yeah, but the 20mms hit like a truck when they hit. The .50 cals are not as effective against planes.
Also it depends on the 20mm. The 20mms on the skink is worse than the 20mm oerlikon on other vehicles in that BR range.
I don’t want to read this entire thread but this is a trash take. 40mm guns are a GODSEND when dealing with enemy planes, its just a skill issue. Single hit with a 40mm usually kills the plane, whereas a 20mm autocannon needs like 20 hits to actually do something (without it being lucky). Hitting something once is a lot easier than hitting it 20 times imo.
The 40mm’s do have a slower firing rate, but they also have slower muzzle velocity. Just give the targets more lead and you’ll be buzzing em down in no time. With the 20mm you can just hold the trigger and approximate all possible leads to get a few hits in, can’t really do that with the 40mm. Planes move a lot faster across the screen than you would think, but they are also pretty predictable.
One of the main things I like about 40mm’s is being able to engage the plane for minutes at a time with a large ammo pool. Being able to deter them when they are 2kms up is also nice, and I’d actually be able to keep it up for minutes on end. 20mm cannons don’t have that luxury, you have to wait until the enemy is making an attack run or risk being strafed when you’re reloading. You can’t keep up the pressure and pilots KNOW this.
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They are objectively harder to use than the 20mm cannons like the oerlikon. That’s why the afghan shilka is so much lower in BR than the shilkas with radars. You cant cry skill issue if there are legitimate disparities between them. Following your logic, a tracking radar would never be a balancing factor.
What? .50 cals take 20 hits to kill something unless you get lucky. .20mms only take a few shots max to down a plane, and usually one will rip a wing off or set the plane on fire. 40mm are just overkill and loses out because its way harder to hit planes.
Exactly
Yeah, or you could just wait and kill them outright with a 20mm oerlikon.
Or alternatively you can just fire off for a bit and stop before you run out of ammo, then wait for them to dive on you and open up again.
Pilots also know that the 40mm armed US SPAAs are extremely vulnerable to air attacks, whereas if you try to dive on a wirbelwind you will have much more trouble taking those SPAAs out unless you get a direct hit with a rocket.
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Wouldn’t it make a lot of light tanks irrelevant though? They should just buff plane killing ability for a few that are especially bad at their BR
Yea they are. It’s a skill issue if you can’t use em.
I hate using .50 cals. Especially on planes. 20mm taking more than 2x hits on non critical areas is too much for me tbh. Plus lots of 20mm belts have ap mixed in so like a third of your rounds do jack shit against planes that aren’t strafing you.
Quoting myself, but wastes so much ammo. Ammo that you don’t really have cause you get less than a minute of burst if you’re lucky.
When you’re being strafed? At that point you also just “tear off a wing or set them on fire” and you’re still getting hit lmao. Better to have overkill in that situation.
Having planes dive on you IS NOT GOOD. You’re very likely to die. Deterring planes from diving on anybody is just as effective as killing them.
Whirleybird is just as vulnerable as any of the 40mm US ones? I’ve had plenty of instances where I was dodging a Wirbel and his belt ran out, letting me know it was 100% safe to dive on em (or vice versa).
It’s really a matter of opinion ig. The 40mm have a much steeper learning curve but are more flexible (can TD if needed or shoot super long range). Now the single barreled 40mm? Those suck, not enough dakka.
Is it a skill issue if you can’t use the shilka without the radar as well as the shilka with the radar? They theoretically can perform the same but for user error. The M42 is less likely to hit fast-moving planes than a lot of the 20mm-armed SPAAs around the place due to ROF alone. When you have only 4 chances to hit a plane at any given 1 second time-frame and other SPAAs have 32 chances in the same time-frame, to say that it is a “skill issue” is laughable.
We might as well say that it is a skill issue when a soldier with a bolt-action rifle isn’t as effective as a soldier with an MG42.
Lol, must be a troll
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Yes? Radar is a crutch and it LIES sometimes.
But if you’re off target with either one then you wont hit anything? If you’re on target with both then the ttk is faster with the 40mm. The “skill issue” is being able to lead correctly to actually hit the target (for situations where they AREN’T flying straight at you).
They serve different purposes. Close range vs multipurpose. MG 42 is gonna run outta ammo way before the bolt action.
It’s open top???