KH-38ML missile is not balanced in War Thunder's current enviroment

Game Discussion General Discussion
309

nope

The “not the SM3” bit meant that this plane was the only one that didn’t have to get in the max theorical range of enemy SPAAs, but Alvis edited his message

Although KH38s have INS, so if you pop smoke too late you’re dead. Not to mention most SPAAs don’t have smoke anyway

310

Ye except there are many times some corpses on spawn as well do the missile will change lock to them

311

depends at which point we are in the game…

That being said, “lock switching on other wrecks” seems to be a poor argument to prove a missile is balanced. Every missile does that, except laser ones which have to be fired much closer.

313

what? How the hell would chaff do anything to a laser?

314

Idk ask gajin how is it possible in game but well it happens shot directly at Heli he started using countermeasures and missile failed same with head on phantom even defyn in his video said that missile goes for chaff

315

laser missiles on a plane can fail for multiple reasons. One of them being they must hit-to-kill

I had multiple instances of Su25 sending KH38 at my heli, and no missile went for the chaff.

With all that being said, i have my ways of countering su25, or any CAS for that matter.
Two way of doing it

first one :

  • spawn SPAA first
  • Intercept every KH38 (first luck dependent part : you have to be sure you didn’t miss any of them). Bonus points if you can make the enemy Su25 ragequit (happened to me a few times)
  • hope someone else spawn a heli or a plane and comes close, so you can get some SP (second luck part, and highly dependent on the SPAA available, tough luck to the italians on that one)
  • once your ammo is depleted, and assuming you have enough spawn points, spawn a fighter of your choice, and slam said Su25 with the appropriate missile (530Ds do the job very well, it’s so satisfying seing them move in panick when they realize their MAWS won’t protect them, because they didn’t bother learning how notching works)

Second one :

  • spawn a tank
  • rush a point or get a few kills
  • Air patrol

Once in a plane, it isn’t automatic win though :

  • enemy can also spawn air patrol
  • pantsirs force you to fly low, meaning your missiles will have lower energy, which in turns means you have to get closer to your target
  • su25 can hide near his airfield, and it can be quite long to kill if he’s aware of you

And finally, you become useless to your team on the ground, all while having sacrified a great amount of SP

TL; DR; countering them is possible, but luck dependent, and requires high sacrifices for little gain

316

MTs are heatseekers and go for flares, not chaff.

317

They are IR guided, but they dont go for flares. Its not the same type of IR guidance as you’d find on something like the AIM-9.

318

i was talking about ml’s if you would read but well i think you just instantly went mt

319

ha my bad.

in any case it shoud not go for flares or chaff. Laser just goes for laser, and IIR is imaging seeker, so it can differentiate between flares and the heli itself.

I didn’t notice any IIR or laser missiles missing me because of countermeasures when playing a heli (unfortunately for me)

320

That could be that the Kh-38s are completely overpowered and affect the outcome of matches so much to the point that the entire USSR win rate at top tier spiked up (which is reasonable), OR (more likely) most skilled and experienced played who have top tier USSR (but didn’t have a reason to play them) flocked back to USSR to get the Su-25SM3 and try it out.

2 Likes
321

Definitely the SM3 is broke, the missile is cracked, any range it will kill it so rare for the missile to lose track or miss and it a top down attacker so it make easy work for MBT unlike the Mavericks. Last few games I had it I was averaging 7 ground kill with that jet.

322

I’ve had multiple games where a Russian teammates gets in the SM3 and proceeds to eradicate the enemy team with said missiles.

3 Likes