Simply a discussion post that I will provide a very limited opinion on:
It’s bad. It’s so bad. Gepard’s and similar vehicles now get spawned as front-line tank destroyers and they do the job better than dedicated tank destroyers.
Hull Break was the balancing factor for a lot of these light vehicles and kept the whole mobility/paper armour meta somewhat at bay. Overpressure is inconsistent and is only benefiting the range of self-propelled artillery vehicles that have been shoehorned into late-WW2 tier. A lot of things are working completely backwards.
Hull break was a double-edged sword, at the same time it worked as a realistic feature it didn’t others by just destroying a vehicle by some very unrealistic reason; like optics and a small corner. Gepard and similar being more effective than dedicated tank destroyer is that there’s no dedicated tank destroyers that can effectively work as some, generally those are slow or most of the time unreliable being only useful on ambush situations where the advantage is totally on the tank destroyer’s side.
There’s a lot of issues first of them being map design; In my opinion Gaijin could make maps based on what players should do on said map instead of throwing off a terrain, put some assets here and there and call it a day. For this check this video. If you take a time to understand is clear the difference from a World of Tanks player to a War Thunder ground vehicle player;
I’d say in general here: obviously both games people tend to search for the Meta but, talking on my experience playing both games, I don’t call myself bad at all in War Thunder though I’d like to improve more at the same I had issues adapting to World of Tanks due to the extensive map knowledge, positioning and role in battle needed to do well as you can’t just repair a module, the health bar damage system makes the game much more hard than what we are used to, which in War Thunder we, as players, are relying on flanks and generally stupidity from the other side to take advantage on.
What I mean is that the mentality of the War Thunder player just worsen the situation at the same time, as no one’s complaining Gaijin doesn’t make any changes, maps need planning, for example: there’s a tank destroyer; add advantage points further back, for light tanks better flanking routes, for medium tanks and heavy tanks close combat areas with better covers to take advantage on instead of the usual who rushes first wins and whoever is dumber losses.
I’d say that it really just stems from a map design issue (small maps and short ranges which is kinda 80% of what IFVs are built for), but its imo a necessary evil as sure multiple km wide maps would be nice for sniping in MBTs but it would be miserable for most other aspects of a videogame, i certainly dont want to have to drive for like 30m to get to an objective, and the IFVs would become near useless, it would also inadvertently encourage literally the most annoying and miserable playstyle
2S38 is not a top-tier autocannon and never will be. It doesn’t have the mobility or the penetration.
The fact your post omitted CV9040C as well is insulting, which would also be incorrect to include.
194mm of pen @ 1000m is absolutely more than enough to force its way through the LFP, turret ring or other trolly spots on almost every MBT. It also has HEVT for helicopters/low-flying aircraft, has Stalinium fuel tanks, and immune to 20mm HVAP frontally. It’s as top tier as top tier auto cannons can get.
It’s also nothing to with claiming Russian bias, I simply listed three highly notorious vehicles.
Something needs to be done about the spall on 20mm/30mm, it is ridiculous that shooting a LV with a gigantic cannon firing solid shot almost always does very little damage, but then that LV with an autocannon can fire a single 30mm back at the heavily armored tank, have it go through the turret ring or something stupid and routinely make it explode like a nuke went off.
The problem is, and has always been, realistic APHE. Sphere of death means that single cupola hits can be lethal. Cupolas aren’t some death trap weak point. if autocannons had realistic aphe they would largely just be AP rounds, needing many hits all over a tank to kill them.
Unironically RARDEN/30mm APDS in general spalls way more than it should, and more than the QF L1A2 mounted on the Conqueror/Conway. I have literally one-shot the likes of Leopards/other 8.0+ with a single 30mm APDS through the side, yet a Skink can take a 120mm APDS through the front plate and survive an unreasonable amount of the time.
