Ground Realistic
Vehicle: 2S6
Proposed BR Change: 10.7 → 11.3
Reasoning: Eight 10km range SAMs with 32Gs of pull, radar with automatic lock system, four 30mm autocannons with AP shells of 65mm of penetration at 10m, Gen 3 Thermal sights.
Once upon a time the 2S6 was considered the equivalent to the ADATS in terms of performance. I still believe it is, if not better. Player performance should be irrelevant compared to a vehicles capabilities. Anyways-
To begin, the 2S6 reigns supreme in a downtier. At 9.7 there is only IR SAMs and SPAAGs. It straight up just outranges everything on both the enemy and friendly team. If you spawn a 2S6 in a 9.7-10.3 game you just have straight up better missiles than anything else and have first dibs on anything that spawns. This remains true up to 11.7.
The 9M311-1M SAM travels at 910 m/s, has 32Gs of pull, and has 10km of range. The Roland 3, for comparison, has 570 m/s of speed, 20 Gs of pull, and 8km range. The next best SAM of the category is the BOLIDE and it has 700 m/s of speed and 25Gs of pull. The 9M311-1M just beats everything at this stage. While this does put it in it’s place for 10.7 as a .4 BR higher than these contemporaries, over all it will be playing with 10.3s more often than not sitting at this BR either due to 10.0-11.0 being a super common BR bracket for games.
That brings up the next issue with the 2S6. With most nations not having any 10.7 SPAA, the 2S6 is pretty much the dominant force in the 9.7-11.3 area. This is because anyone who has 11.7 vehicles is more likely to also have high tier planes. These planes artificially bump up BR and push normally 11.7 line-ups higher and makes more room of 11.3 and below. However this makes the 2S6 the defacto highest tier SPAA of this area. A former end of the line top tier SPAA being the main SAM system in a bracket of 10.3 SAMs is not healthy.
Next is the little things that don’t matter as much but definitely put it a notch above everything else. For example, it has four 30mm cannons blasting out 65mm of pen point blank at a ridiculous rate of fire. This shreds lighter vehicles.
It’s radar is significantly more advanced than the ADATS with automatic lock allowing you to skip the process of searching the vertical plane for targets so long as you’re pointed in the right direction. This counteracts it’s only theoretical weakness in that is has little to no optical zoom for it’s sights.
To conclude, the 2S6 should be at minimum 11.3 if only because this will keep it’s intrusion into the 9.7-10.3 BR to a minimum while still providing the wide variety of 11.3 MBTs SAM coverage. If I was to be honest, you could probably put it at 11.7 with the Pantsir foldered behind it but that would probably be asking for too much.