Besides a few weeks here and there this is my first time playing consistently since the mass introduction of SAMs and radar SPAA. Used to be only early autocannon radar SPAA back when I last played. I just can’t figure out what the fuck to do when I try and spawn a plane in GRB? I just get instantly blown out of the sky less than a minute after I spawn, unless I immediately turn 90deg left and never approach the battlefield to actually use my payload. If I do, I get instant radar locked. I’m bringing my Harrier GR.3 and Jag GR1A(9.7/10.7 respectively), both are below 11.7 but have RWR and realistically I don’t think much will change in terms of missile dodging between 10.7-11.7. So, I go anywhere near the battlefield, and now matter how much chaffing, weaving, turning that I’m doing, I get blown up before I can even consider looking for a ground target. The only way for me to not get hit is permanently stay completely away from the battlefield out of SAM range, or in the case of Pantsir, immediately 180deg from spawn and go as far as I can.
Most likely a skill issue but all I ever hear is crying about how CAS is OP and SPAA is useless, but I’m finding SPAA to be extremely effective. Contrary to popular belief CAS does take skill, especially compared to SPAA gameplay, which is sitting in spawn, looking at the sky and occasionally pressing one or two buttons. If either are going to be underpowered, it should be SPAA. It is annoying to have a helicopter sitting behind a cliff untouchable just throwing AGMs out every few seconds, but that’s very specific.
Can I ask you, have you played the SPAA at this BR?
It sounds like you’re at or near top tier Britain. Have you given the M113 ADATS a whirl yet?
I could sit here and write a lengthy post about the strengths and weaknesses of SPAA, but honestly, I think the best way of understanding this stuff is to just play the SPAA yourself. You will get a proper understanding for their limitations that way.
You can’t judge, say, a Harrier GR3’s effectiveness when there is an enemy Pantsir up, and apply that to a Su30’s effectiveness when an ADATS is up. In the former, the plane is cannon fodder, in the latter, the AA is cannon fodder.
Because of the way planes are BR compressed to fit into ground battles, Top AA are having to not only fight 10.7/11.0 planes, which they’re generally very powerful against, but also 13.7/14.0 planes, that they’re often helpless against.
Thus far you’ve seemingly only experienced one side of that coin.
I’m heading to sleep in a sec and don’t have time for a full response but I’m guessing you’ll have a big expansion based on my reply to this, which is no. I haven’t played and SPAA past WW2 era potato trucks and Ostwinds but I’ve seen quite a few gameplay videos
I forgot to add that into the end of my post, I’ve seen some CAS videos of an F16(?) just nuking enemy ground vehicles from a distance with next to no counterplay(although he did play it very well). As someone who doesn’t throw a ton of money at the game you can imagine that the leap from a GR3 to a jet that poses a realistic chance against Pantsirs and the like is large and time consuming, which is shit because it means I have to basically forefeit the combined arms aspect of GRB.
On another note I just reserached the F111 and only need the SL to grind it, how does that fare in GRB?
I just really recommend you try them out. Or at least watch gameplay of something like ADATS on YouTube or whatever.
They’re a lot more limited in what they can do, than the experience of full uptiering 10.3/10.7 aircraft to fight such systems would probably make it seem.
As far as I’m understanding there isn’t really any difference in SAM counterplay from 10.7-11.7 aircraft? I mean I’ve tried everything under the sun - 5 seconds before I wrote this I was flying so low to the ground I was literally clipping through treetops, still got fucked out of the sky by a sam. What are the main changes that cause SAMs to be less of an issue, is it remotely guided AGMs?
The spaa missiles lose most of their effectiveness once they reach around 75% of their max range.
If a missiles max range is 12km, you should be able to fly within 9-10km. When the missile comes, pull it one direction then crank 90° in a different direction.
You are using bombs so you will have to do some climbing to maintain distance.
The general methods are the same but the safe distances are different. For the adats, i can fly within maybe 8-10km. For pantsir, maybe 14-16km
F&F (Fire and Forget) munitions are where the powerscaling of CAS truly ramps up at top tier.
Some F&F munitions, like KH38, can be fired from outside the range of every other SPAA in the game, which needless to say, makes it pretty much impossible for anyone to actually take down the plane launching them.
Then even ‘lesser’ F&F’s, like AGM-65’s, whilst these have less range, are slower, and easier to intercept than the KH’s, what they still allow the CAS to do is pop up - fire - and hug the safety of the tree tops again.
SAM’s will struggle to deal with planes who fly super low, because generally on all but the flattest of maps, the topography will obstruct their vision. It takes some time for a missile to reach an aircraft, so an aircraft with access to F&F just needs to present a target for as little time possible to get his missiles off, then break line of sight again.
The planes you are using, with laser guided munitions, are less than ideal because you’ve got to continue exposing yourself in the AA’s line of sight long enough for your munition to hit (Which is almost always slower than how long it takes the SAM to hit you back, right).
It has GBU-15(V)2’s, which are an F&F bomb, so unlike GR1A where you just have to laze the target for ages, you can just release these and then dip out, but the plane itself is a bit of a bus - and a very big target.
I’d say you want to be aiming for something with F&F missiles, like JAS39C or Harrier GR7 (That is if you’re committed to playing Britain)
So I got the F111C, unlocked some laser bombs. Took it for a spin in GRB, spawned in on Flanders. Within two seconds of spawning instantly radar locked by a Flakrad, dead by its missile before my plane could even turn to try and notch/chaff. Seriously? Within 15 seconds of spawning in I was already shot out of the sky. I’m really starting to think the ‘SPAA useless’ crowd are straight up bullshitting because they don’t like CAS in any form.
Edit: not to mention there were clouds, so I literally couldn’t see a thing the moment I spawned. Just instantly killed with no counterplay.
A) outside of SPAA effective range (which from my experience with playing SPAA post La Royale, is around 66 or 77% of their absolute range)
B) has FnF munitions
C) can engage targets with things like rockets while flying treetop level.
Never bother with iron bombs at this BR unless for some hyperspecific strategy.
Ground radars are limited by, well, ground in what they can detect and most anti air missiles are launched from ground level with zero speed advantage, so 3-9 them usually makes them run out of energy at longer ranges.
Wrong where? CAS you have to notch, chaff, position, overall do way more than an SPAA player who doesn’t need to touch their W key and looks at the sky occasionally pressing left click. Most skill expressive part of SPAA gameplay is actually using your W key to get behind some cover.
Got it, so spawn in a plane to do nothing but fly parallel to the battle?
‘Just play xyz’ has never been a good way to balance a game. Again there seems to be a massive disparity between the amount of effort put in by someone playing CAS and someone playing SPAA. CAS player has to do everything you mentioned simply to stand a chance, but an SPAA player has to do… what exactly? I’m not saying SPAA should be useless but for the level of input required, it should never be super efficient unless you have multiple up at the same time.
It seems like a very specific few CAS vehicles that are busted are determining the balance of the whole role.
if you let the tracking radar do all the work, the missile will follow the blue line and likely miss because once it reaches the attacking aircraft alt, it wont have neccesary energy to make the turn in time to intercept the aircraft. you gotta lead the missile manualy, which would be the purple line, in order to succesfully intercept the aircraft.
actually you are kinda right, but only kinda. its not just driving behind cover, its positioning yourself in a way that allows you to stay safe while having unobstructed view of the sky. massively important in order to fight some of the top tier FnF munitions.
never said that. 3-9 the missile works for any missile, be it ground launched interceptor or air launched missile. you wanna waste the missile energy as much as possible for succesfull defense.
with some planes, like Su-25s which are more suited for truly CLOSE air support due to lack of optics, you do this thing first then approach the battlefield for quick low alt attack run, which, if done correctly, will leave lot of SAMs unable to intercept it due to numerous factors - minimal range (something like OSA has 800m minimal range from my experience) and fact that most top tier radar SAMs in game currently are SACLOS, meaning they cant properly track you if they dont see you.
it depends on the plane and its loadout, so its best to judge by case by case basis.
you said you bring Harrier GR.3 and Jag GR1A as CAS and need help with 11.7 SPAA so i assume you have them in your 10.7 lineup?
lets get the obvious out of the way first, you need to bring BR appropriate CAS. of course 9.7 plane will struggle against 11.7 SAM. Both of these have only rockets and iron bombs.
To provide different perspective, do you think a 6.7 AA should be able to intercept 8.7 planes?
why not bring 10.7 Buck S2 with FnF TV guided missiles?
if you really want to fly 8.7 CAS against 11.7 AA you need to adapt your tactics.
some vehicles fit the game meta more, its simply how things are. if you wanna bring off meta (or lower BR vehicles to higher BR) its well within your right, but you shouldnt complain that they are not effective. 6.3 Perhing wont do much against 8.3 early cold war MBTs.
funnily enough you are right, just not the way you think. There is indeed a disparity. For example Su-34 spamming Kh-38MTs requires way less skill to play than AAs, since they cant intercept it in the first place.
position themselves, prioritize targets, protect team mates, recognize the plane they are intercepting and think of the way how to properly intercept them. AA gameplay has lot of depth, give it a chance.
neither CAS should be super efficient. there needs to be balance and higher you go, more the balance is shifted towards CAS with stand-off weaponry.
again some vehicles simply fit meta more than others.
and to adress your other commet
i highly doubt that flakrad could intercept you mere 15 seconds after spawning. He would need to fire as soon as you spawned AND you would need to fly in straight line for succesfull interception, just by the fact that the missile wouldnt have neccesary energy to intercept you at that range.
if there were clouds it couldnt be an optical lock nor could the player eyeball it without a lock, so it would need to be a radar lock. F-111Cs RWR can detect the J band. your RWR was screaming at you for entire time that missile was tracking and you didnt defend?
funnily enough thats how the game usually goes for most of the tanks. suddenly blowing up from missile or bomb they couldnt see, know it was coming and couldnt do anything about. and if you say just smoke, yes you can do that. except missiles with IOG or guided bombs will hit you either way, and to smoke you would need to know the ordnance is flying your way in the first place. which is kinda hard as most tanks dont have LSW (and that would really only protect them if the laser was pointed directly at them) so they need to watch the sky to spot a microscopic dot to know the bomb or missile is coming.
and i dont know about you, but when im in tank i usually watch for other tanks.
Honestly very rare situations and them being able to be effective at such range requires poor gameplay on the tank players’ part - e.g staying in one place out in the open.
People always assume this is because SPAA bad CAS OP but the reality most of the time is that people are not spawning SPAA until it’s their last vehicle available. If you spawn MBTs and only spawn SPAA once aircraft have already spawned and got a foothold of the map then yeah this is likely to happen. It’s not really any different to actual MBTs or other vehicles. On the rare occasion you see someone first-spawn an SPAA it becomes almost impossible for aircraft to get a hold of the map.
Can’t respond to the rest as busy rn but this did happen and I’m not bullshitting. I was locked straight away and as soon as I began notching to try and dodge this lock(and sideclimb to avoid SPAA range) I was hit by a missile before I could even complete the turn.
As said before I was mid-turn/notch while popping chaff and still no result. Chaff seems to be useless against anything more than a R-3R.
MANPADS cant lock helicopters unless they approach the battlefield at some 2km
SAMs effective range usually barely matches the AGM range. Mavs, PGMs AASMs all outrange all SPAAs bar Pantsir.
Again, are we playing the same game?
How exactly is the tanks fault to be caught in the open against the threat they dont even know its coming, moreso on open maps like Fulda?
Where exactly are SAMs supposed to move on maps like advance to rhine? Or that one thunderdome variant of ardenes? Or abandoned factory?
Again, that missile would need to be launched INSTANTLY as you spawned and it wouldnt have the energy neccesary to intercept you. That or it wasnt flakrad.
The chaff alone wont save you. And did you turn in a way that didnt bleed all of your speed instantly?
You probably havent played the ARH BRs in ARB if thats what you think.
