Some SPAAs are really nasty. Also at low BRs. There are SPAAs with 80 - 100mm penetration vs. WW2 vehicles.
Like the Czech flakbus, the Italian Leopard SPAA, the french DCA at just 5.0 with 94mm pen (insanity), russian trucks and SPAA tanks at very low BRs have around 80mm pen, US Vietnam era SPAAs with 72mm pen around just 4.0.
I see them wrecking havoc every single match. Every match there are some players abusing their ground killing capabilities. One or double barreled autocannon vehicles with 70-100mm penetration shouldn’t play vs. early or mid WW2 tanks. Especially on all those small CQC maps. They’re too good close range.
People spawn these SPAAs over tanks for a reason. Moving through narrow maps at full speed and third person mouse aim is just easymode with these autocannons + high pen ammo.
Removing high pen belts at least for these should be done immeadetly. Like DCA40 @ 4.0 with over 90mm pen. They kill medium tanks around their BR frontally with autocannons, even some heavy tanks. Its insane.
The problem is that many SPAA vehicles basically all the WW2 ones, were designed to be operated in a squad of 10-20 units. Achieving accuracy by volume of fire. The problem is that in war thunder we don’t have this. This is why we get “interesting” SPAA-s such as the Falcon on the ZSU-57-2 or even the OTOMATIC, which are horrendously shit when it comes to shooting down planes but are absolute beast when it comes to killing tanks.
This begs the question; how do you actually balance these vehicles that are clearly meant to be operated in a squad to be effective against air targets but have the capability to fight against tanks as well. I think there is no good answer for this. The best method is the one that is already in place now. Which is to limit the amount of anti-tank ammo that they can carry. You can’t just change the br, since the vehicle itself is the problem. At the same time completely removing the anti-tank ammo from them would force these vehicles to only engage planes, but we already established that they are not verry effective at doing that as a single unit.
You aren’t very good at the game are you? Not trying to be rude but you seem like a avid CAS player that doesn’t know how to play CAS. You’re opinion that the A4E is bad tells me you have no idea how to play it. Literally any spaa from 8.0 is unable to deal with a somewhat intelligent AGM62 player whoch is why we have missile SPAA. M247 by your logic sho I ld be 10.3 where it fights jets able to engage from 8km away where it can’t fight to defend itself against CAS.
A4E is great and the 9.0 tanks on the US can very easily play at 9.3 like i do a lot, i never said it was bad, you can look at my stats idc, i enjoy the A4E and the XM803, only thing id like is a light tank at 9.0 with a main cannon since im bad with the 8.3 Bradley at 9.3, LAV 105 pls snail probably gonna be 9.7+ though
Rarely do i meet missile SPAA since most of my matches im sitting outside their lock range. Though i will die if i dont catch the missile with flares early which is on me.
But makes sense, since the Gepard carried 40 APDS rounds.
On vehicles like the Falcon, which only has one continues belt, it makes no sense.
It’s an AA vehicle so it would use ammunition against air targets.
At best it would fire 25-50% AP rounds mixed in with the high explosive shells.
Same deal with the Kugelblitz.
Mixing APCR together on a 1:2 ratio with HE makes even less sense then the vehicle even carrying APCR.
The only way to justify them having APCR/APDS is to say because they could. Which then makes the realistic Gepard implementation pointless, since it might just carry only APDS as well.
Like in some scenario where the only stock of ammo available is APDS.
I can do more damage in an M42 then an M4A2, especially late game. I may intentionally choose the M42 late game because it can do significantly more damage then the M4A2 would.
I have received several (3) nukes just by playing Italian SPAAG. The Leo 70/40, R3 T20, and ZSU-57 are a hell of a nasty lineup and are insane for killing tanks.
These vehicles are incredibly strong in a TD role. They are at most decent in an AA role (I enjoy it, but it has taken significant practice to get to a state of comfort with aiming them). I’m not against AP- I just wish there was a bit better way to balance them (there isn’t). Just my two cents though.
People don’t want to believe that the US is amazing and adjusting their playstyle and would rather play how they want to and cry about their vehicle. I hated the XM803 and abrams before i changed to a more aggressive flank playstyle and now i love them. Fast tonks are my favorite kind because i can play way more aggressively and then scurry away when i sense danger with my fast reverse.