Yep, and now kugel is still in 7.0 and they gave new spaa on germans, same guns x 2 and also it got full HVAP belt, and kugel still has 1/3 hvap belt. There’s no reason why kugel is 7.0 since it doesnt even get full AT belt.
Then there’s soviet m53/59 , sitting in 6.3 and those cannons rips tanks and air.
5.0 is pointless as there’s no line up there for Skink. So you’re either uptiering your entire 4.7 lineup for a single SPAA, or you’re just taking Skink into 5.3 anyway.
4.7 would be fine. It’s pretty much a Wirblewind in terms of firepower, arguably worse firepower in everyway except magazine capacity. So even at 4.7 the Skink is an entire 1.0 BR above the Wirble to pay for that survivability.
We want more capable spaa, so we can clear skies easier. It is already hard enough to shoot down planes.
Unfortunately gaijin doesnt care about lineups, and i agree the velocity of those guns is lacking and 4.7 would be best but gaijin doesnt care.
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Exactly, which is why sweden, isreal, us and japan desperately need more spaa sweden has the largest gap imo as i they have no real spaa after 2.3 until 8.7, for japan the sub is very mid, but in some cases i enjoy it but its just a bit slow imo. The duster is okay but needs something else, japan, america and isreal could use a 6.0 or so spaa to help fill out their largest gap especially since those nations have a majority of 6.x vehicles until they get 7.7, japan has a singular 7.7 which is overBr’d and needs an spaa at 6.7 thats good at 7.3.
Pros:
- Kugelblitz has 1200 rounds (100 round belt), but M53/59 only has 400 rounds (50 round belt) with the same firerate.
Huge W for the Kugelblitz, as it can shoot for longer and doesn’t have to worry about saving ammo. M53/59 can go to capture points, but they can be risky and contested.
- Kugelblitz has fairly high survivability for an SPAA, with armour, unlike the M53/59.
Another fairly big W for the kugelblitz, as aircraft usually have to go completely side-on, or top-down to penetrate it with 20mm or 12.7mm guns. CAS may even expend a bomb to get rid of Kugelblitzs. M53/59, on the other hand, can simply be strafed from every direction, and the gunner is susceptible to enemy fire from any tank with an MG (of any kind), as well as almost any HE round.
- Kugelblitz has 60.0°/s turret rotational speed, but M53/59 has 40.0°/s (50% better).
Somewhat of a small W.
- Kugelblitz can accelerate slightly faster with 12 hp/ton while M53/59 has 10.68 hp/ton.
Somewhat of a small W.
- Kugelblitz has 920m/s HEI-T with 84g of TNT equivalent, while M53/59 has 1000m/s FI-T with 63.14g of TNT equivalent.
8% less muzzle velocity than the M53/59’s, but 33% more TNT equivalent. Fairly decent W, but 63.14g of TNT equivalent is usually enough anyways.
- Kugelblitz performs better off-road but worse on-road than M53/59 due to being tracked.
Somewhat of a trade-off, but I would say tracks are better, in general, than wheels, especially because wheels take time to turn the other way. Small W.
- Kugelblitz does not have the issue of the guns being blocked by driver compartment / commander’s cupola.
Fairly decent W, but nothing too important (in most cases).
Cons:
- M53/59 has much better top speed (60km/h instead of 39km/h), and slightly better reverse speed (10km/h instead of 8km/h on Kugelblitz)
Can be a fairly huge L (if you are trying to flank and be an IFV, like the Praga), but does not really matter for SPAA duty.
- Kugelblitz has 7° gun depression while M53/59 has 10° gun depression, while also having 85° gun elevation, while Kugelblitz has 80°.
Gun depression only really affects ground-to-ground combat, so it doesn’t matter as much for SPAAing, but it does affect it somewhat (somewhat of an L). The gun elevation is not that much of a difference, but it can definitely cause issues trying to stop top-down strafes. (slightly larger L).
- Kugelblitz has a 10s reload whereas the M53-59 has a 6s reload.
67% increase in reload time, which is substantial to say the least. Large L.
- Kugelblitz has 1/3 of belt 77mm HVAP whereas M53/59 has 1/1 of belt 91mm HVAP.
15% reduction in penetration compared to M53/59’s APCR. 1/3 belt effectively reduces the RPM of each gun from 450RPM to 150RPM, which is still decent but abysmal compared to the 450 RPM of each gun on the M53/59 against tanks.
Overall, I would say that the Kugelblitz is the better SPAA in almost all situations, but it’s definitely not as good of an anti-tank than the M53/59 is. The Kugel should probably move down to 6.7, especially after the APCR nerf (used to have 95mm), but the removal of its APCR belt to compensate for its lower BR is a fair exchange in my opinion.
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BR 7, kugel armor is just like m53, somewhat even worse, since one shot on turret , and it’s all gone. And in m53, I’ve survived on places, that shouldnt be possible, simply on reason, no armor is best armor, and overpenetration is your friend.
And that 1/1 better ap belt, is savior, since it takes out enemy barrel lot faster compared on kugel. And yes, you got 400 rounds also HVAP on kugel, when counting those he rounds off, like you told. Only thing what I like more in kugel, is actually facing open tops, but unfortune they are getting a bit more rare on kugels BR. Overall, it could be dropped on 6.7 without doing anything on it, or give it full HVAP belt, for justify it being on 7.0
and also, this is a advantage in many maps, when you can just back it up behind house/rock, etc, take shots, if gunner dies, just drive to safety.
But yes, kugel is over BR , but should it be on 4.7, jesus no. It was just fine on 6.7.
There are two crew members in the hull, so it will almost always survive a shot.
This statement can be applied universally to every single major debate in this game.
Now if only the default response when “players are complaining about X” was “let’s buff Y as a counter to X and leave X as it currently is” instead of “let’s nerf X into the ground hoping the complaining stops!”
I think the Kugelblitz would be just fine at 4.7 with its currently butchered HVAP belt. It would be just another Panzer IV, penetrating no more than an M42 Duster. Hell, even with a full HVAP belt it would belong at 4.7 just fine. It currently can’t kill even a 3.7 KV-1 from any angle.
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I think people miss this, the current APCR (which is already a joke) belt is on the same level as vehicles as low as 2.7. Add on to that, APCR doing less damage and having less pen at range amd angles. Can someone show this monsterous anti tank ability? Strangely only the german WW2 AA is getting this treatment. No, im not saying “germany suffers”, but it is strange.
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And why the hell is Skink at 5.3?? it has no gun depression and worse ammunition/velocity than the Wirberwind which is a 3.7, by gun depression and better AP ammunition helps its AT ability, shell velocity helps its AA ability, it even lost to a 3.7 in the firepower department and just the turret armor alone justified it being 1.6br higher? lmao
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Its literally just because:
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Its british
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It cant be killed by machine guns, or easily overpressured. AKA its not a free kill for planes.
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Not just SPAA’s ability to kill tanks, but how hard the SPAA is to be killed by CAS.
Skink only went up because it’s “hard” to kill for CAS. You’d think players would have learned how to kill a Sherman hull between 2.0 - 4.7, but no, they try to kill it with MG’s and thus the Skink is now 5.3 with shit guns.
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I think the coolgirlblitz will be a worse AA than the Skink, the rate of fire just doesn’t cut it, it’s just takes a lot more effort to hit air units that isn’t trying to dive and mg you.
The Kugel is where it’s at due to killing too many tanks back in the day. It’s had multiple nerfs since but somehow still not gone down in BR, it’s useless at 7.0 and only fills a lineup if you have the 10.5cm and Panther 2.
Killing tanks in 2016! That’s almost a goddamn decade ago at this point
Frankly, I think it is long overdue to restoratively buff all APCR, all sharp-nose APDS, all HEAT, all HEATFS, all HESH, and buff HE further still.
I just played the Conqueror yesterday as a backup spawn after my Falcon died (as I’m spading that). In an 8.3-ish match, someone spawned a Panther G - and a 500mm pen APDS round proceeded to kill one crewmember and yellow ammo. I wonder how the T34’s APCR round would have fared in the same scenario, but likely not much differently.
I also think the parameters needed for balancing SPAAG need total upending. However, I am not sure how to write a Suggestion on that, because we as players do not have access to the raw statistics Gaijin uses to balance vehicles, specifically what their thresholds are for a machine being “too good” or “too bad” and then moving in BR. I have no idea if SPAAG stats use combined K/D of aircraft kills and tank kills or if they use each stat separately. Thus it would not be possible for anyone but a developer to make a suggestion such as that due to not having specific enough information to suggest changes for.
But due to how the current gameplay works, for an SPAAG to be actually “good” in War Thunder combat, it must be essentially “a proto-IFV with anti-air ability as a bonus.” Problem is, the average player is too used to AA being totally helpless vs tanks and thus sees any AA being able to out-think tanks as “overpowered.” Only if an AA is able to go on the offensive and melt tank sides/rears reliably will the average (and honestly quite stupid) players bother moving their AA beyond the confines of their own spawn, and thus be in unexpected locations to surprise enemy incoming CAS with.
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Indeed.
I would place the Skink as low as 3.7, possibly even lower. Depends on if the 20mm Polsten cannon had APCR developed for it or not. Also I suspect its armor penetration for the current AP rounds is below where it should be, if Gaijin’s penetration calculator unfairly shafting uncapped AP rounds is any indication.
The Ostwind would immediately need to go back up to 4.3-4.7 if it had correct armor penetration and its still-missing APCR rounds. 86mm pen APHE and 140mm pen APCR would be monstrous. The Ostwind II would be doubly so, and the Coelian would finally become good at defending itself.
Speaking of T34 and Conqueror. The tracks on the T34 UFP are apparently strong enough to completely stop the Conq APDS even though the plate isn’t spaced or angled in a way that would explain this.
This a problem of the gamemodes themselves. You have to go kill tanks if you don’t want to die of boredom. If you had a TO and a mixed mode you could be sure you will encounter planes during the match instead of the mess we have now. Sometimes the match has everyone spawning an aircraft but when you try to play SPAA you’ll go 10 matches in a row without seeing a single plane.
If the Coelian had this ammo it would be like a Falcon but with much better ammo, mobility and resistance to autocannons. You should hope it doesn’t get those because if it did it would probably go to 9.0 at least.
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According to this,
While we’re here, we’d like to give some additional context behind Battle Ratings and how they’re decided. Battle Ratings are decided based on how much a vehicle earns, but this is not purely economical. We use this metric because it’s all encompassing and considers every action a player makes with their vehicle, so this considers frags, assists, caps, and effectively every useful action a vehicle can perform all bundled into one universal metric.
This is the “Efficiency” of each vehicle and gives us a very well rounded perspective on all of its abilities and how it’s actually being used.
So, it seems all that gaijin cares about is normalized SL income hoping it represents a vehicles ability to perform useful actions.
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