SPAA at 9.3-10.3 is hilariously OP and i see no one talking about it

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
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421

Id personally disagree slightly.

Id say 9.0-10.0 (where nations have an SPAA) is where SPAA hold a notable advantage with limited guided weapons for the CAS and a lot of IR MANPADs vs things without flares.

10.3-11.0 Id say is pretty evenly matched.

11.3-12.0 really depends on what nations are fighting what nations but something like a Tornado IDS vs Pantsir is never going to end well for the CAS.

12.3+ is where CAS truly begins to take the dominance, but to be honest. Just like using a 5.3 SPAA sucks vs 7.0 aircraft. Using a 11.7/12.0 SPAA is of course going to suck against 13.0-14.0 aircraft

1 Like
422

10.7+ is the only BR where the scale is in CAS’s favor. At every BR, SPAA has an advantage.

423

That is why You are not so good in it right?

4 Likes
424

Fake as hell, most low tier spaa cant do shit against good cas

7 Likes
425

Id reword that slightly as:

“At any BR in which a nation has appropriate/good SPAA for fighting the CAS its encountering then they are usually fairly evenly matched in most cases, with SPAA sometimes holding the advantage on certain maps. But there are a few exceptions when fighting perticuarly capable CAS aircraft”

The biggest issue below 10.0 is that a lot of nations have a lot of SPAA voids and SPAAGs just get out performed rather quickly if they are used more than a few BRs above their intended BR. Its not until the 8.3s that I think have more longevity

426

If you’re somehow struggling against CAS in low-midtier SPAA then you’re simply bad at the game.

427

lmao.

8 Likes
428

Not really, in my experience as a decent pilot and a better ground player, CAS has the upper hand at almost any BR for almost any nation.

If we consider uptiers, lineups, nation-availability or downtiers void, then:

Between 1.0 and 7.3 CAS has the extreme upper hand. Bombers and attackers can hit ground targets unimpeded with bombsights, large radius’ bombs and skilled rocket volleys. Most anti-air at these BR’s get kills from pilots that fly either too low or in straight lines. If you work together with other planes any SPAA is free pickings and are often the first targeted anyways by pilots (HVAR, M8, but also bombs and guns can snipe AA from over 2 or 3 km).

Notable CAS-capable aircraft(That I enjoy to turn the tide of a battle if needed) in these brackets include, but aren’t limited to:

Spoiler
  • Hawk III
  • A-36
  • P-63-A5
  • Helldivers
  • B7A2
  • P-51 (A, D and C)
  • Corsairs
  • BF109 F4
  • Do 335 variants
  • Ju 288
  • yak 3 or 9
  • Me 262
  • Pe 8
  • Tu-2 variants
  • Su-11
  • Firefly variants
  • Various spitfires, like the Mk. IX or Mk. 24
  • Lancaster
  • C.202 variants
  • T/B.18B
  • etc.

In the end you still need to spawn in a ground vehicle after your plane at these BR’s if you want to carry (to capture objectives), but CAS undeniably is a great tool to turn the tide of a battle and make a good bank of SP and SL in the process.

It is at 7.7 (VEAK 40) and untill 8.7 (PGZ09)/9.0 (Sgt. York), where you could propose the argument that some SPAA are OP. But still, planes with CCRP, or even better CCIP at 8.3 or higer make mincemeat of most, if not all, SPAA. Bombtossing can be done reliably at around 3 km in an alpha jet or a harrier for example, and the mauser is deadly if used right in low passes. A skilled SPAA player at these BR’s would be able to keep the sky clear in most games when using the META SPAA.

But even then you can still evade most, if not all, SPAA gunfire by flying either very high (with bombers), or low, incoming from unexpected angles, like in a Barougan for example.

All 9.3-10.3 missile/MANPAD-based SHORAD can be easily beaten with manouvres as suggested by others in this thread. This is very evident in Squadronbattles, where you can’t be uptiered, you see experienced players on both sides and CAS still is a major force to win games. Personally I rarely, if ever, get killed by SPAA at these BRs in both GAB, GRB, GSB and Squadronbattles. That experience I however do have at 8.3-9.0.

In general CAS and SPAA are decently balanced from 7.7 untill 9.3, but I feel like that is more because of the large amount of players that do not play their vehicles to the best of their strenghts on both sides, with high skill ceilings but low barriers-of-entry to play both vehicle classes.

Even the 11.7 SPAA can be beaten by an attentive CAS player and only at 12.0 do we start to see real problems where CAS is a major force shift.

4 Likes
429

The only times I die to CAS when in WW2 SPAA is when either I’m distracted with destroying a tank, or there’s more than 2 or 3 attacking me at once. Aside from those two scenarios, SPAA is literally the easiest class in the game. All playing SPAA takes is a basic understanding of drop and lead, and the bare minimum of intelligence to tell you not to sit in spawn exactly where you spawn.

90% of SPAA players lack those two abilities since the only reason someone would play SPAA is if they’re bad at the game and don’t have the SP for a tank, or if they’re just a CAS hater, which in that case they’re usually just garbage at the game anyways.

7.7-9.7 SPAA removes the need of a basic understanding of lead and drop, so the issue then becomes that almost no1 plays CAS because paying 700sp just to be outclassed by a 70sp vehicle simple doesn’t make sense.

430

my grb stats are even worse lol but yeah low tier cas is busted.

431

I wish people would stop saying that IR SAMs versus flareless planes is an issue.

Firstly, every IR SAM outside the Chaparrals have high performance IRCCM, meaning flares generally don’t do anything. You even have the Type 91 missile, which is entirely immune to flares if it’s using it’s contrast seeker.

Secondly, flares are in no way required to dodge these SAMs. The very best of them, the Mistral, only has 16 G of pull, on a fairly low energy missile. If you’ve ever used the base R530s, you know that that level of agililty is not hard to dodge, even accidentally, so long as you have some energy to play with. The rest of the IR SAMs at this tier have G overloads closer to 10, which are effortless to avoid.

Complaining that flareless planes have to fight IR SAMs at this tier is like complaining that flareless planes have to fight AIM-9Bs in Air RB. They are not remotely threatening if you’re at all paying attention.

4 Likes
432

Id actually say its more like Flareless planes haivng to fight Aim-9Ls.

You can pre-flare though, which allows you to make an attack run with unguided weapons with a moderate amount of safety.

433

???

AIM-9Ls are practically impossible to kinematically defeat, if the launching plane gave it an even halfway decent shot. Every IR SAM outside the Type 81 and Strela can be easily defeated by a simple barrel roll.

This can be handy, however, since these IR SAMS have such limited energy right after launch, they’re almost incapable of pulling lead. This means there’s a practical deadzone of around 2km on approach where you’re effectively immune to IR SAMs. The only one to watch out for is the 9M39 on the Shilka M, since it’s thrust vector will instantly give it enough lead. However, it’s just a 10 G missile, so you can dodge it at a low energy state by just making small course corrections.

Of course, if the Shilka is relying on missiles within this range, he’s already made a mistake, because you’re in gun range, and those can’t be flared.

Preflaring is only really consistently useful on the way out from a strike. A fleeing plane has a much smaller deadzone (Effectively), and often isn’t looking behind them, so I like to save my IR SAMS for planes who have flown over and are on the way out. Preflaring and ducking low into the terrain completely counters this. Although, to be fair, so does just keeping low and ducking into the terrain on it’s own.

434

I would say they are far easier to dodge than aim9L. Sure their seeker has better IRCCMs, but they are kinematically far worse

  • First contender is Igla : no proxy fuze, slow as hell, 10G, which is quite easy to dodge. Additionally it burns during the entire flight time duration, and basically becomes useless the moment it stops burning, making it easy to spot. Its only saving grace is being carried on vehicles that also have guns

  • Our second contender and first victim to the infamous “Gaijin manpads article” is the Stinger : poor proxy fuze of 1 meter, same long burn making it quite visible, a bit faster but still not really good, and a quite pathetic 13G

  • Last contender and second victim to “Gaijin manpads article” is Mistral : this thing just goes too fast for its own good, only delivering 16G at M2.5. One advantage it has is that it doesn’t burn for long, making it harder to spot. That also means it loses its energy quite quickly, and you might as well dodge it accidentally over long distances. Gaijin kind of forgot the thing had a pyramidal seeker cover and gave it incorrect deceleration to match the 6km max range publically given

Note that compared to all the above examples, IR AAM like AIM9L and 530D are also less sensitive to last second manoeuvers, since they have a larger trigger radius and more explosive mass

435

You are talking to people whom’s modus operandi is to fly straight at the enemy so they can bomb them in close range. Before switching to ammunition that is self guided at top tier.

2 Likes
436

Same the other way around. If you struggle against low-mid tier SPAA in CAS you should try something else besides just mindlessly flying straight.

Is that why you have heavily negative air K/Ds in a lot of your low/mid tier SPAA?

4 Likes
437

I agree.

438

So basically this entire thread is someone complaining that they can’t fly straight at the battle and get free money
¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

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439

So basically, some players just hope once there is a spaa, all CAS should be extinguished in the sky. and laugh at those planes which doesn’t have RWR, CCIP and countermeasures to get to know where the spaa is, and destroy it with precision.

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440

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