Even if it IS one of those, it’s by far the tactic that gives the best results. If I’m paying attention to the killfeed and notice one such gun and/or hybrid SPAA in the killfeed, I’ll watch for it’s position, then do a popup attack as close as terrain allows me to get. You literally don’t have a better option unless you’re using standoff range munitions, and it’s still fairly consistent.
And it also draws a straight line back to where it was launched from. You don’t exactly need a degree in mathmatics to extrapolate the trajectory and find out the approimate position of the SPAA.
Funny that CAS can render themselves immune to infinite numbers of IR SAMs if they play smart. The same manuever that dodges one missile dodges them all.
The difference being that SPAA can only hide in specific locations in a tiny map, while aircraft can approach from any angle and altitude they desire.
So, wild question here, but if you know (or at least suspect) that CAS is going to be too slow to change the outcome of the game, why are you spawning it in?
CAS has always been slower than spawning in (most) other tanks in terms of game impact, to both somewhat counteract revenge bombing but also to balance out CAS’s incredible game impact when used properly. CAS can quickly and with only marginal effort kill any player on the map, in almost any location, almost regardless of their attempts to do anything about it. Heavily armored casemate locking down a sightline? Bomb. Hulldown heavy acting as a roadblock? Bomb. Light tank on a flanking run? Strafe. The enemy’s top player, on a killsteak and close to a nuke? Bomb. A surgical CAS strike can completely turn the tides of the game in a way no ground vehicles generally can. And most CAS vehicles can do that multiple times.
You do see the “but” in that sentence, right? Just want to be clear that you’re actually taking the time to read what you’re arguing with.
Of course it can, almost anything can. Just full pull and roll, unless you have no energy in the tank or you’re in a heavy bomber you will outpull any IR SAM outside the 10.0+ high G ones. The missile with overlead in a circle and be unable to correct back towards the plane.
So three small areas. Possibly a fourth, map depending. Versus almost infinite vectors, many of which won’t give the SPAA any clue until it’s almost too late.
…Yes. You should stay on the ground. That’s how it works. Not every vehicle in your lineup is going to be equally applicable in every situation. You wouldn’t spawn an SPAA if you’re being actively spawncamped by tanks, you wouldn’t spawn a slow, armor reliant heavy onto a full uptier on an open map, and you don’t spawn CAS if you think safely flying it in is going to take too long to matter.
And if you do decide to spawn in those ill-advised options in those situations, you don’t then get to whine on the forums that your bad call wasn’t rewarded.
Finding targets is not remotely difficult, it’s what CAS has been doing since tier one. Picking SPAAs out also isn’t hard, they usually have distinctive sillohettes and predictable positioning. Finding hidden ones is obviously difficult, up until they engage you. Rare is the SPAA player that waits for a solid gun solution before firing, and everything else gives you ample time to react.
Quite a few SPAAs lack a search RADAR (or at least a useful one). The Chaparrals, the Shilka M4, the Type 91 and 81, the Antelope, the Strela, the SIDAM MISTRAL, the Lvrbv, and the Machbet.
This is nice, but you do have to actually be looking in the direction of an enemy aircraft to get anything out of it.
It’s a poor solution to the problem of the crazy spotting discrepancy between aircraft and ground vehicles. Just throw up some ground based RADARs and maybe an AWACs, which feed location data to SPAA automatically. These could then be interacted with by enemy CAS to temporarily blind SPAAs. Job done.