While I do agree with the fact that yes, current SAMs are for the lack of a better term just really ass, I also don’t think there’s only one side to the argument as a whole. I was playing with a friend who makes YouTube videos once pre-SAM nerfs and even as a fairly experienced player he would spawn his Tornado IDS (the 11.3 one with proper GBUs, not the 11.0 one) and then die within 10 seconds despite immediately pitching up and gaining distance to an ItO 90M because that’s clearly good game design.
Yes, airfield spawns do exist and you could also say that SAMs should be that good - but as someone who personally never had that burning hatred of CAS or burning hatred of SPAAs pre nerf I really don’t see this in the same way other people do honestly. The irony of the example given above by me is that it’s because planes spawn in at ~12km out from the battlefield at top tier currently - which is within the range of everything including VT1s, not just 95Ya6. People very often just point at the Pantsir S1 and say it’s broken for its range which has some merit and is a valid point since more full range often means a longer motor burn time, but I also struggle to see how it’s broken in that sense in the current state of the game just for its range alone when the ‘fix’ to people getting bodied so easily by unnerfed SAMs would be to push air spawns further out which only makes the Pantsir that much more relevant.
If I’m being completely honest I just take potshots at anything I have against planes because I just find it fun to shoot them down if I’m in a tank. I personally never had major issues with CAS outside of my team being gone past the 3 minute mark allowing those 3 Ka 52s to spawn in - which frankly isn’t within my control at that point and isn’t worth being angry about since it’s an issue of player retention and not game design at that stage. I find other, often more niche vehicles to also do anti-aircraft work (QN506 does wonders against helicopters) fine and I also like using FIM-92Ks which most people would probably look at and balk seeing the 10G limiter. I do agree that Rolands are absolutely gutted right now and from what I hear VT1s are in a similar boat, but I also disagree that CAS has only seen buffs and has only been dominant when pre nerf SAMs (and even current XM1069s from my personal ingame experience) could/can shoot down vehicles in quick succession which in SP would be a trade of around 2000 SP total for one 110 SP vehicle, not to mention all the other support vehicles with IRST/proxy.