In Its current State the Stormer HVM struggles against a lot of things it faces.
The Starstreaks used to be highly inconsistent, especially with bad Network, but with the addition of the Radar control screen it made the Starstreak a lot easier and more consistent to use, but they are still unreliable against maneuvering Planes, Aircraft at close range and fast Planes that arent flying at you/fast planes in general. The Stormer HVM is quite easy to counter …if you are aware of it. It’s basically invisible to Aircraft due to it having an IRST search and IRST track which aircraft RWR cannot pick up, making them probably some of the only good things about it - although it can also be inconsistent at tracking aircraft. From my experience there is also quite a lack of Planes and Helicopters that spawn in, but there is usually at least 1 Recon Drone that you can rarely do something about (i have only managed to shoot down ~ 5 Recon Drones in 150 battles) due to the poor minimum range of the Starstreak and the fact that you have to directly hit a small target with the tiny kinetic sub-munitions of the Starstreak. Whilst going for ground targets is an option, you are really only effective against lightly armored vehicles. Helicopters are generally the easiest targets to take out and if the Starstreak sub-munitions hit an aircraft, they most of the time destroy or severely damage the aircraft.
It is also nearly impossible to intercept any kind of munition, wich can get you or your teammates taken out.
This is mostly based off of my experience after 150 battles with it.
Improvement Suggestions
Add the Martlet LMM to the Stormer HVM
Giving the Stormer HVM the Martlet would solve most of its current issues in game, which the Stormer HVM is able to carry along with the Starstreak.
The Martlet is slower than the Starstreak, but it gets a proximity fuse, which would solve the following issues:
- Not being able to hit Recon Drones
- Not being able to intercept incoming munition
- Struggling to hit aircraft at close distances
(Balancing and expected Performance)
If the Stormer HVM would receive the Martlet LMM it would greatly improve the Stormer HVM and make it actually playable, but it would not make it a “beast” against everything.
The Martlet LMM is a rather small missile, with it being 76mm in diameter, it would not deal a huge amount of damage against aircraft. It also has a rather small Proximity fuse of 2.5m, so you would have to be quite accurate with the missile.
The Martlet is already in game on the Wildcat HMA2 which would make it easy to add them to the Stormer HVM.
The Martlet currently has 350mm of maximum penetration which would increase the Stormer HVM’s ability to penetrate armor, but it will struggle against MBTs, especially in an uptier, due to most MBTs having good protection against HEAT warheads. In a downtier it may have an easier time against MBTs.
The Balancing part is mostly based on in game testing using the Martlet on the Wildcat HMA2
If the Stormer receives the Martlet LMM it should be able to carry both the Martlet and Starstreak at the same time and have both of them loaded in its first stage ammo stowage (e.g., 4 Starstreak HVM and 4 Martlet LMM), as seen on the images below.
In service Stormer HVM depicted with a combined loadout of 4 Starstreak and 4 Martlet (top image) and with a loadout of 4 Martlet and 2 Starstreak (image below top image)
(images from https://militarnyi.com and https://armyinform.com)
(In-game Screenshots that show the Tan colored Martlet LMM and the Black tipped Starstreak HVM as comparison to the real life pictures)
My suggestion is that you could switch between the two missiles similarly to how you can switch between e.g., the Aim-9X and the Aim-120 with a very short cooldown, on the NASAMS 3.
I have only just noticed Smin1080p saying that the Martlet LMM was added only to the Wildcat for testing to see how it would perform in-game (https://forum.warthunder.com), so please treat the section about adding the Martlet LMM to the Stormer HVM as active player feedback
Id love to see the Stormer HVM getting the Martlet LMM next major update.
Battle rating changes
In the upcoming battle rating changes the Stormer HVM is going to 10.7, which I do not think it should,
Comparing it to other SPAA in the British tech tree, around the current 10.3 area only looking at their ground to air capabilities, i think its one of the worst. While your missile may reach the target before any other, you just have a way lower chance of actually hitting the target. Your IRST search and tracking radars can also be better than conventional search and tracking radars due to not giving planes a RWR warning, but the IRST radars can also be a disadvantage due to them struggling to track aircraft in bad weather and near trees. Your hit-tiles can also pull a good amount of overload (47 G) but will lose speed and energy with no way of gaining speed and energy back, unlike for example the OSA-AK with the 9M33M3, which can stay at 500-600 m/s for almost the entirety of its flight which can go up to 10 km. Id say even the Rapier is better than the Stormer HVM: It sits at a lower BR, Out ranges the Starstreak HVM (7.0 km) with the Rapier Mk.2 (8.20 km), also has a good maximum overload (35 G) and the Rapier Mk.2 is also a pretty fast missile (850 m/s). The only bad thing about the Rapier is that its missile doesnt do much damage.
In-game comparison of the SPAAs in the British tech tree, around the 10.3 area missile distance performance
If the Stormer HVM does receive the Martlet LMM, then moving to 10.7 may be justified, but else I think it should stay at 10.3 once the changes happen.