Agreed.
I have seen it extremely rarely. Usually ma teammates are also just going to spawncamp with their CAS, instead of going after the enemy spawncampers.
As i said, there are cases, where CAS was helpful, but i can count them on 1 hand from the last year how many times it happened.
And literally NOBODY wants for it to be removed. We just want a second mode!
That would make both camps happy.
That would still not solve the issue. You can not balance it at all. Let me just point out a few issues:
1, even in major tech trees, the amount of SPAA you can use in a BR range is limited to a few vehicles, while there are way higher number of avalible CAS even in a minor tech tree (or in best case, equal numbers).
2, There are huge gaps in the tech tree in terms of SPAA. Even in the US tree, there is no SPAA between 2.7 and 4.7, and then from 5.0 to 7.7. Yes, USA can have some experimental vehicles put in, and it would somewhat fill up the gap, but that will still not fixt the issue in the 1st point.
3, Many times SPAA is just useless against planes. This is especially problematic at lower BR, where a bomber can just climb up a few km high, and be outside of the SPAA reach, both vertically and horizontally, while the bomber can just drop the bomb from far away.
And then at higher BR, when things like Stingers can’t lock onto anything more than 2-4km away.
4, Busted danage models: This is just very simple. A tank where all the crew is in 1 compartment (so basically 90% of the tanks, except thinks like a Ferdinand, Maus) will have all of it’s crew die if an APHE with ~200g of THT in it pens, and explodes in it, or an open top is hit with the same explosive mass (either HE/HESH/APHE/HEAT).
Now compare this to planes/helis surviving a direct hit from a multiple kg missile warhead, and magically the pilot does not get overpressured.
Many times even if the plane is directly hit by a 152mm HE shell from an arty with 10kg of TNT equivivalent!
A great example if when said HE shell’s proxy variant with only a 3m trigger radius explodes next to a plane, and you get only a “hit”. And mind you, a plane has no all around armor for the pilot, and often there is just a single piece in the back of the seat, and bulletproof glass, and literally nothing in the rest. Yet said shell exploding 3m from the plane does not kill the pilot.
Now, for ABT-101 to stop 152mm arty fragments from 3-4m, it has to be ~53mm thick. Said alloy has an RHA multiplyer of 0.38. This means, you need around 20mm RHA to stop them. Which plane has that much RHA all around the cockpit? Yet from time to time, planes, and helis just tank a 152mm HE shell explosion from a few m away.
Here are some nice photos, or armored vehicles shedded by shrapnel:
And of course, i just talked about the pilot. Planes have many more extremely sensitive components, that will be shredded by said shrapnel and shockwave.
If this is not busted enough, planes have usually more than 1 guns (from low-mid-high-ish BR at least), with high rate of fire, while SPAA are usually unprotected (or have insufficient protection) against the barrage of 10s of shots per second. The likelyhood of one hitting the gunner is high.
Meanwhile the SPAA has the best chance if it manages to hit the enemy pilot, which does not happen very often. The CAS has to get the 1 lucky shot on the gunner, and then the SPAA is literally helpless.
Most of the CAS kills are not pilot kills, and in those cases, despit the plane being “shot down”, it can still shoot. Which ground vehicle can shoot after it was destroyed?
And in this case, i just talked about planes using cannons.
If they have rockets/bombs, they have to expose themsleves for way less time, since they have to just shoot the missile/drop the bomb near the SPAA, and it dies from overpressure.
meanwhile it is not even a guarantee that a CAS will be destroyed upon a direct hit from a missile.
5, Resupply: CAS can much more safely resupply in an airfield/helipad far away from the battlefield. They also get fully repaired.
What does SPAA has to do for get more ammo or crew?
It has to find a friendly cap, usually in the middle of the map, many times exposed to multiple sides, and sit there like a duck motionless for a long time in order to get a meaningful amount of ammo.
And it can be shot by another tank, CAS, or just destroyed by a random arty strike.
And this is when your team has a point captured. If there is no friendly cap, you are just doomed.
Oh, and the classic with large magazine SPAA, when you are about to finish resupplying the ammo, and a random teammate bumps into you and you have to start it all over again… Lovely.
6, 3D vs 2D: CAS can use a 3D space, which is also way bigger, than the 2D space ground units can use. They can either climb high, or hide behind a hill that is outside the playable ground area.
Even if you hide behind a hill/building in a tank, a big enough bomb will still destroy you, or the CAS can just fly over it.
7, Mobility: CAS can not only move in a 3D space, but they have at least 10x faster speed, and way better agility. They can easily dodge cannon fire, or even missiles, while a slow tank in a 2D space just can’t dodge it. Yes, you can use smoke,but that has also some major issues. It is very limited in number, and you can only get more on a cap (and it has the same issues as SPAA on a cap), but also it does not protect you from a bomb.
