The BR of the Swedish SPAA Elde 98 Seems Too High

Machinery of War Discussion Ground Vehicle
,
1

I would like to raise a balance concern regarding the Swedish SPAA Elde 98.

  1. BR Adjustment Suggestion for Elde 98

The Elde 98 is currently placed at BR 12.0. However, its overall performance appears comparatively limited for that rating. This becomes especially noticeable when comparing its missile performance and combat sustainability with other top-tier SAM vehicles.

Below is a comparison between the RBS 98 (Elde 98) and other high-tier SAM missiles:

Elde 98(12.0) – RBS 98 | 710 m/s | 12 km / 9 km (IR) | 50G
ADATS (11.7) – MIM-146 | 1065 m/s | 10 km | 42G
CLAWS (12.3) – AIM-9X Block 2 / AIM-120C-7 | 780 m/s | 12–25 km | 35 ~ 50G
FlaRakRad (11.7) / Ito-90M (12.0) – VT1 | 1250 m/s | 12 km / 11 km (IR) | 50G
Pantsir-S1 (12.0) – 95Ya6 | 1300 m/s | 18–20 km | 32G
Tan-SAM Kai (12.0) – Type 81 ARH | 955 m/s | 14–16 km | 35G
CS/SA5 (12.0) – FB-10A | 725 m/s | 9–12 km | 20G

While the RBS 98 has strong maneuverability, it is generally slower and has shorter effective range compared to most other 12.0 SAM vehicles.

  1. Ammunition Capacity Disadvantage

Another major limitation is missile capacity.

The Elde 98 carries only 4 ready-to-fire missiles, with a total of 8 missiles overall. This significantly limits its sustained combat capability compared to other SPAA at the same BR.

Total missile counts (including reloads):

Elde 98 – 8
ADATS – 16
CLAWS – 24
FlaRakRad – 20
Pantsir-S1 – 24
Tan-SAM Kai – 32
CS/SA5 – 16

Compared to its peers, the Elde 98 carries two to four times fewer missiles overall, reducing its effectiveness in prolonged engagements at top-tier.

(OTOMATIC is excluded from this comparison, as although it is classified as SPAA, it relies solely on a 76 mm gun system and does not use SAMs, making it fundamentally different in role and engagement capability.)

  1. Matchmaking Consideration

At BR 12.0, the Elde 98 can face vehicles up to BR 12.7.

Against higher-tier SAM vehicles, it is clearly disadvantaged in terms of missile speed, range, and total ammunition capacity.

There was previously a suggestion proposing either a fourfold increase in missile capacity or a BR reduction to 11.3. However, a reduction to 11.3 may be excessive, considering that the Elde 98 is still significantly stronger than 10.3 SPAA.

Conclusion

Considering missile performance, ammunition capacity, and matchmaking spread, the EldE 98 appears relatively less effective compared to other 12.0 SAM vehicles.

For these reasons, lowering the Elde 98 to BR 11.7 might be a more appropriate solution.

Thank you for reading.

1 Like
2

I apologize for the mistake in my post. The VT1 does not use IR guidance.

3

U are forgetting some factors like radar performance

4

Some personal opinions:
I think you’re looking to much at stat card numbers.

The RB 98 has a relatively long engine burn time for it’s low weight so it keeps it’s speed for longer even when maneuvering. It also has thrust vectoring so not only does it keep it’s speed for longer, it also tends to be able to maneuver harder than some others at range due to the kept speed and it’s relatively low weight.

The range numbers are lock on ranges, you can fire it at 20km range if you want to, the 9-12km is just the distance at which the IR seeker is able to lock the target. Since it’s IR the aircraft also doesn’t get an RWR warning and only knows it’s being targeted if the player sees the smoke or if the plane has a MAWS. So if the plane is 20 km out and just slowly flying straight towards the battle you can fire it very early and the plane wont know that it’s coming for them and for me personally sometimes even hits before the plane has time to fire their missiles.

The radar is also VERY good and has a fast update rate.

It’s also a very small vehicle, it’s easier to hide behind buildings and have an easier time avoiding getting destroyed compared to many of the other vehicles.

What it does have going against it is the low ammunition count, the painfully slow reload speed as well as the newer DIRCCM helicopters (Currently also the wrongly modeled mobility, as i understand it there are some mechanics missing in the game that needs to be added for it to gain it’s correct mobility).

But over all i think many players underestimate how good it can actually be if played right.

5

A couple of quick clarifications from my side:

I lean on the stat card numbers because they’re the most objective and reproducible evidence we have. Player skill varies a lot, and personal anecdotes are useful for context but hard to use when arguing balance changes. If I want to make a persuasive, community-/developer-facing case, measured specs and clear comparisons are the most reliable way to do that.

I don’t deny that a skilled player can make the Elde 98 look very strong — that’s true for most vehicles. Your points about long burn time, thrust vectoring, stealthy IR usage, fast radar updates, and small size are valid and explain why the RBS-98 can be deadly in the right hands.

The core issue, though, is average effectiveness. Balance isn’t just about peak performance by experts; it’s about how a vehicle performs across typical matches and players. Even with its tactical strengths, the Elde’s lower missile kinematics and very limited ammo pool reduce its sustained effectiveness compared to other 12.0 SPAA. That’s why I emphasize the recorded numbers: they show persistent disadvantages that radar or user skill alone don’t fully cancel out. Thank you for your reply.

6

Quick radar/spec summary

ADATS (11.7) — Band I | Search range: 25 km | Search sector: 360 × 18 | Features: Look-down, IFF

CLAWS (12.3) — Band J | Search range: 20 km | Search sector: 360 × 65 | Features: Look-down, IFF, TWS: 40

FlaRakRad (11.7)

Track radar: Band J | Track range: 16 km | Features: Look-down, BVR, ACM

Search radar: Band D | Search range: 16 km | Sector: 360 × 18 | Features: Look-down, IFF

Pantsir-S1 (12.0)

Track radar: Band K | Track range: 36 km | Sector: 90 × 60 | Features: TWS (ESA), BVR, ACM, NCTR, DL:4

Search radar: Band F | Search range: 45 km | Sector: 360 × 80 | Features: Look-down, IFF

Tan-SAM Kai (TADS, 12.0) — Band J | Search range: 30 km | Sector: 360 × 70 | Features: Look-down, IFF, TWS: 40

CS/SA5 (12.0)

Track radar: Band K | Track range: 21 km | Sector: 90 × 60 | Features: TWS (ESA), BVR, ACM, DL:8

Search radar: Band J | Search range: 40 km | Sector: 360 × 60 | Features: Look-down, IFF

HQ17 (11.7)

Track radar: Band J | Track range: 21 km | Sector: 15 × 15 | Features: TWS (ESA), BVR, ACM, DL:2

Search radar: Band F | Search range: 38 km | Sector: 360 × 60 | Features: Look-down, IFF

Ito-90M (12.0)

Track radar: Band J | Track range: 16 km | Features: Look-down, BVR, ACM

Search radar: Band E | Search range: 18.5 km | Sector: 360 × 27 | Features: Look-down, IFF

Elde 98 (12.0) — Band I | Search range: 20 km | Sector: 360 × 70 | Features: Look-down, IFF, TWS: 40

–

I acknowledge that the Elde 98 has a good radar. It offers a wide vertical search sector, a respectable 20 km search range, and fast update capability with TWS:40. In practical terms, it is not a

However, radar strength alone does not compensate for the veh

Several SPAA at the same BR field radar systems with equal or superior performance — particularly in raw search and tracking range (e.g., Pantsir-S1, CS/SA5, Tan-SAM Kai). When compared directly, Elde’s radar is competitive, but not uniquely superior within the 12.0 bracket.

More importantly, radar capability cannot offset the Elde’s structural drawbacks:

  • Very limited ammunition capacity (4 ready / 8 total), severely reducing sustained engagement capability
  • Slower missile kinematics compared to many peers at the same BR
  • Currently missing mobility mechanics, which prevent it from performing as intended

Even with good detection performance, these limitations directly affect practical combat effectiveness over the course of a match. Detection alone does not equal engagement dominance, especially at top tier where missile speed, engagement envelope, and salvo capacity matter heavily.

For these reasons, while I agree that the Elde 98’s radar is solid, I do not believe it sufficiently compensates for its overall disadvantages relative to other 12.0 SPAA.

7

Start card numbers can often be misleading, take speed for example:
The listed number is the max obtainable speed, it says nothing of what the average speed you as a player can expect the missile to have in a majority of normal engagements while the missile is maneuvering, it also doesn’t tell you what you can expect the missile to have as a speed at range or how fast it can achieve that top speed.

Same things with maneuvering, it doesn’t really tell you how much the missile can pull at any given speed or situation.

I was describing general terms and not only for skilled players.

I still think the vehicle actually performs better than some might think it does. How many matches have you played with it so far?

8

You’re again relying to much on stat card numbers. Many of those ranges and coverages are just the standards the radars are set at without changes. I think all of those vehicles can change not only the range but also the search scope of their radars to be both bigger and smaller than the listed numbers.

May i also ask; Are you using AI for this? You’re answering surprisingly fast with long pages of structured text that contains factual errors and sometimes gets cut off mid sentence (as if you didn’t select everything to copy paste) which is why i’m asking.

9

One quick clarification: I play on the Soviet side, so I haven’t used the Elde 98 myself.

As I mentioned in another reply, if we don’t have reliable data for average missile speed or more detailed flight profiles, the stat card is the most objective and reproducible source we have to estimate missile performance. If you think there’s a better, higher-accuracy source for comparing missile performance than the stat card, I’d like to know what that is.

Also, 710 m/s as a listed max speed does look quite slow compared to other top-tier SPAA.

The same applies to maneuverability: the listed G value doesn’t tell us how much pull the missile can sustain at different speeds or in different engagement situations, and that uncertainty applies to every missile. Because of that, stat cards provide the most consistent baseline for comparison.

So, based on the stat card values, my view remains that the Elde 98 performs somewhat worse than many other 12.0 SPAA.

And sorry if I misunderstood your point about skilled players — my English isn’t perfect, so I may have missed some nuance. Thanks for your reply.

10

To be honest, I am using AI. However, I personally recorded and organized all of the numerical data myself. Since I am not very confident in my English, I am using AI primarily for translation and wording support.

In addition to AI, I also use online translators to review and cross-check the text as much as possible. Even so, there may still be mistakes that I haven’t fully corrected during that process.

The overall data, logic, and structure of the argument are entirely my own. I’m simply using AI to help express it in more natural English.

11

The easiest is to play the vehicles yourself and see how they feel when used, and honestly i personally have a hard time accepting statements about vehicles from someone that hasn’t played the vehicle themselves. Its very easy to miss details that can make a vehicle a lot better or worse than it looks on paper, things that you would likely only notice if you play the vehicle yourself. (For example the EldE 98 Mobility, it’s horrendous in some situations. Or the Pantsirs missiles being ridiculously hard to aim past 13km to the point of being almost impossible to hit something with if the target just turns sightly even if they can fly for far longer distances than that)

As a secondary option i recommend looking at server replays where the vehicles are used and then using the sensor view to look at the speeds and g-forces for the missiles during their use in matches. It at least gives some idea on how the missiles perform in actual use.

I’ve seen some player made lists of in-game missile stats but i don’t know how reliable those numbers are and some of the numbers can also look bad if you don’t take others into account at the same time that might more than make up for the deficit.

So lets say as a hypothetical scenario there are two missiles with the same max speed and max overload in the game; one of them reaches it’s top speed in 2 seconds and keeps that top speed for 15 seconds even while fully turning, while the other missile accelerates so slowly that it only reaches the max speed after 10 seconds and only if it flies in a straight line and if it turns it never reaches that top speed.

If then both missiles has a max overload of say 40G (which they can only achieve at max speed) then one of the missiles will be at 40G for almost all of it’s flight while the other missile will only be at 40G for maybe 5-10% of it’s flight and be at maybe 25-30G for the rest of the flight.

So even if two missiles have the same numbers on the stat card they can behave wildly differently when used in game.

Thanks for your honesty, using AI for translations is perfectly fine :) I just don’t like it when people use them for factfinding as the AI is very often wrong and often uses odd sources for it’s claims. There are national community sections here on the forum that you can look at to see if your language has one, if you want to create topics in your own language that is. You can find them here: ( National Communities - War Thunder — official forum )

Sidenote:
The Community Managers did talk about there being some new things in the works to better show a lot of the more advanced data for ammunition and vehicles in the game. I think it was in one of the Community updates about what is coming to the game in the future, i’ll see if i can find it.

Edit: Found it, you can read more here: ( Community Update No.8: Responses and What’s Coming! )