Thanks to statshark, we can finally take a look at the effectiveness of helicopters. And it is not high, which is not surprising, since for the last 3 years helicopters received mostly only debuffs and stronger enemies.
Vehicle
Games
Kill/spawn
Ground_kills
Games* KS/Total_Games
ka52
265,63
1,15
246,915
0,430145811
Mi-28NM
39,004
1,07
34,313
0,058767019
EC-665 Tiger UHT
141,717
1,14
126,216
0,227492738
AH-1Z
36,111
1,16
35,306
0,058984546
AH-64D
39,252
0,99
33,927
0,054718946
AH-60 isr
37,2
1,42
45,228
0,074382714
Z-10
68,214
1,4
61,436
0,134475228
AH-129D
34,96
1,59
44,981
0,078272514
Tiger HAD Block 2
29,401
1,35
29,322
0,055890321
AH Mk.1 Apache
18,676
1,25
19,244
0,032872642
Total_games
710,165
Total_gr_kills
676,888
Avg_ground_kills_per_spawn
0,953141875
Avg_kills_per_spawn
1,206002478
⠀
⠀
Vehicle
Games
Kill/spawn
Games* KS/Total_Games (3 spawns)
Games* KS/Total_Games (2 spawns)
Games* KS/Total_Games (first spawn)
T-80BVM
1769,318
1,14
0,149861146
0,215661388
0,419943824
T-90M
1409,776
1,06
0,111028451
0,159778238
Т-80U-Е1
1939,622
0,89
0,128258279
M1A2 SEP
452,234
1,05
0,035280181
0,050770818
0,098862812
M1A2 SEP V2
581,873
1,02
0,04409676
0,063458533
M1A2 Abrams
442,504
1,06
0,034849886
Leopard 2A7V
942,361
1,25
0,087519659
0,12594733
0,245249295
Leopard 2A6
632,875
0,93
0,043729971
0,062930696
Leopard 2 PSO
633,852
0,84
0,039559013
Black Night
110,237
1,14
0,009337068
0,013436739
0,026164515
Challenger 2E
78,256
1,11
0,006453851
0,009287574
Challenger 3 TD
130,71
1,01
0,009808633
Type 10
307,753
1,21
0,027667248
0,039815238
0,077529702
TKX
243,53
1,3
0,023521993
0,033849906
TKX (P)
241,113
1,11
0,019884831
ZTZ99A
448,865
1,03
0,034350358
0,049432732
0,096257243
WZ1001(E) LCT
292,848
0,99
0,021540499
0,030998388
VT4A1
193,215
0,91
0,01306353
Leopard 2A7HU
165,905
1,37
0,016887227
0,024301982
0,047321717
Centauro RGO
660,052
1,13
0,055415964
0,079747714
Ariete AMV
54,383
1,15
0,004646643
Leclerc SXXI
221,015
1,21
0,019869431
0,028593596
0,055678506
Leclerc
291,834
1,18
0,025585635
0,036819641
Leclerc S2
185,58
1,08
0,014891321
Strv 122B+
278,509
1,3
0,026900533
0,038711878
0,075381198
Strv 122A
267,989
1,14
0,022698655
0,032665061
Strv 122B PLSS
226,491
1,14
0,019183776
Merkava Mk.4M
106,88
1,34
0,010640929
0,015313092
0,029818219
Merkava Mk.4B
90,619
1,19
0,008012066
0,011529962
Merkava Mk.4 LIC
59,077
1,19
0,005223285
1st spawn
4803,077
Avg_kills_per_spawn (3 spawns)
1,064543539
Avg_kills_per_spawn (2 spawns)
1,123050505
Avg_kills_per_spawn (1st spawn)
1,172207031
2 spawns
9352,729
3 spawns
13459,276
The effectiveness of the helicopter 1,206 is basically equal to the effectiveness of the 1st spawn mbt 1,172 (the most productive spawn is always the first one at the beginning of the match). But the helicopter’s have a solid air kills part (mostly another helicopters) and if you only count ground kills per spawn (0,953), you’ll find that when a player takes a helicopter, he starts to pose less of a threat to a MBT than others MBTs on a map (1,064 Avg_kills_per_spawn 3 spawns). Pretty funny considering how many people don’t like helicopters.
Most of all, of course, I would like to point out the low efficiency of helicopters given their cost in sp (549 sp minimal cost). And with the introduction of new spaa, the statistics of most helicopters will drop even more. At the same time, the developers categorically do not want to introduce new weapons for helicopters or introduce some QoL buffs (for example apache radar, which has been in unusable state for 2 years already after they shrunk it).
I think a good temporary solution would be to introduce a “cashback”. Helicopters would keep current cost of spawn, but after death you get back ~50% of the cost of the helicopter.
Helicopters have been terrible for a very long time now.
We all know they have a terrible reputation for how OP they were a few years ago back when there basically weren’t any SPAA that could deal with them.
But today, with:
SPAA Radars being able to pick them up through trees;
MANPADs SPAAs being able to shoot at helicopters through trees as well;
Pantsirs easily able to intercept anything they launch;
Laser rangefinders on all MBTs meaning any helicopter standing still for more than a second is dead;
Light Tanks/SPAA hybrid such as the HSTVL/2S38 with proxy fuze rounds;
Jets being able to nuke helicopters from 10.0km away (hello Kh-38s) or closer thanks to IR missiles.
Yeah. Helicopter players have a lot to worry about.
The best helicopters remain the Russia ones, thanks to superior effective range (which allows them to go around most of the issues described above) and DIRCM, but your average Russia player is so terrible the average ends up being much lower than the others.
Althout F&F helicopters are somewhat competitive as well.
Let’s keep in mind that if both an SPAA and a helicopter fire a missile at each other, not even Russian helicopters with Vikhrs can hope killing the SPAA first … even though the SPAA will sometimes cost as low as 1/10th of the price of an helicopter.
So in my opinion, the best way to help helicopters right now would be to give them them the same ability LWS equipped tanks have but with SPAAs: when you get pinged by a SPAA radar, you immediately get a directional clue on your HUD indicating precisely where the SPAA that pinged you is located.
After all, if SPAAs only have to press one key to automatically turn their turret 180° on your precise position + they get faster missiles, helicopters should at least be able to accurately know where the threat is.
Another fix that would help tremendously would be to make trees better at stopping radar waves. Currently, about 60% of a tree’s foliage blocks radar waves. It means that while an helicopter pilot field of view is obstructed because of a tree’s foliage, SPAA radars are immediately able to pinpoint the position of helicopters and destroy them through it. That’s not okay.
Fixing trees’ foliage so that helicopters can reliably use it to cover would help tremendously.
Title basically says it all, I’m quite confused because NATO Helis at top tier are completely useless, while Russian helis like the KA-50 and 52 at top tier are as overly dangerous as other CAS.
Meanwhile, at mid tier 8.0-10.0 the only helis I ever see are Alouette and rarely the Z-11, while Russian helis are literally unusable due to slow speeds and poor munitions.
On top of this, the higher spawn and distance needed to travel make them less desirable to use over a plane, unless you have lock on munitions, and then all you do is sit in spawn and launch missiles.
Again I very rarely, if ever see them in any ground matches. What is the point of helicopters?
I’ll be honest… Helicopters were a mistake. They are seemingly impossible to balance. Either they’re unusable. Or they’re broken as hell. There is nearly no inbetween.
Just the Ka-50 mainly and 52 are played often, and if you look at global 50’s stats, they aren’t great.
Ka-52 performing better in K/D and K/S but only top 8 for both of it.
Only their winrates are higher (bmpt residue idk)
what you should say is, what’s the point of helicopters when there is better CAS option and it get suppressed by everything on the battlefield. The best option is out right ban CAS for ground RB and only let Helicopter CAS in. But that is just stupid and create other problem and yes you are right about it being useless when other CAS option exist. The only logical reason for it is to provide to less sweaty player a easier CAS option to play with compare to plane CAS
bc they were nerfed hard at some point. I do remember when in every round there was a few ka-50 on unguided and later it was endless Vikhr spam (when ATGMS had insane accuracy)
True, vikhrs were made worse, lbr time mechanica was added, missile fuze deactivation, penetration nerfed, speed nerfed, weight nerfed. Both platforms overall were nerfed, heavier, less gun ammo, no S-13DF etc etc
