Top helicopters stat and why a helicopter is less dangerous to MBT than another MBT

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
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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

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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.

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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.

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People are scarred by the KA-50/52. They’ll call this heresy and say “Helis are still OP!”