The average Thodin post is them getting killed by something in game and then coming to the forums to complain about how said thing is broken op.
Also real ball knowers remember the pre-nerf wirbelwind and ostwind… those were far worse to deal with.
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No that was a scrapped concept early on.
I found the treat was the “M38 Computing Sight”
A nice video of one being unboxed
It is modelled but not functional sadly
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Indeed, people were whining about how “OP” those two were prior to the DeMarre standardization and APCR nerfs to utter worthlessness back when I started playing tanks.
The whining itself has not changed, only the target of said whining has.
Therefore, I have taken on a philosophy of “Let Them Eat Sabot” and undo all the autocannon neutering all at once, then let the BRs fall where they may. Let the whiners empty their tear glands while being completely and utterly helpless until they cry themselves to sleep, grow a set, and load HE to shoot the AAs with.
At some point the game has to stop coddling the lowest common denominator or else there will be nothing left that’s really functional save for Russian APHE, it seems.
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I remember when the Duster was 6.7, if only Gaijin fixed alternating fire.
It’s called the M38 Computing Sight. A lead setter used course and speed knobs to track the movement of the aircraft. A system of gears and shafts translated the data into horizontal and vertical movement of an aiming rack on the gunners sight, which acted as the aiming reference. At least, that’s my understanding of it.
This field manual details how it works.
The M19 seems to use a conceptually similar system, albeit a different model.
In-game, I’d imagine this would mostly work like the arcade lead indicator, but slightly handicapped. Since the targeting data comes from manual input, it could have an initial delay upon designating the target to track. How precise the input data is could also depend on the rangefind singkill.
This system should have some benefit for gameplay, but I think it makes sense for 40-50s tech to not affording the same level of precision in leading as more modern systems already in-game do.
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I made a topic for this a while ago. The squad leader (in-game commander) input the target’s estimated speed, angle of flight, and angle of approach which the computer then moved both the reticle for the gun pointer (in-game gunner) to the correct deflection. The gun pointer then just had to aim the reticle directly over the target once it was within range – which was eyeballed. Both the speed sights (which both the M19A1 and the M42 use in-game) and the computing sights had a fixed range of 900 yards with no way to change it.
The logic behind not giving it a way to adjust range is because it simply wouldn’t have mattered. The effective range of the gun was considered to be between 500 yards (short effective range) and 1,500 yards (near maximum effective range). The average drop for their projectiles was only 3.4 mils every 100 yards, or in other words a difference of 34 mils between 500 yards and 1,500 yards – which is basically nothing.
The M19 had basically the same system. The difference is that the M19 used the M13 or M13A1 system, which used a singular arrow for the target’s heading rather than having a more precise system which was the improvement the M42 had with the M38 system that accounted separately for the target’s angle and heading. The difference between the earlier M13 and M13A1 sight, is that the latter had a singular reflex sight for the gunner, the M24C (which the M42 also used); while the former had separate M23 azimuth and M24 elevation sights that BOTH the gun pointer (in-game gunner) and squad leader (in-game commander) had to aim.
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Use reverse around corners.
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M19 has the entire ammo rack put on like a flower necklace, and also it’s no reverse gearbox like Turans.
And it still can’t flank as well as M42 does.
These are all true. Though, if youre around a corner as the duster you still have the ammo necklace.
Pretty sure the ROF on the kugel is a lot better too
You know, thinking about it Thodin does kinda have a point but they are just going about it wrong. The solution isn’t moving the M42 up its actually just that they should add hullbreak back to open top vehicles (as well as all vehicles under 10 tons)
Ostwind 2 which is basically the same thing but with worse pen is 5.3, just saying
No comparison. The Ostwind II is a much better anti air. You also get APHE, which can lead to hilarious kills. Like shooting a T-44-122 in the face to disable his gun and getting a kill instead because one round bounced into the hull roof and the ridiculous postpen nuked the whole crew. Or shooting the cupola of a Magach and destroying it in one shot for the same reason.
No, a straight forward comparison. They’re leveling out at the same point. Ostwind is a better anti air? Yea. Much - not really. In exchange it lacks the mobility, like all of it. And the ability to reliably angage targets. Which in combination with mobility leads to you know what.
To be at the same BR it is on right now - M42 should lose all of it’s anti-tank capabilities, or go up a full br.
If you ask me - the mobility equalizes them in terms of anti-air capabilities, because in low tier CAS slamming the density of fire stands behind the surprise and evasion.
Doubt.
This is the American Duster in June 2026.
This is the Japanese Duster in the same month:
This is the Ostwind II:
This is the Ostwind Ost:
Abysmal win rate aside - which is a product of the fact that inexperienced players without a lineup spawn them when they’ve run out of other vehicles to use, that is to say when the match is likely already lost - you can see that the Duster and the Ostwind have a similar KPS and K/D when played by major nation players.
In fact, the Ostwind Ost overtakes the American Duster and comes very close to the Japanese Duster. If there was an Ostwind II in a minor tree, you would see even better stats.
So, if these vehicles have similar competitive results while being at different BRs, this means that the different BRs are justified. Simple as.
It absolutely is a much better anti air. There’s a reason it’s even used in SQB for that purpose.
And while less reliable in an anti-tank role, it’s pretty good at that one, too, thanks to the power of APHE.
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The base Ostwind already has both a higher velocity (900 m/s vs 874 m/s), a better firing rate (250 rpm vs 240 rpm), more potent high-explosive projectiles (3,7 cm M.-Gr. 90 g of HTA w/ 1.2x modifier for 108 g equivalent vs 40-mm Mk. 2 63 g of TNT w/ 1x modifier for 63 g equivalent), and is significantly more protected with both the ammunition being stored internally in the sponsons rather than externally around the turret and the turret providing more protection than the gunshield of the M19/M42.
The Ostwind II is even better with 500 rpm. They are absolutely much better at anti-aircraft duties than the M19/M42, and no amount of “mobility” equalizes that. The only benefit the M19/M42 has over the Ostwind is the faster traverse and elevation rates, but the Ostwind is still fast enough to track the targets it faces.
I think Italy and israel are the only nations without high pen spaa´s at low br´s. the title irrelevant since the same weapon is on a 2.3 french truck
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Ostwinds have too low penetration to reliably engage standard tanks. Its a huge diffrence whether you have over 70mm pen (the magic number for autocannons) or just around 50mm pen. Most tanks will be immune to your fire, except for occacsional lol shots. Ostwind’s and other Panzer IV based SPAA’s are also very slow and not maneuverable. The Duster excells in mobility in a WW2 setting, and alot ppl really love to spawn the US ones as first spawn unit to snapcap and to hunt tanks. Dusters can successfully engage most tanks at their far too low BR. Ostwind has APHE…ok…but 50 pen is just 50 pen. Fast firing autocannons also rely less on filler ammo, pen is the most important stat. Even if one penetration doesn’t do killer damage, the next shot follows up immeadely…and the next…its a hail of bullets and every target succumbs after few secs or penetrating fire. Even if its just a 30mm without filler.
Filler / APHE matter alot more for tank main guns which need several seconds of reload time. Not so much for autocannons.
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I would much rather have 48mm APHE than 72mm AP. Anything with a cupola or a protruding hatch is something you can kill by just spamming autocannon APHE.
Kugel pens 77mm. With it, I would not have frontally killed that T-44-122 or that Magach.
Naturally, since they are much better at this than at anti air duty.
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Technically that is wrong, and should have the same x1,6 like the other Hexagon based mix explosives. HTA stands for Hexagon, TNT, Aluminium. Which would boost it to 144g. Killakiwi made a report some time ago Community Bug Reporting System
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