Hello,
I am currently grinding the entire line of SPAA from 1.0 to 12.0 as I am very annoyed of CAS and I need some help with aiming as I only can shot down slow target or those who tried headons or very big target such as bombers at close range and I would like to know which is the best SPAA in the USSR line and which one I shall play and which one I shouldn’t as most SPAA I use it as Anti- Tank instead of Anti-Air.
I am currently grinding the BTR-ZD and is it good?
USSR SPAA tend to be very efficient in most battle rating as anti-air vehicle specifically, though you’ll find some few that can work against ground targets more than against planes (e.g., 2S6 Tunguska).
BTR-ZD is fairly good, it has only 50 rounds per belt for each cannon, which means 100 rounds in total for 10 boxes, the firerate sometimes is overkill, you can run out of ammo fast than expected but the damage is awesome;
Personally I recommend using armor piercing belts as they do enough damage to rip wings off and decent penetration to deal with ground vehicles, it’s fast, decent gun handling and some times you experience the “No armor, best armor.” moment.
You don’t need to waste all your ammo in one target, instead of going “Brrrrrrrrt.” on an airplane, try to do small and short burst to hit enough rounds, two to three rounds perfectly hit is enough to cause huge damage.
I don’t know what do you mean by that, if you ask something, others are not obligated to reply to you even if they opened the thread and looked and left.
Will the M53/59 Be better then the BTR-ZD? because it at a higher battleratting and also has a bigger cannon and faster reload rate and better pentraction.
In general for SPAAs, try to stay in cover and hidden from planes until they get close, even radar gun SPAAs are pretty useless over 1.5km, preferably wait until they commit to an attack run as then they will be flying straight, often target fixated and any damage you inflict when they are in a high speed dive is much more likely to send them into the ground even when it is something that would normally allow them to RTB. after a few bursts relocate as every plane on the map with see your tracers and start trying to strafe you. on urban maps it helps if there is a building you can retreat into for cover, or at the very least park beside a house so you have at least one side protected, CAS love to strafe SPAAs when they see them shooting at somebody else.
As for aiming, as mentioned let them get close so they cant just jink out of your shots, lead is something you just need to practice as it depends on the velocity of the ammo you are using and the speed of the target. in general you want to aim so that it looks like the plane is flying straight at the center of your crosshair. you can practice by taking your SPAA into test drive in arcade mode where you have the lead indicator and you will see what I mean with the line showing the plane flying to the center of the sight, you want to try to imagine that line in RB then estimate lead:
Also with the sub-30mm canons you might find it better to take a mixed belt of API/HE as the smaller HE shells can be a bit dicey on the damage, especially shooting a plane in a head on.
Yes, the M53/59 Praga is better compared to the BTR-ZD as you can have more control over the amount of ammo, gun caliber and anti-air capabilities, compared to the BTR-ZD, M53/59 is easier to learn and take down airplanes,
Slower firerate but faster muzzle velocity you should find no troubles against planes, while in ground, use the armor piercing rounds, usually I always take armor piercing rounds for higher caliber self propelled anti-air guns, it’s up to you.
The only issues with the M53/59 Praga is the gun handling and gun limits, mobility and armor obviously, when engaging ground vehicles most of the time you need to be side-on.
If you are tired of cas just play close air support not spaa.
For USSR until 10.3 you are limited to engaging targets within ~1.5km with gun spaa (iglas are awful), and unless you take the time to get especially good on top of this range limitation you are also really only hitting planes flying in a straight line, or low energy state. Pretty much the case for every nation.
at those lower BRs its also incredibly annoying when other spaa at your team is shooting at planes 3k+ away turning what would be an easy kill into a nightmare because now even the most braindead CAS players are maneuvering before they get into the effective range of your guns making your job a lot harder.
IMO its not worth playing dedicated SPAA until you get the Tunguska, if you want to play SPAA make sure its also a good ground vic at least. Strela is good, the problem I have with it is if there is any other 10.3+ SPAA on your team they are going to suck up all the heli/bad CAS player kills well before they get into range leaving you just kinda sitting around sucking your thumb some matches in something that can’t do anything else but scout, but you will be able to deal with good CAS players that get close. OSA is good to get free kills on helis and bad CAS players, but its miserable to play in the ground game being gigantic fat target that can’t defend itself and you will struggle against good CAS players particularly guys lawnmowing with the godawful turret rotation and missiles not being particularly effective at close range without a lot of skill in lead which is severely limited again by the turret rotation.
I somehow easily shoot down every plane using test drive on the M53/59
They are flying nice straight lines :)
Without radar you are left with estimating lead distance and angle - there is no quick way to get good at that - it requires practice, practice and then more practice.
And when you have enough practice do some more practice!
And by “practice” mean using them in actual games too - not just the test drive
Likely a bunch of people looking to see if someone has answered because they have the same problem!!
Ok talk more I gotta know how to use the BTR-ZD as an Anti Air instead of an Anti Tank.
