Which Nation has the best Ground Attack/CAS aircraft and inversely who has the Worst Ground Attack/CAS.
I’m mostly looking at it in a Air RB perspective however judging by performance in Ground RB & SB from both Air & Ground will be counted as well. Also we are looking at a TT as a whole not just individual aircraft
I am going to split it in 5 polls for each, Four of which is looking at Era of Aircraft i.e a BR range and the Final one is overall for a total of 10 polls
Giving your reasons/methodology is optional but greatly appreciated.
Which nation has overall the best Ground Attack/CAS
Best Ground Attack/CAS - Biplanes & Early Props (Reserve-BR 3.0)
US
USSR
UK
GER
FRA
ITA
SWE
CHN
JPN
0voters
Best Ground Attack/CAS - Late Props & Turboprops (BR 3.3-7.0)
US
USSR
UK
GER
FRA
ITA
SWE
CHN
JPN
ISR
0voters
Best Ground Attack/CAS - Early-Mid Jets (BR 6.3-9.7)
US
USSR
UK
GER
FRA
ITA
SWE
CHN
JPN
ISR
0voters
Best Ground Attack/CAS - Mid-Late Jets (BR 10.0-13.7)
US
USSR
UK
GER
FRA
ITA
SWE
CHN
JPN
ISR
0voters
Best Ground Attack/CAS - Overall
US
USSR
UK
GER
FRA
ITA
SWE
CHN
JPN
ISR
0voters
Which nation has overall the worst Ground Attack/CAS
Worst Ground Attack/CAS - Biplanes & Early Props (Reserve-BR 3.0)
US
USSR
UK
GER
FRA
ITA
SWE
CHN
JPN
0voters
Worst Ground Attack/CAS - Late Props & Turboprops (BR 3.3-7.0)
I’m really sad about Japanese CAS, having the weakest TT in the entire game. There’s not that much aircraft that have these capabilites, it’s just bombers or fighters with 60 kg bombs, that can’t kill tanks reliably. The top tier is simply 2 jets with only mavericks and without targeting pod.
Japanese Ground Attack/CAS from 1.3 to 3.7 though not great is better than some other comparable nations.
The main thing holding them back is their over-reliance on dive-bombers over proper ground attack aircraft. It would be like if the US TT 75% of their CAS and “Ground Attack” are dive bombers like the SBD Dauntless.
Effectiveness and Efficiency is key but it is also nice if you not only have a variety of Ground Attack/CAS aircraft to choose from but also a variety of ground ordinances you can choose from
Yes Japan does rely too much on dive bombers but unfortunately they never put much focus on anything else other than air superiority fighters because most of the pacific theater was fought in the ocean so there wasn’t much of a need for ground strike aircraft.
And the few battles that were fought on land were fought on islands small enough where all you really needed for support was the warship just off the coast.
And while Japan did build multi engine bombers they didn’t have many of them because they were almost useless In the pacific theater.
While for the most part japan doesn’t have much CAS, it does have a few notable aircraft - the Ki-32 and D4Y3 both have respectable bomb loads with individually dropped bombs, a bombsight, and are very agile. This allows you to drop accurately from much higher altitudes outside of SPAA range and reposition quickly for the next pass.
Sweden is poor at low tier CAS and Israel is shocking.Both lack premiums that might help you get a foot in the door.I tend to think of CAS as being more relevant to GRB though.
Both listed aircraft are Okay at best and there are way better options in terms of CAS from other TT’s
Ki-32
It’s alright but i wouldn’t go as far as fantastic especially in a Air RB perspective, i can think of at at 5 aircraft that are better than the Ki-32 from other TT’s
Hs-132 (GER & CHN)
Hawk-III (CHN)
TBD-1 (US)
BB-1 (USSR)
Wirraway (UK/AU)
D4Y3
That aircraft is good even in Air Battles if you play your cards right however again like with the Ki-32 i wouldn’t call it fantastic either since there are also better CAS options from other TT’s such as [i’m only looking at vehicles are BR 3.0 and lower as my examples]
D-3 Stuka (GER & ITA)
B-18A (SWE)
SB2C-1 (US)
Also 3.0 the BR that the D4Y3 sits at is where Dive Bombers begin to fall over in favor of dedicated Strike fighters and ground attack aircraft such as
Beaufighters (UK)
Pe-3bis (USSR)
A-20G (US)
Early Il-2’s (USSR)
Even if we compare the Ki-32 and D4Y3 to other Japanese CAS they may be the best options but that’s not by the huge margin since the B6N’s and even the Ki-21’s can also do CAS/Ground Attack just fine. Early Japan at the very least has fighters that can do CAS/Ground Attack in the sense that they can carry secondary ordinances unlike some other nations Cough Sweden and France Cough
2 fantastic CAS aircraft on their own cannot make a nation good with CAS let alone great at it especially if the vast majority of said nation’s CAS are Mid at best
In Air RB sure, but when I think of CAS I think Ground RB. Both have very good bomb loads (with individual drops) and bombsights, which allow you to entirely avoid SPAA and accurately drop on tanks from a safe distance.
And to my knowledge, only the B-18A and SB2C might have those two things. Maybe the BB-1 and TBD too, but I’m not a big fan of dive bomber history to begin with.
Sure, they cannot make the whole tree good, but you have a section dedicated to low tier props.
In that, I’d easily rate the D4Y3 as better than the other 3.0 attackers for CAS for both the reasons I’ve outlined above and for the fact that when a fighter does show up, the D4Y3 can put up a damn good fight unlike any of the others. For something of its size, it is incredibly maneuverable and isn’t really lacking in power to weight.
As for the Ki-32, 4x 100kg bombs - individually dropped - and with access to a bombsight on a reasonably small and agile aircraft is really good for 1.3. It’s a slow plane but so is everything else.
And compared to the ones you mentioned:
Hs 123 has a far worse bombload, no bombsight; Hawk III is identical; TBD is comically underpowered, and has a comparable at best bombload (has a bombsight though!); the BB-1 at first looks like it easily surpasses it in bomb load, but the russian 100kg bombs are so much worse than the japanese ones - 3m destruction radius (!!!) vs 5m, and though it has bigger options it is left with only two of them. At least this one is faster than the Ki-32 and gets a bombsight; as for the Wirraway it does get a good bombload but no bombsight.
ALL of these, except the BB-1, are slower than the Ki-32; and all of them with no exceptions are less agile than it. At best they get slightly better bombloads, most are worse.
As for the D4Y3, it’s even more one-sided.
For starters, it is by far the fastest and the most agile and it’s not even close. The B18A is the closest in speed but even it is a whole 100kph slower than the D4Y3.
As for bombloads - Helldiver only gets 2/3rds of the D4Y3’s bombs, and though they are slightly better you’re really getting into gambling that you’ll find 2 tanks close enough to each other to make use of that. It is also very underpowered and will find it very hard to fight any kind of enemy aircraft despite its very good armament.
The Stuka is finally the plane to decisively beat its opponents in bomb load, aaaand… its everything I mentioned above and more. It’s slow, unmaneuverable, climbs poorly, doesn’t retain speed, and doesn’t get a bombsight. Its only saving grace is that it gets individually dropped 3x500kg bombs, and with the rest of it in consideration is only truly useful if nobody on the enemy team has so much as a .50cal pointed at the sky. Or if you’re on a one way trip, which is also very common with the Stukas.
And finally, the B18A. A twin engine attacker with the same bombload as the D4Y3 but worse in every other way, with the exception that it gets 13.2s as a forward firing gun and in two defensive mounts. It’s probably the best of these three.
And before you mention gun CAS - none of these are gonna be doing much of it. The SB2C is the closest, but it’s so lacking in power to weight that after every gun run you’re gonna have to pull off to regain speed and altitude, similar to a Hs 129.
The dedicated attackers you mentioned kinda sit in a category of their own, though the D4Y3 still has a place being faster than all of them. The IL-2 once again suffers from the horrible russian 100kg bombs and has to use a much lower amount of the 250kgs, just two - great guns though. The Pe-3’s bombload is also very lacking, and the A-20G/Beaufighter aren’t great there either for their size with just 4x500lb.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the Ju 88 A-4. It can carry a custom preset of 1x1000kg+1x500kg+1x250kg (or just 4x250kg) with about the same flight performance as the rest of the twin engines. The He 111 H-16 is also notable for its 2500kg bomb, or alternatively 2x1000kg+1x250kg, or 8x250kg, though pretty slow.
In a way, they can. The Ki-32 is excellent when starting out the tree and the B6Ns can bridge the gap to the D4Y3, which I hope by the end of this TEXT WALL you’ve understood how its strengths keep it relevant. I’ve brought it to higher BRs with decent success, the combination of decent speed + agility + good bombload and bombsight doesn’t go out of fashion until you pretty much get to jet tier.
Fighters can carry bombs but if you bring two fighters, spawning the second one will cost a lot more SP than the first one, and bringing a different class of aircraft for CAS is an easy way to cut down on that.
For low tier, the BR range isn’t that big anyway and even if not among the best, I’d definitely push japan out of the top 3 worst.
This is a game I had a while ago in the D4Y3, and I believe the screenshots speak for themselves. I mean, that’s TWELVE bomb kills in just one match, where I basically had completely free reign to do whatever the hell I wanted since their SPAA couldn’t hit me and the one fighter they brought out didn’t know I could easily outmaneuver him and probably assumed I was just another overweight, underpowered attacker.
I am A-10 lover, I feel the A-10 is the best CAS plane.
1.) The GAU-8 is one of the best guns for CAS, or maybe the best gun in general.
2.) The A-10 can carry a lot of bombs.
3.) Can take a lot of hits and make it home. I had a battle where I landed with 1 engine!
4.) How, can I forget this the number of flairs it has 480! that’s the most flairs I am aware of (besides the A-6 with all hard points with flair pods.)
5.) The tight turn rate makes the Plane amazing at CAS and dogfights, but it is a tad bit slow.
by the way this is for best CAS plane at 10.3-13.0.
