Eh, it depends.
I find the gun lacks the range and velocity to effectively threaten the jets at this BR. Unlike 35mm on Gepard, the dinky 20mm lose their speed quickly.
There are so many times where I wished I brought my M42 instead, and that says a lot.
The 20mm vulcan sounds scary, looks scary, but it seems the bark is worse than it’s bite :-/
Relateable.
Sometimes planes have this pesky ability to rearm and come back. The point is to defend the skies…
Let them, if you kill the plane they’ll just spawn another one or a tank, if they re-arm they’ll be gone for half the match.
Spawn SPAA first, keep your team from getting decimated by first spawn heli
Almost no one spawns a heli first outside of lower BRs, and IFVs destroy them anyways without wasting a spawn on SPAA.
Tell that to KA-50/52s, AH-64s, Mi-28As, and any other helicopter with lockable AP guns and rockets. I legitimately just did it and got 3 easy kills before I got shot down. One SPAA could have prevented it easily.
I don’t remember the last time I saw a heli even spawn at the start of the game, especially not one that actually did damage, that requires a certain type of map that prevents it from just being obliterated before it even gets close.
Still if you spawn an SPAA early game you won’t have it late game.
That would be every map because you hug the ground until you get near targets. Pretty simple. Same things works with planes too, keeps you from being detected by pesky Pantsirs.
I also have had many games where I sit in my LAV-AD, M247, or XM-975 all game. Depends on how good your positioning is, how wrll you handle enemy aircraft, and if your team doesn’t crumble.
There is not much balance with SPAAGs. at the low tier it’s weak, uneasy to use and not very rewarding and at the top tier one guy is flying too high for radar making it useless.
mid-tier is the worst of the bunch though, some nations get radar 3BRS before others, and the ZSU 57 is better at anti-tank than anti-aircraft, Gepards ITPSV/marksman appear at far too low of a BR for the planes that appear, my cas plane for 8.4 is from 1944 its stupidly unfair having radar flak panzers destroying me before I can even see the combat area. on the marksman the lead indicator is damn terrible however the stormer is good fun to use
its also infuriating for teammates when three guys are in spawn with pantsirs while the team gets pummelled.
in my opinion low tier SPAA needs a buff, all RADAR SPAA needs to be moved higher and armour piercing belts need to be removed to further push for SPAA to actually use the AA in their name
Shooting down planes lining up for ground attack runs is absolutely trvial with radar guided SPAA. Helicopters they fave too most of the time since people get too focus on missile guidance. Its amazing. If you could get belts without all tracers then it would be even better. Thats one reason why the M247 can clap so hard, they don’t knownthey are under attack until they pop.
A lot of players just refuse to take the time to learn how to play them right, how to aim with them correctly, and when to shoot. And, when to use them, sometimes they spawn when there is no air and the moment they die, finally air shows up lol So they impatient and use it to shoot tanks instead of positioning themselves in places where they behind the team or safe area to shoot CAS as they wait. I will say just stick to SPAA that has higher RPM, high velocity rounds and either dual+ cannons. M16 for example, perfect to use all the way to 6.7 battles and have proven it can be useful there. Rewards, it is lacking, but it isn’t an excuse for me to not use them and try to come out with a Victory for that 100% win bonus reward by stopping CAS and preventing them to turn the tables. That way, I can get extra rewards on the tank I used from the start just for winning. That just my opinion and how I normally play. Other’s have their own preference and opinions based on how they like to play.
Not required to grind a TT
They lack “cool factor”
“I juSt WaNT tO pLAy TanKs OnLY mODe!”
I mean, I like the SPAAG. The Vulcan is great! And when you hit generally you do pretty good damage.
Tbf, a valid request. Even with SPAAG.
They only lack “cool factor” if you don’t know what you are doing. I mean, it’s pretty cool seeing a plane explode into pieces, especially when it’s going away from you.
Which is stupid. You want people to learn why we are upset with CAS? Or why CAS isn’t as strong as some people think? Make them try and learn to fight against it.
Want tank big boom, not baby pew pew
probably
Pantsir
Doing anti air simply isn’t rewarding enough. There’s always tanks to shoot at but you can go entire matches without seeing a single plane. Its not that I don’t enjoy them, but there’s not much reason to play one unless you can’t bring a fighter out - which has the added benefit of being able to bomb/strafe targets of opportunity if nobody does spawn an aircraft.
Guh??
Wtf???
sigh
AP belts are necessary for SPAA because it isnt just them vs the planes- they have to face tanks too. Stuff like the Lvkv 42 is never going to be good against planes, and the only reason its somewhat usable is because of its anti-tank capacity.
They need actual AT capacity for people to want to play them, otherwise they will get nuked by anyone that decides to spawncamp- and will probably be out of ammo quickly too. Giving them full AP lets them be adequate against tanks and good against air, and adding a lead indicator as @GoneToTheAether has said would help as well.
Stuff like the ZSU will never be actually good at AA, and you just have to accept it. There is a reason people use the Bkan over it in the SPAA role- its because its bad.
Give the players the tools they need to fight CAS, make them want to use it, and you will be fine. The majority of players will never learn how to aim SPAA, which is another thing you have to accept and move on from. You can either add ways to fix this (Leading circle as Aether has suggested, and which I agree on), or ignore it, say ‘skill issue’ and the problem continues.
Making derp guns have it too and HE-TF act like HE-VT would help as well, and thus the SPAA problem would be fixed- SPAA would be worth using, and as easy to use as tanks, so people would play them.
With your suggestion SPAA would be complete dead wieght and people would never grind them. I do agree that we should get full HE belts… as well as full AP belts, however.
I’m not going to rehash the same discussion about your and GoneToTheAether’s beliefs that lead indicators should come to RB. There are multiples things that could be done before that that would make them better. Sights appropriate for SPAA with range rings would be the most appropriate first step.
I would actually kill for Range Rings
Ah, fair enough. Weve gone over this enough, no need to string it into endless arguing.
Without knowing the range or speed or any other quality of the target, whatever rings aren’t going to change anything.