Honestly guys, I do seriously wonder - why exactly do people think SPAAG killing tanks is “overpowered,” but an IFV sometimes using the exact same gun and ammunition doing so is not? With how gameplay forces everything into roles that are “not their intended job,” that argument doesn’t hold any water whatsoever.
I also wonder - suppose all the radar SPAAGs had the option to equip as much APDS as they want. What BRs would they seriously have?
I personally fail to see the difference between SPAAGs and IFVs shredding tank sides with APDS - tank’s dead either way if it can penetrate, so why punish the former and let the latter (which often has ATGMs to pen hardened targets, sometimes additional guns like the BMP-3, and is often smaller and faster) be as-is?
The graphic itself is from Jane’s A&A 1979-1980 (but made by general dynamics, this debate already happened once on the bug-reporting page ^^)
The “document” is a brochure from Hughes Helicopters (Ordnance Division) / Oerlikon, these are the only two pages that I know of - Title would be identical to the heading visible on the pages.
Ironically, APDS/FAPDS would make them better at killing aircraft, due to the higher muzzle velocity, velocity retention and thus reduced reaction-time of the aircraft itself.
The IRST/Lead-Indicator just feels extremely inaccurate when using the regular rounds, thus making it quite awkward for anti-air use, which gives players an incentive to just use it as a TD instead, since it’s more effective at it.
But generally, it’s just a common trend with this playerbase - basically every vehicle with a reload thats’ lower than 5 business days is automatically deemed broken, especially when it just so happens to be what kills them often. (i.e. popular vehicles)
Perfect example is probably 2S38 - people cope a shitton over it’s ability to kill tanks, wheras that is by no means what actually makes it undertiered but simply what people experience the most.
The reason that thing is undertiered is solely due to its’ utility and anti-air capabilites, not due to its’ anti-tank performance - yet the former is barely, if ever mentioned, wheras the latter overexaggerated to absurd levels.
Not saying every auto-cannon vehicle is overexaggerated performance wise, there certainly are some absurdly broken ones (e.g. BMP-3, BMD-4/4M) but it’s far more common for people to just claim something is broken because it kills them often.
Interesting that they switched from magazine design that was similar to the Gepard to just having it like a giant ammo box style that mirrors this drawing:
In trying to model the XM246, I also found that the Gepard method was about 30 rounds short, guess I have to redo my model now:
It’s a brochure from the manufacturer and thus considered a primary source.
The graphic already clearly depicts the additional belts, which solely exist to use APDS rounds for self-defence - the pages from the brochure should already suffice as confirmation of the gun being dual-fed (reminder that the graphic is from the manufacturer itself too).
I have only barely used the Gepard thus far, and was popping planes left and right with the default belts which have no APDS rounds.
In other words, ignore the complaints or intentionally threaten to buff them further if the community doesn’t treat tankbusting SPAAG as no different than autocannon IFVs.
Yup, exactly as I have heard thus far.
How are these “absurdly broken,” by the way? I know all have overpressure HE meme guns, 30mm APDS-spewing autocannons, access to scout drones to rangefind the HE with, and also ATGMs. They sure seem like “jack of all trades” and quite strong, but I do not know specifically what makes them “broken.”
They all get TANDEM atgms that can be fired on the move, which allows them to kill any vehicle they face frontally with extremely low reaction-time.
They also get better mobility than virtually any other light-tank, have extremely good gun-depression w/ suspension adjustments (or it’s just the BMD-4M which already has it adjusted right away, giving it ~9.42° of actual gun-depression - maximum is ~ -11.5°)
Additionally, the combination of ESS + thermals makes them absurdly stupid in certain situations as a lot of vehicles they face simply do not have such. Smoke-pods are available too, so is IRST for the BMD-4/4M.
Unlike vehicles like Begleit, they don’t need to be nearly as picky with their engagements, as they’re not limited by any significant downsides (e.g. Begleit has to slow down to 5km/h to fire a I-TOW, which isnt tandem, the gun has abysmal ballistics, it has no smokes, no ess etc.)
It’s actually a realistic feature, the cleft turret design means that the guns are in their own separate compartment, and the front of the gun shield is more than 1,5m in front of the crew compartment so any delayed trigger mechanism is going to trigger in the gun compartment and the armor of the rear gun shield and the crew compartment is going to shield the crew. The crew is very well protected by spaced armor in the XM246.
XM246 is really wonky, especially between the guns; not only is it essentially spaced armour, that is sufficiently thick to fuze rounds, but the breeches are internal - as such they have the regular armour equivalent of 150mm.
The only real way to consistently deal with it, is by shooting the ammo, i.e. either the radar or left of the gun-sight.
You didnt show the actual impact point in that screenshot either, if you hit the gun directly (once again; 150mm structural steel [67,5mm RHAE] + two modules [breech, vertical]) then it obviously won’t go through to the crew, especially not with any APHE/SAPHE rounds.
It depends on the amount of ammo in the magazine at the time, if it is low enough then you are just going to eliminate the ammo and the vehicle will survive.
Ammo has been bugged for ages now, this is really an unfortunate shot.
It happens with belt-fed SPAA’s the most from my experience, though BMP’s, Type 90’s and Leopard 2’s are also very common offenders (even when the blowout panel is destroyed*).
Realistically, you really need to aim for the crew-compartment to give you the best chances of killing it - either by detonating the ammo (when that works for once) or by killing the turret-crew.
Yeah, I’m probably salty because one managed to kill me frontally last night (think he spammed commanders hatch). Typically if they don’t die the first shot they die the next one. If you’re a US main, you’d be silly not to be playing the XM800T and XM246 combo right now. That’d be the peak fun lineup for USA.
kinda yeah…
Imo they could solve half of these issues by just making the FCS module on these problematic SPAA’s create spall instead of just absorbing it.
They essentially act as indestructible spall-liners that instead of reducing the spall-cone, just outright remove all spall…
