Really, why even bother having AA guns
They are totally under-powered, and placed in a hole where you can’t shoot the minute any pilot dives.
And if you can ever shoot down a plane, then they re-spawn immediately, so the pilot just starts again.
In addition there is usually 1 available AA for 2 or 3 planes, so eve if you start targeting one the other plane destroys your emplacement
Let the infantry have a real defense, bring back the FF as it was!!!
the problem is that the plane retain lethality at high attitude , watch silk farming the entire iwo jima at high attitude.
i dont think ff is underpowered , its working as intended . its more like if the pilot know what hes doing then nobody can ever bring him down as a infantry
AA cannons kill any fighter in 1 normal pass if you hit 100% of your shots, and try and get a couple good engine shots in there.
If the pilot is targeting AA, then 1 player alone can’t take them out, you need help.
AA cannons shouldn’t be able to clear the skies alone, but should still deal effective damage to targets. They should also be able to be effectively attacked by a skilled pilot, who has a chance to respond.
That’s exactly where they sit right now. Effective, but not overpowering when firing solo, and powerful when supported by friendly forces.
I shot down 5 planes on the second sector of Iwo Jima last night. EZPZ. Was a support, so I kept rebuilding the gun when they blew it up.
^ That’s what I do too - keep rebuilding the AA .
The way I see it , if I can distract them into making me their main target , WE win , even if I lose .
In order to do this though , the weapon has to have an actual distracting capability , plus I need to be relatively accurate with it .
These occur .
OP
The ‘proof’ that the AA’s work as intended always arrives in the form of these bombs that are falling upon your head .
If , as you say , you have two planes regularly visiting you to do this , Congratulations!
Singlehandedly , you’re relieving your entire Team of nearly all aerial harassment .
Agreed, we easily won defending that game, and I like to think I helped a lot by canceling out their ability to pound us with bombs. I traded at least 3 times with the same pilot. Now that the Pacific planes have easy mode bombing reticles, he was able to line me up from way far away. Didn’t save him tho.
Not… really. It really depends on the angle.
BUT the fliegerfaust is now underpowered for medium to long range and the MMG AA bullets are literally worthless against air.
Bringing the Fliegerfaust back to before-5.2- would be enough to balance the situation again.
But then the pilots start whining again because they get shot down every now and then. Currently, they have nothing to fear from the ground and end their rounds with ridiculously high K/D.
AA feels fine to me on the European and African maps and although I don’t think they’re bad on the pacific maps, I do feel the Pacific planes have a lot more versatility than other planes that let them better deal with AA. With more specialisations to choose from, they have a better selection of weapons to deal with a multitude of different scenarios. I also feel adding third person bombing reticles to planes that don’t even have first person bombing sights was the worst decision they could have made regarding planes; makes it far too easy to accurately bomb from a distance they should not reliably be capable of.
^ B)
Assassins were showing up to take me off the Narvik AA because it seemed that just me and a pilot were keeping our skies completely clear .
I was just the ‘softener’ and only took down two planes but it was the able pilot who kept stamping Kills onto his fuselage - basically , we just stole each others Kills .
In Hamada next round , (very unusual in that I’d never seen this before) NO Enemy planes appeared in the sky for quite a few minutes .
With so many reasons as to why this might have been , high up in those probabilities was the fact that they likely knew where I was - waiting for them on the AA .
OP
Truly , if you have trouble shooting down planes with the SAA , it’s most likely simply the case of you not having been on it long enough .
This is currently the same situation that I face with me and those stationary .50’s .
I can’t hit anything with those recoil-amatics, but that’s only because my experience on them is still measured as just a few minutes .
As has occurred with my handsome return on my time-invested in AA’s , it’s reasonable to assume that this same profit will occur if I stay on those .50’s for a while .
Know Your Enemy .
As a Bomber , Flak suddenly rising way up into the sky to meet me too soon rushes and distracts me away from my original intentions .
The result? An altered mission is generally not a very-well-thought-out mission , and the Maths of this can heavily favor a Team
Down on the SAA and well aware of its range , I’m counting on this potentially-fatal/definitely-damaging error in judgement on their part .
tl;dr?
The SAA and MAA (thankfully) aren’t ‘free rides’ , there IS an ‘admission price’ that one has to pay .
If they killed planes every single time , they’d be no fun at all .
The only AA that is anywhere close to useful now is costing a tank slot.
.
You are lucky to just make the target change path
Which I could live with, if they didn’t re-spawn so bloody quickly.
(and the repair and reload mechanic for planes is too quick and easy)
It is also the AA placement
With the fast re-spawn you basically have to decide that your game is going to be dedicated to minimizing the pilots bombing runs, or play that your team has a good pilot.
Easy solutions:-
Keep the planes strength as they are , as good pilots can still shine, but will no longer dominate and be able to reap kills and make the contest based on pilot capabilities
You just said it, you were able to soften or take advantage of a softened plane, but if you did not have an able pilot in your team the game would have been a wipe I would guess.
There is no reason not to give the infantry better AA capabilities, they have upped the power to planes with the reticule, and the napalm bombs are amazingly powerful so why not let us have a counter that is not based on hoping that your team has a decent pilot.
Tanks can be taken down by a single player easily, but with the current set-up it is unlikely that unless the plane has been softened up by an allied plane you will be able to take it down, and if you do so, then with the current re–spawn he is up in the air practically immediately.
Did the Type100 take a performance hit with the 5.2 patching?
I’ve noticed a huge uptake in the number of air-bursts with no damage. Tonight it was 5-1 no damage vs damage and many extreme close range head on.
Also, 10 rounds head on with a bofors should to more than tickle a plane
Finally, frontline AA placement is horrible on Wake in the final stage, right next to the line. Seems like there are some weird triggers to in that the last time I played that made as Japanese the guns were destroyed and could not be rebuilt. Could not be rebuilt…I just logged off in disgust. I also logged off in disgust tonight on Iwo Jima after the AA I was towing from the beach magically disappeared when the frontline changed to the next section.
The biggest problems with the AA guns most of their time is their location on the map.
More often than not they are out of the way instead of strategic locations. They are also in holes which really damage their line of sight..
And there are also not enough of them per location. There is usually only 1 of them in a base. The minimum number of AA guns required per location is two imho. That shows in the Iwo Jima breakthrough on the third sector where the defenders can actually compete with the enemy planes thanks to having 2 40mm AA guns there.
Imho a plane equals 2 AA guns in the current balance and there are several planes per team. Go figure now why a lone of of the way AA gun is being just a nuisance and a free kill to the planes.
Yes and no. I do agree that there should be 2 SAA on BT maps and better locations. But the problem with Iwo is that the 2 AA makes it impossible to counter the Zero. You cant dogfight. You hardly cant do it on the 2nd sector where the defenders also have 2 SAA even if only one is being used. The Zero can more less fly without any counter farming infantry and it’s always the Zero going on huge killstreaks and mostly on Iwo.
Yea, you have to rely on a blind AA cannon or blind enemy fighters.
I always try and target the AA cannons first, and then deal with fighters second. A lot of times the zeros will just go on their bombing runs until you bother them.
The second you miss killing an AA cannon on a run and a zero decides you’re a problem, it can get pretty rough pretty quick.
I only started using the FF last week; I’ve shot down 16 planes with it so far.
That number is a bit misleading though, 'cause I couldn’t have shot them down unless various teammates had damaged them beforehand.
Also in order to get kills with the FF, I have to devote the entire round just to using the FF - as in: devoting my time 100% to scouting the air with the FF armed and ready.
And of course as someone also says above: 30 seconds after you’ve shot down an enemy plane, the enemy pilot is back up in the air with another plane.
It’s just hopeless to combat aircraft in BFV currently.