AAA should be better at supression...

[Tank Girl]

Short as that:

If AAA is forbidden by the Devs to actually shoot down planes it should excel at supressing them.

But even concentrated AAA or layered AAA is just incapable of supressing planes early enough.

Increase AAA range or increase supression against planes or both. Then (maybe) I be fine with that ridiculous air game you invented...

 

[CyberianK]

M15/M16, Tripolsten, Tripolstenwaggons, Flakvierling, Flakvierlingwaggons, 88s with command and in small groups do insane suppression and can actually (except 88) shoot down stuff fine. Especially Canadians and 3rd Armored but basically all the above mentioned units are fine.

 

[Tank Girl]

I have like 1000 pts in AAA with 12th SS and there is still a carpet bomber that comes to the AAA lol...

Not even talking about Panzer-Lehr.... 3 88 are nice, but they need more than one shot each to supress a plane and they never shoot down any. So I wonder why they even exist...
Combination with Gepard is also not sufficient.

 

[dmdelor]

It's something I'd love to test with my Wargaming buddy when he picks up N'44 in a week or so, but my impressions so far certainly have been that AA works very poorly as a "shield". Unless your opponent is taking a tour deep behind your front lines, it feels like planes generally don't have much trouble bombing targets that are near AA, so unless it's making the bombs miss badly enough that they're not hitting the target it doesn't seem to be blocking much.

It's nice that they also act as a decent SUP unit against soft targets and may be increasing the repair times of the target, but they're super unsatisfying and don't feel like they're paying for the points you dump buying them.

 

[Tank Girl]

It's something I'd love to test with my Wargaming buddy when he picks up N'44 in a week or so, but my impressions so far certainly have been that AA works very poorly as a "shield". Unless your opponent is taking a tour deep behind your front lines, it feels like planes generally don't have much trouble bombing targets that are near AA, so unless it's making the bombs miss badly enough that they're not hitting the target it doesn't seem to be blocking much.

It's nice that they also act as a decent SUP unit against soft targets and may be increasing the repair times of the target, but they're super unsatisfying and don't feel like they're paying for the points you dump buying them.

Planes can roam almost freely even with AAA.
The thing is, microing ASF is extremly important and takes away alot of attention. Its just sad that pure ground players have zero handling vs. Plane spam.
I even switched to a more camping play style because its just more rewarding to lean back, kill with arty and hunt planes with ur own ASF.
Ah, and come C you just push them to death with Jagdpanthers...
But not, not exactly what I think is so enjoyable.

In 4vs4 its even worse, with less action and more boredom

EDIT:
I get the idea of asymmetric balance with allied planes beeing the hammer to smash ze german tanks.
But at the moment planes can kill a Kingtiger more easily even with HE than any amount of Axis AAA can kill one plane.

 

[Drang]

Flak had an absurdly low P(K) with tac air assets.

 

[Tank Girl]

Flak had an absurdly low P(K) with tac air assets.

Translation please?

I asume it means IRL the axis AA was useless?

Well, this is not "Axis getting fucked in Falaise Pocket" - Game but Steel Division which seems to more of an alternate approach to history.

Also, I read alot about how dangerous concentrated AA was in Normandy. Something you can ignore does not seem to be very "dangerous".

 

[me987654]

Tactical Air Power is FAR too effective against AFVs in game. It's totally ahistorical

http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/articles/tactics/tank-busting-ww2.php

 

[Thonar]

Me987654 is right.

AAA isn't the problem but planes are since they don't lose accuracy effectively even when supressed which is a big deal.
At the same time they don't suffer from "debuffs" (as e.g. for tanks "Shooter knocked out" etc.)

There are only two outcomes to a ground-attack currently:
A) A direct hit
B) Fall back

No intermediate as (from worse to better):
1) Drop Payload too early (possibility of hitting own troops)
2) Drop Payload too late (possibility to fly too deep into enemy territory)
3) Pilot Disorientation (Plane moves back towards the own release point in a straight line and starts circeling)
4) Lost Target (Pilot got nervous and/ or lost sight on target due to evasive maneuvers,...) (as 3. except Plane starts an Attack again)

(Fighters should be excluded of these ^, Fighter Bombers not)

Why is this needed?
If your AAA isn't able to cause a "Fall Back" than all suppression done so far is for Bombers meaningless (not so for Fighters thus Fighters shouldn't get these points).
Veterancy for Bombers is not really a big deal yet but would be so.
Thus AAA gets a chance to stop an attack without filling up the suppression bar completely or to at least distort an attack as it should be.

A general deaccuracy on planes would kill the AB-Decks which rely on them... thus isn't advisable as planes would otherwise be a constant Coin-Flipping.

With the above debuffs for Bombers a general buff in their ability to supress targets they miss should be looked at.

 

[CyberianK]

I have like 1000 pts in AAA with 12th SS and there is still a carpet bomber that comes to the AAA lol...

Not even talking about Panzer-Lehr.... 3 88 are nice, but they need more than one shot each to supress a plane and they never shoot down any. So I wonder why they even exist...
Combination with Gepard is also not sufficient.

ROFL you used a Gepard please flail yourself with 50 lashes. Maybe this is one of the reasons you made this thread since you are doing it all wrong.

In Lehr you combine 88s with 37s and Quad20s. The non88s have to be a little forward of the 88s.
Again you can easily kill 1000++ of points of Aircraft regularly in MP games with a few hundred points of concentrated AA plus commander (250-400 points) depending on DIvision even without fighters.

 

[Vyllis]

Make AA too powerful and you remove air combat. Planes can't fire missiles at each other from their respective air space like in WG, while avoiding enemy shots with ECM.

 

[CyberianK]

Make AA too powerful and you remove air combat. Planes can't fire missiles at each other from their respective air space like in WG, while avoiding enemy shots with ECM.

You already have in 3v3/4v4 games extreme dense nets/pockets of 88s or vetted Polstenwaggons/M15/16 where planes even fast bombers can either not reach their target at all or are instantly shot down by AA after dropping their bombload. Sure that can be broken with Arty and AA killed or driven off but that's probably wanted gameplay. I think AA is in a good state except the 20mm single barrel issue which is already discussed in many threads.

 

[AV8B]

Don't use single barrell 20mm AA pieces, use the tri / quad 20mm platforms, 37mm, 40mm, or 88mm platforms and buy fighters.

You only need 2 of these pieces to make an effective 'net' to fall back too, doing this allows you to use even a single fighter with no veterancy with decent effect as your AA will force aircraft to fall back and you can slot in on their tail. Adding more and spreading it out increases the effectiveness of the net.

One of the best tactics is to bring out your fighter and if your enemy doesn't know you have anti-aircraft you can bait him back over with your fighter, force him to fall back, then using a high maneuverability fighter, slot in on his tail and kill him before he escapes.

Think of anti-air as a net where your fighters can mostly fly with impunity or at a much lower risk of dying, for instance having 88's up on the map and bringing in a Ju-87G or HS-129 allows your slow ground attack aircraft to fly back over your safety net before fighters can sit on its tail as it leaves the battle.

What I agree with OP on is that the single 20mm AA pieces could be a little bit cheaper or a little bit more effective. Other than that AA in general I don't think needs many buffs.

 

[Thonar]

You already have in 3v3/4v4 games extreme dense nets/pockets of 88s or vetted Polstenwaggons/M15/16 where planes even fast bombers can either not reach their target at all or are instantly shot down by AA after dropping their bombload. Sure that can be broken with Arty and AA killed or driven off but that's probably wanted gameplay. I think AA is in a good state except the 20mm single barrel issue which is already discussed in many threads.

I agree completely but here is the thing:
It will never be really balanced when it is balanced around two absolutes:
A) AA is too powerful
B) Planes are ignoring all of AA

Currently as it is pretty much like this:
Planes come in and bomb with 100% accuracy. - AA is bought, but useless as it isn't enough to surpress the Planes fully - More AA is bought until a critical mass is reached and Planes become ineffective - Arty is bought to destroy the AA network - AA suffers casualties and Planes become Killers again

There is simply no wiggle-room which must be created.
Everything else might lead to just switching absolutes within the game and/ or balance overall.

 

[DuroSVK]

Post a replay tank girl. I would love to see how you spent 1000 points on AA that did not worked.

 

[NoClass]

Flak had an absurdly low P(K) with tac air assets.

Translation please?

I asume it means IRL the axis AA was useless?....

...Something you can ignore does not seem to be very "dangerous".

P(K) is the "probability of kill" formula for a given weapon against a given target usually modified by a bunch of parameters. It can be hilariously futile to completely quantify such things, but if there's a lot of data, one can take a stab at it.

Historically, non-radar AAA was unlikely to kill with any given shot, but could throw up a huge volume of fire that would only increase as the plane neared. All but the most ballsy pilots would be hard pressed to ignore AAA, because even a single hit could be deadly. Further, even if the pilot was able to press home an attack, the fact that someone on the ground was trying to shoot down the plane might have a powerful psychological effect on accuracy.

TL;DR: Suppression mechanics are perfect for simulating AAA, though a slight buff to accuracy might be in order to discourage players who would leave their pilots loitering over the guns.


*edit* It should also be noted that being bombed was far more demoralizing if there was no way to return fire, even if that return fire was inaccurate (at least from what I've read). Of course, SD doesn't simulate that.

 

[CyberianK]

Some peoples here seem to consider AA useless if a bomber is able to drop a single bomb.
I think that idea comes from previous wargame titles where you were able to completely prevent all air. This is not wanted in SD by EUG.

If a 230 point bomber drops his bomb to maybe help kill something worthwhile but then is destroyed after the first run I don't consider the AA useless.

 

[Lomak]

AA is in a useful balanced state for 1v1. If it doesn't scale to 10v10 then the problem is just that teamspeak is OP when many play together and concentrate their planes on the weaker AA site. Not a problem to balance.