Hello world!
A quick history lesson:
The Quad .50 cal halftrack has been one of the most cost effective AA pieces since the game was released. In some decks, 2 or 3 of them was enough to even KILL planes upon release! It was a little known fact that if you had 2 M16s with a commander next to them, Bad strength planes should not venture near.
Recently we have had a patch which has increased AAA lethality across the board. +1 acc for 37mm guns. Some increased HE here and there... buff ROF on some units...
Out of this, the M16 has gotten even more lethal to the point where 2 vet 1 M16s have a good chance at killing ME109s and the like coming into range. Just about every plane, with M16 @ vet 2, will suffer coming into range against this AA piece.
The Tri-polsten and flakvierling do not seem to have this killing potential for equivalent amount of points, let alone what happens when 2 planes charge the M16.
When 2 planes come at an M16, the M16 stuns the first, aims at the second, and stuns that plane.
What the plane doesn't do however, is reload in that time, something the Tri-polsten and most notably the flakvierling does.
After a quick test, it takes 1600 rounds for an M16 to go on reload. This is 20 seconds of continuous fire @ vet 1 with some finger counting.
The M16 then has a 10 second reload.
The Tri-polsten has 7 seconds of firing, w/ a 7 second reload for comparison @ vet 0.
Why this is good is the following:
- M16 takes advantage of higher accuracy while the plane is falling back over the M16 where other guns would be reloading
- M16 is able to fire continuously at a single target the entire time it is within its firing envelope, meaning a ton of effective DPS is thrown down range from a single unit
- M16 can engage multiple targets as they are stunned with only the 5 or so second aim time in between.
The first bullet especially is why the M16 at higher vet is so deadly. (CTH = chance to hit)
@ max range @ vet 0, the M16 should have an 8% CTH. @ vet 1 16%, vet 2 27%.
@ 50% range ( where there are no accuracy debuffs) the m16 has
@vet 0 - 27% CTH - @ vet 1 - 41% CTH - @ vet 2 58% CTH
when a plane hits 50% range on just about every quad 20mm AAA piece, or single barrel 37mm, the plane begins to fall back and usually is out of ammo and goes on reload. This is not true of the M16 which is able to fully use the accuracy scaling to reap its deadly benefit.
The net effect has been that while we have buffed the lethality across the board for 20mm vehicles near pre-buff M16s, the M16 itself has seen the greatest buff as its already 2nd to none lethality becomes nearly god tier.
I hope this has been a nice explanation on why this unit is easily the most cost effective way to remove planes from the sky.
For you LL players though, you get lucky! One HS-129 B3 is able to stun an M16 before the M16 is able to stun the B3
----
Edit:
A quick wiki search revealed the vehicle should only have 200 rounds per gun but it is after all wikipedia. Currently the game models 400 rounds per gun. @ current ROF we would see about 10 seconds of fire rather than the 20 we currently see.
A quick history lesson:
The Quad .50 cal halftrack has been one of the most cost effective AA pieces since the game was released. In some decks, 2 or 3 of them was enough to even KILL planes upon release! It was a little known fact that if you had 2 M16s with a commander next to them, Bad strength planes should not venture near.
Recently we have had a patch which has increased AAA lethality across the board. +1 acc for 37mm guns. Some increased HE here and there... buff ROF on some units...
Out of this, the M16 has gotten even more lethal to the point where 2 vet 1 M16s have a good chance at killing ME109s and the like coming into range. Just about every plane, with M16 @ vet 2, will suffer coming into range against this AA piece.
The Tri-polsten and flakvierling do not seem to have this killing potential for equivalent amount of points, let alone what happens when 2 planes charge the M16.
When 2 planes come at an M16, the M16 stuns the first, aims at the second, and stuns that plane.
What the plane doesn't do however, is reload in that time, something the Tri-polsten and most notably the flakvierling does.
After a quick test, it takes 1600 rounds for an M16 to go on reload. This is 20 seconds of continuous fire @ vet 1 with some finger counting.
The M16 then has a 10 second reload.
The Tri-polsten has 7 seconds of firing, w/ a 7 second reload for comparison @ vet 0.
Why this is good is the following:
- M16 takes advantage of higher accuracy while the plane is falling back over the M16 where other guns would be reloading
- M16 is able to fire continuously at a single target the entire time it is within its firing envelope, meaning a ton of effective DPS is thrown down range from a single unit
- M16 can engage multiple targets as they are stunned with only the 5 or so second aim time in between.
The first bullet especially is why the M16 at higher vet is so deadly. (CTH = chance to hit)
@ max range @ vet 0, the M16 should have an 8% CTH. @ vet 1 16%, vet 2 27%.
@ 50% range ( where there are no accuracy debuffs) the m16 has
@vet 0 - 27% CTH - @ vet 1 - 41% CTH - @ vet 2 58% CTH
when a plane hits 50% range on just about every quad 20mm AAA piece, or single barrel 37mm, the plane begins to fall back and usually is out of ammo and goes on reload. This is not true of the M16 which is able to fully use the accuracy scaling to reap its deadly benefit.
The net effect has been that while we have buffed the lethality across the board for 20mm vehicles near pre-buff M16s, the M16 itself has seen the greatest buff as its already 2nd to none lethality becomes nearly god tier.
I hope this has been a nice explanation on why this unit is easily the most cost effective way to remove planes from the sky.
For you LL players though, you get lucky! One HS-129 B3 is able to stun an M16 before the M16 is able to stun the B3
----
Edit:
A quick wiki search revealed the vehicle should only have 200 rounds per gun but it is after all wikipedia. Currently the game models 400 rounds per gun. @ current ROF we would see about 10 seconds of fire rather than the 20 we currently see.
