Low Caliber Flak Issues

[Butcher]

Hiho,

today I played Operation Cobra and the map was dominated by aircraft again. Neither the Allied nor the German Flak could do shit to keep the skies clean. With low caliber Flak I mean the German 20mm on the Opel Blitz, the 20mm quad versions and the allied quad .30 cals.

First I was flying around in a FW190 and took several hits from an allied anti air halftrack. It only took away around one third of my health bar despite hitting me for a duration of about 3 seconds.

After being shot down and the allied aircraft raping the airfield and trainstation as so often, I decided to take the Sdkfz 7 with the quad gun. There were about 20 "engagements"/ aircraft passing by in the 12 or so minutes I was alive and I managed to get 1 kill and 1 assist in total. Despite hitting several planes for quite a long time, the only thing I managed, was to get some of them smoking. The Opel Blitz didn´t manage to do any better. In previous versions using the Flak promised far better results. Also aiming seems to have changed... I´m not totally sure about this, but imo. you have to aim differently to previous versions and aim a lot further in front of your target to hit it.

It seems that often the shots bounce. All i get is some explosion effects on my targets, but they continue flying as if nothing had happened. Why is that? I already heard that the anglemod also applies to aircraft, but as it seems it´s exaggerated.

I think the ineffectiveness of anti aircraft guns has become quite an annoyance - especially on Operation Cobra.

Your thoughts?

[Oberst]

Just guessing:

But isnt this an effect of the angle mod, which is applied to airplanes, too?

[CHRISTIEFRONTDRIVE]

Been covered in quite a few threads, flak is largely useless now, especially against faster planes like Mustangs and FW190s. The only reasonable way I've found to combat this is to let the plane fly by, and then send a volley at him when he's past, because sometimes you can get lucky and kill the pilot instead of blowing up the plane. Anglemod is bollocks, especially when it comes to AA. Machine guns are more effective, maybe try them next time.

[|7th|Nighthawk]

Yes, machineguns are not affected by the mod. Next time a plane shows up I want every tanker and every LMG to fire on it That will get the plane down.

[PanzerKnacker]

That's the only way of dealing with them, and the Germans have massive advantage in the form of MG42s as a spawnable kit, and it's ok since Allied AA are actually the planes themselves, whereas the Germans need to use the smallest callibers (US has the M16 AA halftrack which is really effective)

[Korsakov829]

I've not really noticed anything. All AA guns work fine for me.

[THeTA0123]

I've not really noticed anything. All AA guns work fine for me.

Same here

FW190 still being OP aswel. But maybe the germans could get one vierling replaced by a Flak 3.7CM. The bofors has no problem aswel.

[PanzerKnacker]

Dafuq dude, the FW takes über long to shoot down em stangs and bolts, you been smokin weird stuff again?

[sn00x]

I've not really noticed anything. All AA guns work fine for me.

Same here

FW190 still being OP aswel. But maybe the germans could get one vierling replaced by a Flak 3.7CM. The bofors has no problem aswel.

damn that flak 37 would have been nice..

[hyperanthropos]

Dafuq dude, the FW takes über long to shoot down em stangs and bolts, you been smokin weird stuff again?

just not playing the game you know.

[Harmonikater]

In no way is the FW OP ffs...
It's already impossible to win a dogfight against a Mustang or the new Spitfire (presuming both pilots are equally skilled). Mustang and Spitfire can fly circles around the FW. AND the Mustang has bombs, which makes is the most OP plane on cobra.

Id suggest removing the Mustang with Bombs from cobra, because right now Allies pretty much have air superiority on cobra (which is historically correct but I think in this case we'd rather have balance first), so that the matchup is similar to Op Totalize which I think works out much better.

[THeTA0123]

bullshit

FW190 is the most powerfull plane in this game
infact the FW190 shouldnt be present at ALL

No way removing another aircraft from the allies...

[KnowYourEnemy123]

bullshit

FW190 is the most powerfull plane in this game
infact the FW190 shouldnt be present at ALL

No way removing another aircraft from the allies...

Nope, the Mustang and Spitfire beat the FW easily in a dogfight. Just try it.

[PanzerKnacker]

Back to blind allied bias are we Theta? I just started to like you 

Map needs more spawnable MGs

[Surfbird]

Lately I mainly use the 88 with time fuse shells as AA gun. When you hit, the enemy plane is down. Unfortunately many of the 88's are aupposed to be AT guns and have that shield and are therefore useless as AA guns. I'd love to see more 88 that are able to work as AA guns, being equipped without that shield. The shield itself seems to be fixed at the 88, otherwise I'd suggest to implement some shield up/down with the arrow buttons.

Using AA guns like Flak 38 or Breda cause the most problems for me. Even with several hits, the enemy plane is just smoking usually. They fly away and return 30 seconds later diving from anywhere down on your AA gun and that's it. Problem is that every pilot knows the AA gun positions by heart of course and is just going to strafe them all the time. I would not mind if slightly more damage was added to those.

The Bofors for example seems to be quite fine though. Can be tricky to hit, but sometimes you even one-hit airplanes. And the American Quad did not cause too many problems either, I made some good experiences with it.

Regarding LMG'S vs planes. You don't necessarily need a Mg42 to be succesful. Using a Bren against Stukas really causes more damage than you might expect. When you position yourself close to a flag or position that is likely to get bombed you can shoot them from quite close range and cause serious damage when your bullets hit, while there is no plane diving down on you a few seconds later. It's quite fun.

The other big problem with AA guns on Cobra is, that the sky is foggy as hell. You really can't see much and enemy planes dive down on you from nowhere as well. The upside is that the Thunderbolts can't spot the German tanks from miles away which would make them even more powerful. But in comparance to Gazala for example: You have a crystal clear sky there and you can see enemy planes from far away. On Cobra the fog doesn't make things easier for AA gunners at all.

So this along with some AA gun weaknesses makes Cobra even worse for AA gunners than other maps imo.