The problem with AA....

[Snitctongue]

Ive played about 4 battles now in steel division, its a bloody beautiful game, one issue though so far ive come up with is AA effectiveness, its just not as scary as it needs to be. It needs to do greater damage or some moral debuff making aircraft breakoff an attack run.

any thoughts?

 

[EUG_MadMat]

As answered in another thread:

Regarding AA:
- 20mm are mostly a "repellant", forcing the enemy plane to back off more than killing it (although 4x 20mm start being nasty)
- 37-40mm also act as a shield but start dealing some proper damages
- 88mm deals both damages & suppression.

To sum up: AA is a shield, fighters are the blade.

Also, keep in mind that most AA units turn out to be excellent fire support vehicles, and can even double as light (37mm & Bofors) or heavy (FlaK 88mm) AT guns.

 

[Snitctongue]

Thanks for the clarity there Mat =]

 

[Lith]

As answered in another thread:

While i do agree somewhat to what you said making the best counter for planes to be planes is just not a good idea overall.
i wouldnt expect a single 20mm flak to take down a plane but right now it takes a mass of them to actually scare planes off and i dont even know how much of them you need to actually reliably kill them because all of my aa which i had in my deck (4x flak 38 4x flak 37 2xflak 36) all at one place failed to bring down a single plane. (i tried finding the replay but no idea where they are located)

While i do not want planes to get killed by a pair of 20mm autocannons AA all over the board really needs a buff because right now when i see ground AA and i have planes i just try to attack it because im not really risking anything (just make sure no enemy planes are doing cap). Even if the enemy actually has 400 points worth of aa most of the time it will just make the plane fall back and it wont go down.

Making planes counter planes is removing the part of the game which is rock paper scissors and turning it into rock versus rock versus rock.

 

[Karlburg]

The problem is the light autocannons don't have the range to protect anything on the front lines- there's no real way to protect front line units short of 88s. The autocannons need a lot of time to work anyway.

 

[Meiya]

AA is way too weak as it stands allowing the enemy to simply call in a rocket run or two and force units to fall back right away. Understandly a 20mm gun is not an amazing piece of AA equipment with it's limited range but when planes run too close a 20mm strike or two would easily force a real plane to the ground. 37mm or 40mm should be a good all rounder of damage and range; in reality either of these calibers could destroy a plane in a single strike. If I'm trying to advance with proper SPAA coverage, suicide strikes with planes might be able to force it to a halt but the plane would likely not survive a hail of quad 20mm fire at close range giving a actual sense of risk when using your planes rather than the current system where you can keep doing it over and over because your plane will rarely die.

 

[3Form]

This is reminding me of RUSE, in the sense that as in that game here the function of AA is not to actually destroy planes, or even to deny areas of the map to enemy planes...

AA is actually here to allow you to establish local air superiority over your ground units.

You need to use fighters if you want to destroy enemy planes. What AA allows you to do is ensure that you'll win if the opponent sends fighters against your fighters. Your AA panics his fighters, your fighters then go on to destroy them.

It is much more difficult to establish air superiority when you have no AA!

I actually really like this, it's different from Wargame where a single AA piece can render your planes useless. Which was actually really lazy gameplay, other than SEAD you could generally destroy enemy planes just by leaving your AA to itself. Now in Steel Division if you want to destroy planes you actually have to be proactive about it. Get yourself a couple of fighters and always keep a CAP up. You might not prevent your ground units being bombed, but you will be able to take out his 160 pt plane...

 

[Lith]

This is reminding me of RUSE, in the sense that as in that game here the function of AA is not to actually destroy planes, or even to deny areas of the map to enemy planes...

AA is actually here to allow you to establish local air superiority over your ground units.

You need to use fighters if you want to destroy enemy planes. What AA allows you to do is ensure that you'll win if the opponent sends fighters against your fighters. Your AA panics his fighters, your fighters then go on to destroy them.

It is much more difficult to establish air superiority when you have no AA!

I actually really like this, it's different from Wargame where a single AA piece can render your planes useless. Which was actually really lazy gameplay, other than SEAD you could generally destroy enemy planes just by leaving your AA to itself. Now in Steel Division if you want to destroy planes you actually have to be proactive about it. Get yourself a couple of fighters and always keep a CAP up. You might not prevent your ground units being bombed, but you will be able to take out his 160 pt plane...

So in order to take down an enemy plane i need to spend money on my 140 point fighter and have multiple AA placed around in order to take down a plane? not exactly cost effective.

If i see a panther i try to take it down with a 17pounder i wont be trowing a challenger with a bunch of at guns to panic it because the 17 pounder is more cost effective.

aint nobody asking for a single aa unit to erase enemy craft but if i have 4 flak 37s i damn well expect a plane to go down when they open fire at it. Instead it just makes it evac (often it will even manage to drop its bombs before being panicked).

 

[Karlburg]

I don't mind AA making planes mostly evac rather than be shot down but they don't really ward off planes that well at all.

 

[KattiValk]

I feel AA shoot down rate is decent enough, but 20mm barely panics planes at the moment. Things like the Bofors and the Flak 88 work well, but the single 20mm pieces just feel really pointless at the moment. A cost or stress buff for them may be in order.

 

[Razzmann]

Also planes are easier to destroy when shooting at their back / rear, which is something to keep in mind.

 

[3Form]

So in order to take down an enemy plane i need to spend money on my 140 point fighter and have multiple AA placed around in order to take down a plane? not exactly cost effective.

If i see a panther i try to take it down with a 17pounder i wont be trowing a challenger with a bunch of at guns to panic it because the 17 pounder is more cost effective.

aint nobody asking for a single aa unit to erase enemy craft but if i have 4 flak 37s i damn well expect a plane to go down when they open fire at it. Instead it just makes it evac (often it will even manage to drop its bombs before being panicked).

No you don't need AA to take down bombers, you only need a fighter. You need AA when he starts sending fighters against your fighter. Just one AA piece will then swing a 1v1 in your favour, and can also be useful against ground units too. You could always pick up a multirole plane instead of a dedicated fighter too (look for good agility). A fighter can easily earn back its cost over the course of a game too.

This game isn't meant to be "I invested X points to counter his Y points so I should automatically win", because even in your Panther example, skillful use of the Panther can allow it to defeat the AT gun and rightly so.

Given that bombs in this game seem far less lethal than in Wargame I think it's fair enough.

 

[BrotherPedro]

Based on experience, you need 4 37 or 40mm AA guns to reliably put out enough fire to prevent enemy plane from firing. Less if you can place your AA ahead of the strike target. Even with this level of AA fire I usually only score 0-2 aircraft kill from ground fire.

Fighter can almost always take down a plane as long as it can catch the target. I actually find speed and number the deciding factor.