Axis aa

[Panzer-Lehr-Division]

Hey, i wanna bring to Attention that axis aa is just crap. i've had game's and also one recently where we had 6-8 aa "1 20mm Emplacement 2 mobelwagen 2 88 2 def def aa* and so and no goddamn plane came down? Not only on tunnel map's i seen this but also on big map's it's not first time.. it's since a few Patches like this. are allie planes made out of Tungsten or what?

Allie's just Need 2-3 quad Emplacement or quad ht's to kill a whole strike of henschel-stuka and so and especially straferun's and Scout plane's get shot before even reach map mostly. as bigger the map as worse for Luftwaffe. while i see allie planes can rush over the whole map on 4v4 map's! PLZ CHECK THIS.

My idea:

Give allie plane's same armor/hp as axis

or

Give axis aa same stats against planes as allie aa do. that's no funny anymore. or am i forced to use planes only on tunnel map's? oh i forgot there 1 quad is even enough too stop a whole Bombardement. Please check this dev's as said no more fun.

[MarKr]

Give allie plane's same armor/hp as axis

OK...let me see what I can do...*puff* aaand done....since v1.0.0 All planes have same armor and same HP, only Henschels have a bit more HP.

Give axis aa same stats against planes as allie aa do. that's no funny anymore. or am i forced to use planes only on tunnel map's? oh i forgot there 1 quad is even enough too stop a whole Bombardement. Please check this dev's as said no more fun.

People very often don't notice the planes that get shot down. However it cannot be done the way you ask - weapon has some global stats and then there are modifiers vs each target type, including planes. So you cannot "set them the same way", however I think some time ago I did comparisons between Bofors and 20mm flak and then between quad.50cal and PE quad AA, I focused on accuracy and damage output vs planes and iirc, they were more or less the same

Well, I will check it and see what comes out...

[Panzer-Lehr-Division]

Give allie plane's same armor/hp as axis

OK...let me see what I can do...*puff* aaand done....since v1.0.0 All planes have same armor and same HP, only Henschels have a bit more HP.

Give axis aa same stats against planes as allie aa do. that's no funny anymore. or am i forced to use planes only on tunnel map's? oh i forgot there 1 quad is even enough too stop a whole Bombardement. Please check this dev's as said no more fun.

People very often don't notice the planes that get shot down. However it cannot be done the way you ask - weapon has some global stats and then there are modifiers vs each target type, including planes. So you cannot "set them the same way", however I think some time ago I did comparisons between Bofors and 20mm flak and then between quad.50cal and PE quad AA, I focused on accuracy and damage output vs planes and iirc, they were more or less the same

Well, I will check it and see what comes out...

Thx


About bofors, well i feel like they weak too.... you Need 2-3 bofors to kill 1 plane. crusader is medium like sometime it does nothing sometimes it good it's just good with veterancy, it's those quad 50 are totally wounderweapon against planes o.o

[sgtToni95]

You should even place aa properly, they cover certain map areas and they need to aim the plane when they spot it. That influences aa efficiency too. Sometimes i have trouble even with 2 axis aa on a small map. It depends on a lot of factors.

[Krieger Blitzer]

I guess I can confirm what Lehr says, AA on the Axis side seems to be much weaker for some reason.

And btw, I think the Crusader is actually even more powerful than Quad AA guns... I guess it's BY FAR the most deadly AA unit in the game vs air planes!

[Mr. FeministDonut]

Confirm, PE's AA truck is too bad, so like 3 of them could not score a plane, flying over it

[MarKr]

OK, so I tried to compare the AAs again. I tried to compare the "rapid-shooting" (quad .50cal/20mm flakvierling/Crusader) between each other and the the "slow-shooting" (Bofors/20mm Flak38). The rapid-shooting usually have low damage-per-bullet and lower accuracy but they shoot tons of bullets so the number compensates for low accuracy, the slow-shooting guns have better accuracy but shoot significantly less bullets but also have higher damage-per-bullet.

I tried to calculate "average damage per burst". Burst is the sequence where the gun continuously fires. Bursts are separated by cooldowns and reloads. However many guns have "minimum and maximum length of burst", "maximum and minimum damage" etc. so I always went for the average value because that is what you mostly get.
The formula I used was:
"average number of bullets in a burst" * "accuracy modifier at max range" = "how many bullets on average hit in each burst"
and then:
"how many bullets on average hit in each burst" * "average damage per bullet" = average damage per burst

The results were:
quad .50cal (the one that AB can build/M16 withOUT AA mode): 44.1
PE flakvierling (what Luft pios can build): 47.04
Crusader: 71.28
Bofors: 49.5
WM 20mm flak38 (which Def doc can build): 74.39

Planes have 75HP, Henschels 100HP. Ofcourse criticals play a role here too but they are set the same way for all of them so if the results are more or less consistent (as it is in the case of .50cal, flakvierling and Bofors) the criticals do not play any significant role.

Anyway - the results show that Crusader and Def doc flak38 are the most potent AA units, on the other hand the difference in performance between quad .50cal, 20mm flakvierlink and Bofors is negligible so it does not confirm what Lehr wrote about "quads being super effective while Axis AA useless"
I will have a look at Crusader and flak38 to bring them more in line.

Also 20mm flak 38 is also mounted on some other vehicles - Opel truck, WM halftrack, Flakpanzer 38 - these have usually different stats,mostly lower accuracy vs planes because they are not meant to work as AA defense but as ground support, so their AA performance is worse than the one of the emplacement.

[Krieger Blitzer]

So I was absolutely right with my feelings about the Crusader.

Though, I have to admit that I've actually never felt the same about the WH 20mm flak cannons...

But what about the 37mm flaks? I mean Ostwind, Def doc 37mm flak panzer? Have you ever tested those?!

Your efforts are highly appreciated.

[Mr. FeministDonut]

Also 20mm flak 38 is also mounted on some other vehicles - Opel truck, WM halftrack, Flakpanzer 38 - these have usually different stats,mostly lower accuracy vs planes because they are not meant to work as AA defense but as ground support, so their AA performance is worse than the one of the emplacement.

For me playing on huge size map, invest in three of them, pushing to the limit, still came to a shitty result in defending SE artillery units. Is it supposed as a following to concept, having PE's two doctrines having no AA defence? Just asking, so it would be no questions toward balance later

[MarKr]

For me playing on huge size map, invest in three of them, pushing to the limit, still came to a shitty result in defending SE artillery units. Is it supposed as a following to concept, having PE's two doctrines having no AA defence? Just asking, so it would be no questions toward balance later

Actually the Opel with flak seems to have the weakest stats in terms of accuracy vs planes, but it has the strongest stats in terms of damage vs planes...but high damage counts for nothing if you don't hit :/.
To answer your question - I believe it was intended that in PE on Luft has decent AA defense while the other two doctrines have poor AA capacity. It is just my assumption, I wasn't there when these doctrines were designed but it seems to be their intended weak side.

[Redgaarden]

@Tiger. I have always felt that wh 20mm is the best anti air. That is all.

[Krieger Blitzer]

Well, ya.

For some reason though... I tend to believe that 37mm flaks are the worst of all, specifically when HE rounds are loaded! Although I might be wrong.

[idliketoplaybetter]

One that def doc has, single man AA, is the most tricky in my experience.

[Krieger Blitzer]

Single man AA ??

[idliketoplaybetter]

Ye, cheapest one. 1 member operatable.

[MarKr]

@Tiger. I have always felt that wh 20mm is the best anti air. That is all.

Depends which one. According to average damage per burst, they go:
1) Flakpanzer 38(t)
2) Static flak38 (naked/emplaced)
3) Halftrack with flak38

But there is more to it because Flakpanzer needs to turn the whole chasiss to fire, which takes time during which the plane can travel significant distance and potentially drop the payload. Also vehicles have their accuracy dropped by 50% if they shoot while moving, which gives to the static AAs a bit of an edge because they cannot accidentally start moving etc.

But generally the AA stats are quite crazy when you go from a unit to unit - if we leave out Flakpanzer38 (for the reasons stated above), then the best AA unit in the "average damage per burst" view is Wirblewind - it is twice as good as M16, almost 4x better than Ostwind, in "static AA mode" best AA unit hands down...still checking this.

[Krieger Blitzer]

Wirblewind seems to have a very low magazine for some reason though, it shoots very little then stops for loading... That's just weird.

What is even more strange, is the Ostwind. This vehicle is completely un-realistic in Bk Mod btw. Believe it or not, it was more realistic in vanilla CoH.
If you compare, you would notice how the Ostwind in Bk Mod shoots as fast as 20mm cannons, which is total bullshit actually. The Ostwind in vCoH on the other hand is shooting just as supposed.. a bit slower, more like Bofors. And if you would load it with HE like in Bk Mod (i know this is not possible in vanilla CoH but I am just illustrating), then the explosion would be bigger, or I mean pretty similar to 37mm AT gun HE.
But now in BK, it fires so rapidly somehow...

[Warhawks97]

The Ostwind has always been the most potent AA unit for me (but i never really played def doc). I never had any other unit that cleared the sky like the Ostwind did.

However, when the calculations are true its just another mess i hate in this mod. But its typically. Axis single 20 are made by axis, so it must be better than Bofors (which is credited to be one of the most successfull anti air guns at its time).

Also multiple barrel mounts were developed to perform better against the new, very fast flying planes of world war two. Single cal 50 and also 20 mm quickly outdated because (1) their rof didnt ensure to knock out a plane in the very short moment you can actually fire at it (in BK, we dont have close range and longe range anti air which is sad) and (2) a didnt hit didnt ensure killing a plane (esspecially true for the cal 50). So there were two further developments. The first was the development of heavy calibre automatic guns that allowed to fire at planes sooner and at higher altitude with high accuracy and "one hit to kill" philosophy. Furthermore the shell was large enough to mount different fuses making the shell exploding near the target. The US had the most advanced (but only used in the pacific theater on ships mostly) with radio proximity fuses.
The other development were twin and quad mounts (or more) as close range defence against fighter bombers and straffing runs. The ammount of bullets fired in second largely increased the chance to hit the target and that multiple times in the very short moment the plane was in front of the barrel(s). The weakness here are low magazin capacities as the german 20 mm had (only 20 rounds per clip). In order to avoid that they developed guns that had clips instead if magazins and you could put the next clip on top of the other before it had been depleted. That was possible for the bofors guns but also for the axis 37 mm Flak 43.
The ultimate development being used were quad 40 mm bofors guns on allied ships in the pacific.


What does this mean for the topic?:
That we could and should deeply think about AA performences again.

In terms of effectivity the 40 mm and 37 mm should belong to the best in general due to accuracy and one hit kill chances. That followed by quad and dual mounts and lastly the single 20 mm and finally single cal 50.

How exactly could they behave?

1. 40 mm and 37 mm would have a high damage, superior accuracy at range but also very decently at any other range and, if any, very short reload time for continues shooting due to clipp system. It shouldnt mean to ensure kills, just saying that they would be the best when taking all aspects into account.
2. the quad 20 mm would have average accuracy at range, therefore extremly effective at what comes closer. A top class point defense aerial defense. The disadvantage would be short bursts due to limited magazin capacity but average reload time.
3. quad cal 50 would be less deadly in the same burst duration as the quad 20mm and slightly less accurate, therefore the burst duration would be quite long due to large ammo capacity. The reload time would however take quite long. Generally a good point defense weapon.
4. Dual mounts (cw 20 mm and cal 50) can be explained by itself now obviously. However for CW the trench in could improve accuracy ( as all static modes would do)
4. Single 20 mm and cal 50 would be the last in the line. However static modes (or ground mounted) would provide better accuracy than those mounted units without. But generally multiple would be required to protect an area.
5. Furthermore we were teached by markr that all aa guns have a circle and planes which flight path crosses it will be fired at. Here again, calibre could make a difference with the larger one have a larger circle than smaller ones.

That way, aa´s would be more different and special, clearly supposed for certain roles and the decision which to build a strategic one. For covering larger areas larger guns are preferd but at higher cost. Esspecially good to counter henschels and straffing that start shooting from a distance.
Smaller ones (esspecially quads) wouldnt cover a really large area (simply their circle of activation is smaller and accuracy at far distance quite low) but they would be cheaper and good in defending nearby units esspecially against bombers by shooting them before the drop.
Single mounts would be rather supportive, deployed in numbers or simply focused on ground support role.


But from what i can see currently its mess. I dont want to say i tried to make it that way in my private stuff but i spend lots of time with it to get it working this way at least partly (couldnt finish my work).
Somehow i am not surprised about what markr figured. The single 20 mm is (was) in my opinion always way too crazy compared to others, being far more effective than its quad mount brother. The single one killed units better through smoke, killing vehicles as good as a bofors and sometimes it felt that it has a accuracy of laser guided ammuntion. I am not talking about the Puma 20 mm, but those (ugly looking) from def doc. That bofors comes out so bad while single 20 mm and crusader are so plain "OP"..... thats bullshit.

Wirblewind seems to have a very low magazine for some reason though, it shoots very little then stops for loading... That's just weird.

Yes, 20 round clips. That has been the weakness of german 20 mm aa guns (or most of them). The allied used oerlikon 20 mm on their ships with 60 round drum magazin.

What is even more strange, is the Ostwind. This vehicle is completely un-realistic in Bk Mod btw. Believe it or not, it was more realistic in vanilla CoH.
If you compare, you would notice how the Ostwind in Bk Mod shoots as fast as 20mm cannons, which is total bullshit actually. The Ostwind in vCoH on the other hand is shooting just as supposed.. a bit slower, more like Bofors. And if you would load it with HE like in Bk Mod (i know this is not possible in vanilla CoH but I am just illustrating), then the explosion would be bigger, or I mean pretty similar to 37mm AT gun HE.
But now in BK, it fires so rapidly somehow...

Nope. That weapon was a beast. 8 round clipp with 250 rpm (just the gunners couldnt put clipps quick enough so it made 150 rpm in praxis. But that would be reflected by reload or cooldown. The 20 mm had, depending which, 280-450 rpm. In praxis less due to reload. So the rof doesnt differ much.
The only thing is that the 20 mm in BK is too slow. I tried to increase it in my private mod but the sound kept the same. So for every shot you could hear it fired two or more which was also not satisyfiyng for me.

The 37 mm HE are correct (at least in relation to 75 mm HE shells). Also same calibre doesnt mean same bullet size. The Panther 75 mm was larger and heavier than those of 75 mm shermans for example. The 37 mm is just abit over the top. It would be more than that of the stuart tank i would say. I will do further researces here.

[MarKr]

@Hawks: but here it goes again - problem: efficiency of AA units vs planes -> solution: change the gun's effeciency in general (vs every unit, not just planes).
We cannot change cooldowns/reload times only when shooting at planes. That means that some of these units will become way more efficient vs infantry and light vehicles than they are now. That means that instead of pretty balanced basic base defense some factions will have stronger defense and some weaker. The only thing we can change without touching the overall balance is accuracy and damage vs planes, anything else (burst length, reload speeds, cooldowns etc.) will buff/nerf the weapons in general and that will lead to more balance problems.

[Kr0noZ]

What is even more strange, is the Ostwind. This vehicle is completely un-realistic in Bk Mod btw. Believe it or not, it was more realistic in vanilla CoH.
If you compare, you would notice how the Ostwind in Bk Mod shoots as fast as 20mm cannons, which is total bullshit actually. The Ostwind in vCoH on the other hand is shooting just as supposed.. a bit slower, more like Bofors. And if you would load it with HE like in Bk Mod (i know this is not possible in vanilla CoH but I am just illustrating), then the explosion would be bigger, or I mean pretty similar to 37mm AT gun HE.
But now in BK, it fires so rapidly somehow...

Nope, it's the other way around. The 37mm gun has 250rpm and the 20mm has 280rpm (looking at actualy weapon data), so the difference is rather marginal. That is why it has such a high rate of fire compared to vanilla^^

@Markr: can you not simply make clones of the weapons and have the base defenses be separate (filewise) so they stay, but all the buildable stuff gets proper values? I know that means breaking realism and having 2 seemingly identical things behave differently, but since base defenses are such a touchy subject I thing it would be OK to do that in order to keep them balanced.

[Warhawks97]

http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Waf ... waffen.htm
for those who can read german.

The 20 mm flak 38 had max 450 rpm. Previous flak 30 had 280 (in theory, due to reload less). The 37 mm flak 43 was a brutal thing. Previous versions flak 18 and 36 had just 160 rpm while the flak 43 had then 250.

@markr.

The single 20 mm is just broken (def doc one). And ive been saying that for how long? ages? The quad should bypass it in every aspect but instead the single 20 mm behaves like a 40mm/37 mm gun rather than a 20 while the quad 20 mm got slightly boosted to above MG42 efficiency. Just recently it was upgraded to a point where it could at least kill vehicles. And since the quad 20 mm is more expensive and requires a special build unit, why (the hell) isnt it simply a way superior to the single 20 mm (which you get right away and pretty cheap? I mean what needs to be adjusted? 20 round magz means bit shorter bursts but therfore extremly destructive. I also tested it untill i reached a point where it was balanced, fun to use and a more deadly version of the single 20 mm. You have 3 men on this gun which means that the reload time can be kept quite low. Short bursts but also relatively short reload times.
And ive been talking about tt changes. I mean honestly, i could theoretically send ya all the files i made and you can check it yourself. Its hard to explain what i actually did. But i can asure that so far every weapon has got its very own style and behaviour. Not that its perfect what i made, its just different and weapons more close to what people would think off this weapon would do. The 20 mm (but also cal 50) are basically just the same as it was with the 75 mm guns from axis. All the same at the first look but completely different weapons actually.

[MarKr]

@Kronoz: Yes, that can be done.

@Hawks:

And ive been talking about tt changes.

How is "reload times" and "cooldowns" related to TTs? TTs cannot modify those so you are talking about about modifying the base weapon stats and those affect everything. And I am not saying tha flak38 is not over-performing...my point was that you quite often take specific issues which are in the scale of unit-vs-unit performance and turn them into "it should be changed completely". That is not a good approach because if we change the quad 20mm to perform as you say, then it will shred light vehicles, it will shred infantry and all of that takes only 1CP so it would be available quite early and I think we can all remember how much fuss a certain individual made about "quad .50cal emplacement is invincible" - it was bullshit, but I don't really want to read walls of text about it all over again

[Krieger Blitzer]

@Kr0noZ
@Hawks
Well, maybe I was wrong then ^^

and I think we can all remember how much fuss a certain individual made about "quad .50cal emplacement is invincible" - it was bullshit

Hmm... I wonder who is that certain filthy individual?
Oh wait, did I just see that coming?!

Well, that was brought up due to requiring 0 CPs (unlike the Axis Quad 20mm cannons which require 1 CP) and most importantly, the HP of the US Quad AA emplacement actually seems way higher than the Axis one.. but anyway, this was one particular subject that was heavily discussed in the past already... And I am kinda fine with it now, therefore i would not really like to bring this subject up to the surface once again.
Though, I probably have to say that I actually liked the way of which you just managed to sneakily recap the whole thing; saying "certain individual" rather than mentioning my precious NICKNAME! <drowning in pride> That's funny.

[Warhawks97]

@Markr:

Problems:
1. The single 20 mm is simply working wrong. Desription tells me that i get a 20 mm. What i get is working like a heavy calibre bofors instead of a single 20 mm. Its damage per bullet vs vehicle is wrong, the accuracy is weird and the rof is absolutely wrong (sadly even if you change that the sound doesnt fit to the higher rof) and generally how it kills. Thats my point. As AA it should be worse than any high calibre gun or quad or dual mounts. But its not. It should be a cheap local multipurpose defense weapon and not "top class" wonder weapon. That would also fit more in the general idea of Kronoz idea of the new defense doc. Its not top but cheap enough and effective enough to slow advances and a cheap mulitpurpose weapon that can be build multiple times.
2. Mainly TT changes. Regarding the quad 20 mm you could make short but deadly bursts with reloads between them. I am not saying that vehicles would insta die (the current single 20 mm has simply too high damage per bullet vs vehicles) as shots might fail or not penetrate (depending what vehicle it is). But a Halftrack or whatever would get a severe punishment when the gun starts shooting from closer ranges. A burst would cause a kill or several crits at least from mid-close ranges. If anyone is fool enough to drive this close, well, his fault. He should know its a 20 mm (four of them) and not a HMG42.

And what is wrong with quad cal 50? Well, if its going to perform too good (why should it? The reload times would be longer than those of 20 mm but magazin sizes larger) against idk, vehicles, costs can be adjusted as well as the heath of the emplacment.
Furthermore what i never understood is, why do i pay ammo when i get support weapons like mortars, HMG and MG pit, but US mortar pit and all the 20 mm guns, quad cal 50, bofors etc costing fuel. I think they should rather cost ammo or both (but more ammo and little fuel). That would also prevent kinds of "overspam" as docs that do so are more relying on ammo than on fuel (Luft, AB, inf doc, def doc). So for each of these things build, it would limit capabilties elsewhere. Thus a overspam wouldnt be in the interest of a player anymore.

My question: Is it even possible to change that "circle of activation" for AA guns. This flight path thing for aa guns you know? The heavier calibres would have a larger circle and thus it would be more likely that planes flight paths cross the sector and activate the gun. That might also help to solve "base aa shoots all planes" problem as they would be less often triggered maybe (ok, brits have a larger calibre -.-)

[MarKr]

@Hawks: And I am not saying that the single 20mm works historically accurate. I am saying that this topic is about the efficiency of AA units vs planes while you're bringing up rework plans for changing efficiency of AA units vs all units in general - and nobody complained about the performance of AA units vs ground units (except for you, now ).

My answer: Not sure. I think the "circle of activation" has same diameter equal to the maximum range of the weapon it is using. I don't have it confirmed but I think it is like that. If it is so, then only units that have static AA mode could have increased "circle of actvation" because those change weapons. If we change it on normal units (such as M15A1/Crusader/emplacements etc.) it would also increase their normal fire range.