Firstly, I want to make it clear that I am a veteran player with 33 days of combat time in Enlisted. I started playing this game when it first launched its open beta, and to this day, I have fully completed the whole tech trees for the America, Soviet, and German factions, with only a few items left to research in the Japanese tech tree. As of writing this post, I have killed 184.5k soldiers, destroyed 4,724 tanks, and taken down 3,213 aircraft. I also have 835.5 hours of playtime in War Thunder, a game with a vehicle system similar to Enlisted.
I’m not mentioning my experience to boast but rather to express how much I love this game. I believe I have a deep understanding of the game, I have witnessed the history of all the tactics that exploit game mechanics and am qualified to provide feedback—yes, I am here to raise objections, especially regarding the proposed method to counter kamikaze tactics. While I agree that endless kamikaze runs are indeed problematic, but banning players from using other planes after crashing their aircraft is even more unreasonable. In fact, there are underlying reasons why kamikaze tactics have emerged.
In this post, I will take you through the history of kamikaze tactics, explain how they evolved to where they are today, and discuss why they still have a necessary role in the current state of the game. I will also suggest alternative methods to address the excessive abuse of kamikaze tactics.
When I saw the Preliminary Update Patch Notes on August 26th, I couldn’t sleep the entire night. I’ve hardly ever posted on the forums before, but this time I knew I had to speak up. If we, the veteran players who have poured countless hours and real money into this game, remain silent, our voices will be drowned out by those who have little understanding of the game and have never spent a dime. They are nothing more than armchair critics with no real insight.This is our last chance. I don’t want to see this promising game ruined by people who don’t truly understand it. I must stand up and voice my objections.
We all know that the kamikaze tactic only started to flourish after the merge update. Before the merge, each campaign had only a few aircraft squads, and each squad had a limited number of planes. For example, in the Berlin campaign, the Soviet had only the top-tier IL-10 equipped with 250kg bombs. I don’t think anyone would be foolish enough to kamikaze with a 50kg “potato” bomb. The British forces in Tunisia didn’t even have a single fighter with bomb or rocket loadouts! Using those low-tier planes for kamikaze runs made no sense. Only the U.S. forces in Normandy could field multiple powerful planes to meet the needs of kamikaze tactics, and even then, the dual-squad cycling mechanism required a motorcycle squad, which at the time was exclusive to Tunisia.
Therefore, before the merge, kamikaze tactics were not as rampant as they are now. However, after the merge update, veteran players gained access to aircraft squads from various campaigns. Now they can assemble a lineup of the strongest planes from each campaign, and with the special mechanics of golden card vehicles, they can even deploy two of the same aircraft (such as dual P-51s). Even the weakest air force, the Soviets, can now field an IL-10, I-185, and P-40E. This has created the perfect environment for kamikaze tactics to thrive.
So, it’s time to talk about how the kamikaze tactic rose to prominence—I think we all remember the bloody slaughter of the U.S. and Soviet forces by the Germans in the months following the merge update. Before the merge, the extreme imbalance in the Berlin campaign made leveling up the Berlin Axis incredibly easy and fast. The Berlin Axis’s weapons, especially the nearly invincible Tiger II (H) and the then-dominant infantry weapon, the FG 42 II, allowed them to tear through anything in their sights like tearing paper. Even the Soviet forces, with their superior infantry weapons and tanks compared to the U.S., were helplessly slaughtered by the Germans. After the merge, the top-tier German also gained access to the strongest silver SMG in the game, the Kiraly 39M from the battle of Moscow.
Soon, the top-tier matches were dominated by the German forces, armed with the most powerful weapons and the most comprehensive arsenal. Soviet players fled to low BR, seeking refuge with their PPS and T-28E, although due to the overwhelming number of German players in the top-tier, BR3 German forces could often enter lower-tier matches and wreak havoc (I’ll admit, I was one of those jerks driving the Panzer IV G/J and Stalingrad Panzer III N, which is why I know this so well). At least in the lower-tier matches, the Soviet forces could still put up a fight against the Panzer IV J, unlike the hopeless situation against the Tiger II.
But the U.S. forces weren’t so lucky. Their tanks were turned into scrap metal by the long 88mm gun and Panzerfaust 100, while their infantry melted like ice in the desert under the overwhelming German firepower. Although their air force was relatively strong, it was ultimately no match for the endless waves of Tiger IIs. This is when Chinese players,who always adept at finding exploits in the game, discovered the power of kamikaze tactics and quickly spread the word through QQ groups and Tieba forums. When non-Chinese players saw wave after wave of Chinese players using kamikaze tactics to destroy the Tiger IIs lurking in the grey zone, they were amazed and quickly followed suit.
This is the origin of the kamikaze tactic: the desperate resistance of the U.S. forces against the overwhelming German forces.
So,what advantages does kamikaze have over normal bombing runs? First, let me introduce you to the concept of “energy” in aerial combat. Energy is the sum of your kinetic and potential energy. The higher and faster you fly, the more energy you have. If you didn’t spend all your physics classes daydreaming about the hot girl next to you, you should know that potential and kinetic energy can be converted into each other. When you respawn with your plane, your energy is at its peak—you have great altitude and a decent speed.
As you dive toward the battlefield, your potential energy is converted into kinetic energy, increasing your speed. However, this also increases air resistance, and the energy lost due to drag far exceeds the energy your engine can produce. You start losing energy rapidly (not to mention some people who are so concerned about overspeeding that they cut the engine during the dive). When you fly back to base, you have to convert your kinetic energy back into potential energy, further depleting your already diminished total energy. This is especially painful for planes with weaker engines, as your speed will become very slow, and after reloading your bombs, you have to endure a slow turn at low speeds before initiating your next dive at a much slower pace than when you first respawned.
In the time it takes to complete one bombing run, a kamikaze pilot can make three or four runs. Kamikaze tactics almost guarantee that the bombs will land right on top of those arrogant tanks, making the anti-tank efficiency of kamikaze runs five times, or even ten times, much higher than normal bombing runs!
As time went on, the war between the exploitative mechanics and OP weapons finally had a victor—the U.S. forces won. While the German ground forces struggled under the relentless HVAR barrage , the real reason leading to their defeat was the departure of veteran players. Yes, for most players, the strongest faction is the best choice when starting out, and now—after the long dominance of the Germans—they have fully completed the tech tree，with no new items left to research there’s no point in continuing to play. This game has four factions, so why stick to just one?
And here’s where things get interesting. Following the principle that the strongest and most attractive faction is the first choice, the U.S. forces, who left a deep impression on the veteran German players, became their next choice. In other words, after completing the German tech tree, most of the experienced and powerful German veterans switched to the U.S. forces. They then used the same tactics they had once suffered from to crush their former comrades. This is why the German forces now consist mostly of inexperienced newcomers, constantly being beaten back by the Allies. The kamikaze tactic, once an Allied tradition, has been passed down and continues to be used.
So, after reading this, you might wonder: if the German forces were defeated, why do I still say that completely removing kamikaze tactics is a wrong decision? The answer lies here: the German forces were defeated, but they are still the same German forces. Despite the U.S. gaining access to the mass-purchasable silver T20 and the M26 that can penetrate the Tiger II’s armor, the core issues remain unresolved: the highly controllable recoil of the FG 42 II makes it superior to the T20, Tiger II can easily destroy M26 with one shot, while the M26 is forced to use APCR “toothpicks” to slowly poke at the Tiger II’s face. The Tiger II’s operator can even have the last crew member sit in the driver’s seat to prevent the M26 from killing it, then switch to the gunner position when the M26 player lets their guard down or runs out of ammo, and finish them off with a single shot. The U.S. forces don’t even have a decent infantry anti-tank weapon to counter German tanks!
The German forces may seem weak now, but they are still powerful—the only issue is that there are fewer skilled players. To sum it up: everything about the German forces is strong except your teammates. In my 3k battles, 40% were played as the German, and as long as you team up with one veteran friend, you can almost guarantee a win. With three people, you can dominate the battlefield, and with four, you’ll be fighting over kills. Just a small spark could reignite the German forces, turning them back into the OP faction that ruins everyone else’s gaming experience.
If that happens, the game will become like the old Berlin campaign, where players will have only two choices: get slaughtered or join the German forces. The crowded German teams will then be stuck in front of the grey zone, fighting over AI squads of only three or four soldiers to earn meager points. Removing kamikaze tactics would be the last straw that breaks the camel’s back, throwing the game out of balance once again. And oh, this isn’t just a straw—it’s a boulder.
Why is kamikaze still necessary at this stage? To answer this, we need to start with the game’s respawn mechanics. When you die while driving a tank, if you have multiple tank squads, you can respawn with another tank squad in about 10 seconds. This time window is so short that usually no other player has the chance to grab a tank before you can respawn in your next one. This gives you the opportunity to stay in a tank continuously, unleashing your most powerful firepower on the enemy. Unlike in Battlefield, this game doesn’t have a vehicle cooldown mechanic. When an experienced tanker decides to stay in a tank, you’ll find that all your resistance is in vain. Every time you go to great lengths to take them down, they’ll respawn in another tank and continue slaughtering your team.
For some veteran players, by using the double-squad rotation mechanism triggered by motorcycle or troop transport squads, they can even rotate between a Tiger II(H) and a Tiger II (P), or between an IS-2 (1944) and an IS-2 (1943). (Well, let’s forget about the IS-2 rotation; its anti-infantry capability is worse than a 6-pounder gun, and its gun mantlet can even be penetrated by a long 50mm gun with a BR of 2. The main problem is still the German double Tiger II rotation, or the Tiger II(H) + Panther 5G rotation.)
This results in an endless stream of powerful tank forces whenever the enemy team has a skilled veteran player. I jokingly call this phenomenon the “tank zombie horde” because, like a zombie invasion, the tank assault is restless and unending. The high-penetration, heavily armored German tanks are a mountain in front of Allied players. If the enemy tanker is experienced, they are incredibly difficult to destroy. An HE shell aimed precisely at your squad members’ butt is more deadly than a haphazard HVAR barrage, and sometimes your explosive packs or TNT can’t even penetrate their thick armor.Once I dropped a 250kg bomb just onto a Tiger II(H)'s top and it still survived.
Imagine the scenario where, after you’ve suffered heavy losses to finally destroy their tank, the same player immediately rolls out another one moments later. This is why we need kamikaze tactics—if you dare to stay in your OP tank indefinitely, I’ll keep kamikaze-ing you. Your every respawn will only add to my vehicle destroy count, and I’ll kamikaze you until you give up and switch to infantry, so we can play this game properly! Anti-tank guns can’t achieve this because, after being killed by your anti-tank gun once, the tanker will remember your position and respawn to take you out with a single shell.
In fact, the new anti-kamikaze system hasn’t completely banned kamikaze tactics. If you want to kamikaze, you can still crash into enemy tanks just like before, but now there’s a cooldown period between attempts. However, the problem is,since Enlisted launched on Steam, a group of unbearable players has emerged. These players are extremely selfish, have poor skills, and are stubborn, refusing to learn or improve. They seem to think that having a high KD makes them “pro” and obsessively chase after this statistic.To avoid dying and protect their “precious” KD, they always cling to a bolt-action rifle with a scope and snipe from a building far away from the control point, ultimately causing their team to lose the game. They don’t know how to drive tanks or fly planes, and they often crash their planes into the ground due to poor handling. But because the threat in the air is usually low and they can often parachute to safety if shot down, they hog the planes for the entire match to preserve their KD. Because of their poor performance, they rarely score high, and thus never unlock better planes, resulting in them wasting the team’s resources by flying a lousy plane with almost no kills for the entire match—this is even worse than sniping.
Unlike tanks, when they drive a lousy tank, it’s quickly destroyed by TNT, explosive packs, enemy tanks, or any kinds of anti-tank weapons, allowing experienced tankers to regain control of the tank. But when they get into a plane, they will absolutely not get out, and the team’s aircraft slots will be occupied for the entire match. No matter how much you explain how critical the situation is and how much the team needs that plane, they remain indifferent. I must say, Enlisted has never been, nor should it be, a game where KD matters, but these players are so stubborn, foolish, and selfish.
With the introduction of the anti-kamikaze system, kamikaze tactics now have a cooldown, but tanks can still be deployed endlessly. If you choose to bomb, the enemy tanks will tear through your team’s ground defenses, leading to a defeat while you’re busy reloading bombs. However, if you choose to kamikaze and take out the enemy tank with you or suicide after dropping bombs, even though you know the enemy tank will return, you’re forced to march to your doom as infantry like a soldier being driven to the front lines by a firing squad. When your infantry squad is slaughtered by the Tiger II and you finally think you can hop into a plane and revenge, you’ll be unpleasantly surprised to find that in your absence, the plane slots have already been taken by two flying apes. Tired of futile sacrifice, you wait for a chance to respawn only to be kicked from the game for inactivity, you’ll realize that you never got a chance to use that plane at all!
Yes, so here’s the issue: neither the U.S. nor the Soviet factions have tanks that can truly match the German King Tiger. The U.S. doesn’t even have a decent handheld anti-tank weapon. If an anti-kamikaze system like this is implemented, how are we supposed to deal with Tiger IIs, Tigers, and Panthers that camp in the grey zone? Even as a German player, when inexperienced teammates fail to counter Jumbos that slaughting our infantry you will need to kamikaze them,too. you might think that the anti-kamikaze system is protecting the infantry, but in fact, kamikaze tactics were created to protect infantry in the first place—they were just later abused. Until the Soviets get the T-44-100, the U.S. gets the Super Pershing with a 105mm cannon, and a bazooka capable of penetrating the King Tiger, the existence of kamikaze tactics is justified and should not be banned.
Lastly, this system also affects many players who are playing normally. Imagine you want to take an attacker aircraft to destroy enemy tanks, but the enemy has two planes controlling the airspace. You would first need to take a dogfighting aircraft with better maneuverability to shoot them down, then switch to an attacker. But if, after shooting down the enemy planes, your aircraft isn’t damaged and you’re flying something like a Yak-3 or BF109G10, which has little or no payload, what do you do? If you crash, you can’t switch to the attacker to fulfill your original goal. I have 3.2k air kills—I enjoy air combat, and it’s reasonable for me to bring aircraft specialized for dogfighting, right? I even jump into a plane and shoot down the enemy aircraft as soon as I hear them, then crash myself. But if this anti-kamikaze system is implemented, then all the air superiority planes with no loadouts will become totally useless. The money players spent on extra slots to bring the planes for suitable situation will be wasted. Is that fair? Am I supposed to just stay in the air after shooting down enemy planes, waiting for them to respawn? How is that any different from those apes wasting team resaurces?
So, how can we solve the current issue of kamikaze tactics being abused? Here’s my answer:
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Add stationary anti-aircraft guns to the maps: Just like in the Battlefield series, allow players who don’t bring an engineer squad or don’t know how to build anti-aircraft guns to still shoot down those enemy planes. Even the old quad cannons could find new purpose. In the Pacific maps, there are some damaged Japanese triple anti-aircraft guns. I hope the developers can repair these guns so that they can be effective on the battlefield.
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Increase the cooldown time for aircraft squads to 30s to 1min: The reason I say kamikaze tactics are being abused is that many players have strayed from its original purpose of stopping endless tank respawns. These players spend the entire match bombing as fast as possible. Increasing the cooldown time for aircraft squads will help curb this behavior. When they realize their aircraft squad is still on cooldown after a quick kamikaze run, they’ll start to prioritize high-value targets, like tanks, and take the time to find the best attack angle.
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Quickly introduce the T-44-100 for the Soviets(not IS3,we had enough with these useless 122mm cannon), the 105mm Pershing, and the M20 Super Bazooka or any other rocket launcher capable of penetrating the King Tiger for America: If Japan can get an imaginary tank destroyer, why can’t the U.S. get a slightly ahistorical rocket launcher?
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Move the aircraft resupply points closer to the battlefield and at lower altitudes, especially in lower-tier matches where planes are generally slower: If the resupply points weren’t so high and far away, causing slow resupply times, no one would need to kamikaze.
If any community managers read this, I hope you’ll pass it along to the developers. I know they rarely play their own game because I’ve played it for so long, and the only time I ever saw a player with a developer-exclusive nickname decoration was in a protected match back in 2022 when the protected match bug hadn’t been fixed yet. They should listen to the experienced players who know the game well, not the ones who only play as snipers and never spend a dime. Those players will ruin this game—this isn’t a commie game; it was made to make money. The developers should listen to the players who have invested a lot of time and money into the game, or else Enlisted will be destroyed by those who neither understand nor contribute to its commercial value.
