Id rather they introduce AA tanks and possibly a AA squad with heavy AA guns. This way we’re not seeing players spam AA to take ground targets out since a 20mm AA is a 1 hit kill to body armor with vitality, completely skips the down state because it does over damage which counts against the additional health you would have within the downstate, meaning it instantly kills anyone who isn’t a vehicle and even some BR I vehicles AA guns shred through. The community has already expressed AA guns being used on ground targets as incredibly frustrating and unfair, That’s the exact reason why AA works the way it does now. We already tried doing this and players abused it to an endless extent until the developers put a stop to it.
Too bad we can’t see people pulling off more trick shots, I’ve had quite a few occasions where I’ve taken a plane out as it flew low enough to drop a bomb with a PTRS. People forget that AT weapons and some small arms do an exceptional job at taking planes out, You don’t have to destroy the plane outright. You just have to damage the engines, propellers, or fuel tanks. Eventually, after enough time the person’s forced to bail out of the plane because it’s unable to be used when the engines fail due to lack of fuel or damage.
Historically speaking, AA guns were used as anti-infantry guns when there weren’t any planes to shoot at, like the Maxson turrets, the Bofors, the Flaks… It should be up to the tanks to deal with these guns, a single HE shell destroys them in one hit. The problem is that many tank players are often morons camping in the grey zone who don’t understand that tanks have to push on the enemy positions alongside infantry. I can understand that some open-top tank destroyers aren’t made to fight on the frontline, but something should definitely be done about the “normal” tanks camping at the rear.
Furthermore, in my suggestion, I have mentioned that these AA HMGs should have zero depression, because the gun is already at the soldier’s head, and if he tries to shoot at a negative angle, he would have to be on tiptoe, lol. Sure it could be used against infantry, but the enemy would have to be located on a higher position that the guy using the AA HMG, which is far from being the case everytime you play.
I have also added that there shouldn’t be any sandbags on these AA HMGs, because it should have a 360° rotation, and it is meant to be used at the rear, not on the frontline, because if youre on the frontline with this gun, you’re basically just a big target standing in the open.
I like this idea as long as the AA machine guns are inherently weaker than MG nests against infantry. Limit their ammo to 50 round MGs with slow fire rates but with the AA lead indicator (maybe even limiting gun depression to +2), and they’ll make a nice addition!
I know that there are different types of ammo for these guns : just take a look at the different ammo types in wt on vehicles that have these HMGs as their main armament.
For example, the HMG nests could use AP rounds, which are better against infantry, while the AA HMGs could use incendiary rounds, which are better against aircraft.
The mag size could also be a limiting factor : for example, the DShK has a 50 round box “mag” so you empty this thing really fast, but you could have 3 spare mags for this gun before having to resupply the gun, and also a fast reload time. While the M2 Browning has a 200 round box “mag”, so it could be all the ammo in the gun before having to resupply it, and obviously a slower reload speed. For the other HMGs simply using belts, it could be like : 100 rounds loaded in the gun and one spare 100 rounds belt before having to resupply the gun, with an “average” reload speed.
The fastest AA HMG reload would be for the Type 93 with a 30 round box mag, with 5-6 spare mags before resupplying the gun.
I find the overheating mechanic for MGs in general in the game to be very frustrating and unrealistic, I would really prefer to have to reload the MG instead of having to wait until it cools down. The most unrealistic part about this is the fact that the overheating mechanic is also applied to the tank MGs, and the british cruiser tanks have this MG as their coaxial armament, but it also has this overheating mechanic, which is completely inaccurate to say the least, because you probably already know that tests on the Vickers gun proved it could fire non-stop for EXTREMELY long periods of time.
True. I am not against MG nests having infinite ammo, but having to reload it instead of overheating would be much better. And having an assistant/loader that allows you to reload the fixed MG faster would be perfect, and this assistant mechanic could also be included for the machine gunner class when mounting the your LMG somewhere. We could also apply this mechanic to rocket lauchers and AT rifles too.
Helldivers is able to make this mechanic work, I don’t see why enlisted couldn’t do the same.
I have edited my first post to add the link to a historical handbook of the Vickers Class D and some pics from this handbook. I includes data and informations about the single and twin mounts of the Vickers Class D. The one I am talking about in this topic is the “Mobile Tripod Mounting”. Go check it out, it’s very intersting ! Link to the handbook : https://www.patreon.com/posts/vickers-12-7mm-0-69437456