no respect at all; to quote Rodney Dangerfield. As a defensive tool, field acks are almost useless.
This is proven by the number of people who get killed by them, veterans and newbies alike, and the many others who survive. Acks just aren't a threat to be bothered with, even though they die as soon as the enemy can be bothered to throw a few 50s at them or a couple of near misses with a 20mm.
The acks are so inaccurate for most of us that a single plane can successfully de-ack an airfield or render a VH completely defenseless against air attacks. Sure, if a plane makes enough passes over a base while ignoring the acks, sooner or later an ack will get lucky.....but not soon enough for defensive purposes.
Why is it that a 37mm HE round has to make a direct hit on an unprotected troop running to the map room to kill him, or 2 hits on his chute, while a near miss from a couple of 20mm shells kills the ack? Using realism as an excuse for the current set up is not acceptable considering the way gameplay has evolved.
In the interest of making gameplay more enjoyable and less frustrating for the 'unrewarded (no points or perks)' defense and a bit more challenging for the offense I would ask for the following:
1. Increase the hardness of the ack so nothing less than numerous hits with an osti, or a single panzer shell, or a rocket, or a small bomb can kill it. Potential vulchers can easily carry small bombs or rockets for this task but might have to get a little closer in to aim them instead of spraying and praying a burst of 50s from over 1K out.
2. Increase the accuracy of the field acks by a. removing the dispersion associated with the 37mm shell built into the game, b. removing some of the 37mm shell ballistic effects, and c. increasing the brightness of the tracers so one can actually see them beyond 500 yards in daylight and attempt to correct one's aim.
On CVs, all we ask is for increased accuracy of the 5" guns so that we have a little better chance of hitting the dive-bombing lancs, 17s, 26s, and 24s before they can drop their bombs. A skilled 5" gunner should be able to hit them 6k out (indicated); right now the effective range is about 3-3.5K.
Adding these effects would make up for the lack of acks at any field. At a large airbase IRL there were a lot more than 3 guns shooting at any plane that dived on the field and more than 1 at a V-base. With a better chance to survive, better accuracy, and longer range if a gunner has some skill we might be able to delay the vulchfest at an airbase long enough to get a few planes in the air for defense, and make it a bit harder for a single 110 followed by a goon to capture a VH.
