They are anti aircraft platforms. They are intended to shoot down planes. If you are close enough to get shot down, you are doing something stupid. That they continue to rack up kills highlights the fact that there is virtually no concept of tactics or even the basest strategy in the MAs, something the abysmal lack of effective AA weapons for the longest time encouraged.
I feel I must agree with this, which is probably a first,
and I want to address something Lusche said earlier, "and I think it was in this thread". About how the turret traverse and loading times are highly skewed in the game. Well its just my gut feeling but I'll bet none of the turret traverse times, load times, shoot till empty times, in any of the games GVs is historically correct. I know for a fact the Osti and M16s couldnt fire their full ammo load that quickly, nor could they traverse their guns that quickly, so how is the Whirbel any different?
The reason these Whirbels continue to rack up kills is cause guys haven't adjusted their attack tactics yet. They are to use to strutting around like Manfred von Richthofen, flying up and down runways picking off anyone dumb enough to spawn "like me", and then flying home at warp factor 8 to land their 9 kills while their drones give WTGs like they earned them. Yaknow I had a friend who flew Jugs in WW-ll and he used to tell me he'd make a sign of the cross before he dove into a highly defended German target, like an airfield, to release bombs. To these guys "low" around these types of targets was under 10,000' and they wouldnt dream of getting within 20mm range if they didn't have to. If it wasnt for the Jug, and its huge lead soaking engine, we would have lost a lot more pilots in the war. Thats how fearsome the German AA was.
The other day I shot down 5 airplanes while we were taking a town. These airplanes took off from the nearby strip and went directly to the town cause we only had a few fighters in the air. Then, at very low speeds, they twisted and turned over the town trying to straf the GVs. Well it was childs play to shoot them down. I probably could have killed 10 if I wasnt so busy shooting buildings. I bet I could have shot the 5 down with a M16.
And thats why a lot of guys are pretty good with Whirbels. Because they are used to shooting M16s and the transition was easy for us. The Whirbel is no more a "skilless platform" then anything else is. If anything is "skilless" it the guys who haven't changed their ways since the GV was introduced.
OK how do you defeat them? I always worry about the guys who pulls out at 2 to 3k and all of a sudden I hear a whistling sound heading my way. Ok, thats one way. Another way is to dive in the horizontal and never come in flat. And never, ever HO one. Even a good 110 stick is probably going to lose because in a whirbel we are sending clouds of 20mm up for you to fly into and then we start tracking you with bursts as you get closer. If you do HO one then make sure your coming in fast or the WW isnt looking at you. If Whirbels are taking down a town you have to roll tanks and get ords up to dive bombing range. If the enemy had the skill and the tactics to take out both ords and the GV then your probably going to lose the base. Barring some good M3 or goons hunting that is.
So now the game is more like the actual war and less like a computer pinball game. In other words you cant vulch as much or fly in ways that would have been suicide in the actual war. The new GV has made the game more of an actual flight war sim. And thats a good thing. I'll be very dissapointed if AH bows to the calls to perk it.
But at the least we have now "Whirbelnoobs" to take the presure off of "Lghay noobs".
