The Wirble

[Karnak]

I don't think the Wirblewind should be perked.  I wouldn't mind a 5-8 ENY rating for it and a larger variety of AA vehicles to choose from though.

[LCADolby]

Oh gawd.. 

[caldera]

It doesn't need to be perked.  What it needs, is to be seen before your wings fall off.  I would gladly trade a 2.0k icon visibility range for the Wirble and Osti, in exchange for the absolute removal of icons for all non-troop carrying ground vehicles.

[bustr]

In the game I tested the range at which the round for the wirbel and osti stop registering hit sprites on the offline target.

Wirbel - 1700yds
Osti    -  2700yds

In real life the HE AA rounds for the guns in these flack are:

Wirbel FlaK 38 L / 112.5 - Effective ceiling 2200m (2405yds) Horizontal range 4800m
Osti  FlaK 43 L / 89 - Effective ceiling 4785m (5232yds) Horizontal range 4800m

I've been hit at 3000ft by the flak 38 auto batteries at fields. At least the range is kind to us. 2400yds = 7200ft. Now that would make de-acking the new Aces High imperative if you ever wanted your vulching and free runway picks again. It would make the wirbel the worst nightmare in the game reaching up to 7000ft.

The wirbel more often hurts our pride and greifs our efforts but, eventually we bomb them or tanks slaughter them. It takes a hoard or bombers to shut down a field for capture most times. If the wirbel could reach up 7000ft and out 5200yds, we couldn't defend our fields from them with jabo or their guns. Bomber guys would always be just late having to climb to 8k and try to figure out where the wirbles were in the grass. So Hitech made a gamey compromise with the Flak 38 and Flak 43 so we could have an air&ground game together and not runway spawn ourselves into a slaughter by wirbels and osti never leaving their spawn.

[Tank-Ace]

why would one choose the Osti over the Wirb...the Wirb has better visibility in the gunsight making it easier to track crossing targets. Lethality wise they are extremely close within  1.5k. because the Osti has poor barrel stability it offers little benefit in killing fighters that are diving on you and Bombers absorb the 37mm like its made of memory foam.

If something is within 3K and flying head on, it's in serious danger. If it's anywhere within 1.5k, it's not going to make it over your head.

One shot on a fighter, a bare handful on bombers, more effective against light armor (can even kill Panzers last I checked it), and the sheer intimidation factor of 37mm shells zipping by at 3k out.

I find it much more effective at maintaining some breathing space, since nobody even kinda slow wants to get close, and nobody wants to fly head on. Even if it's not as effective at knocking down a lot of aircraft if they decide to swarm you anyway.

[BaldEagl]

The effective kill range in-game for the Wirble is 1500 yards (4500 feet) and for the Osti 2500 yards (7500 feet).  In close it's harder to hit with the Osti but anywhere within it's full range it will take anything down with a single hit.  Wirbles generally need mutiple hits at shorter range but the four gun spray is more effective in close than the Osti's slower firing twin.

[whiteman]

Remember the carnage when the Wirbel was introduced to AH? With it's much faster turret, better views and mouse pointer gunsight? 27K kills to 14K deaths, almost 2 K/D ... 

Had 231 kills myself in the WW in that tour 

one of my first sorties with the WW was a airfield that was being vulched, had 14 kills before someone finally dropped an egg near me.

[Rich46yo]

Yeah when the WW was first intr'oed it was a Death Star. Now i think it has a good balance to it.

[Vinkman]

Needs to be dropped to a 5 ENY and perked.....
I've heard it has the best KD of anything in the game (snailman help me out here) and is used very extensively....
A few more Flak platforms other than the Osti and M16 would round out the selection.....

Why is K/D even applicable for a Whirble? the metric should be "What is the K/D of vulching planes, when whirbles are present?" or " "what is the kill ratio of bomb tards when a whirble is up?"

My guess...Vulchers have a K/D of about 6:1, and Bomb tards about 10:1.

 when they both drop below 1:1 then we should talk about perking whirbles

[danny76]

It is ridiculously effective as an AA platform. And considering it's entire production run was about 3 1/2 units, the reasons for its inclusion are spurious at best. If it's going to be in the game then include the built in stoppage  I.E the mag change

[JimmyD3]

Put the high speed turret gear back in, to let it turn faster.

[Butcher]

Why is K/D even applicable for a Whirble? the metric should be "What is the K/D of vulching planes, when whirbles are present?" or " "what is the kill ratio of bomb tards when a whirble is up?"

My guess...Vulchers have a K/D of about 6:1, and Bomb tards about 10:1.

 when they both drop below 1:1 then we should talk about perking whirbles

I agree 100%.

I just looked at a dozen tours I flew and tanked, when I averaged in every 1000 kills in a Tank, I was bombed less than 10% of my deaths. In Fighters, I was shot down less than 6% by Wirbls. Now depending on the ground attack plane, my ratio goes up to 30% depending on the model. In A20s I tend to bomb over 20 tanks per death, where an IL-2 I am lucky to break 5 to 1.

Situational awareness helps, the average joe see's a plane trying to take off and tries to vulch it without considering the field might be covered in Wirbs. And not dogfighting below 2k pretty much makes you immune to wirbs.

[earl1937]

Ship gunners have a k/d of 16,332:1 so far this month. PERK THE SHIP GUNS!!!!!!

(But seriously, if we're looking at stats, if the Wirb were perked it would have the lowest k/d of any perked GV in the game. Of course, it might rise some DUE to being perked as people would be less likely to take one in bad situations.)

Naysayers aren't going to like this, but, the Wirble damage threshold should be lowered!!! Hitting one from the side or rear with 20MM should kill it, but hard right now to "track" the darn thing!

[Karnak]

Naysayers aren't going to like this, but, the Wirble damage threshold should be lowered!!! Hitting one from the side or rear with 20MM should kill it, but hard right now to "track" the darn thing!

Hitting the turret armor from the side, maybe.  Hitting the hull, no.  It is a Panzer IV hull and would laugh at 20mm cannons.

[RotBaron]

Put the high speed turret gear back in, to let it turn faster.

Yes, I missed out on that.