The Flak in real life was an extremely rare unit as I understand only a handful were ever made in the AH configuration. The AH MA though I think they are an overly dominant unit because of their extraordinary abilities; consider the following:
Whenever I see a flakpanzer I always immediately think of what the C-Hog used to be like in the MA. Specifically, the C-Hog used to be the best at everything, or at least a top competitor at everything. When you needed to kill GV's you brought the C-Hog, when you wanted to killed buildings you brought the C-Hog, when you wanted to kill bombers the C-Hog worked great, it was a deadly HO machine, in A to A and had fantastic roll, was tough as nails, etc etc etc... you get the idea.
Compare that to the flakpanzer:
When you need to defend from fighters, launch an Flak, 1 hit = 1 kill. When you need to kill GV's you launch an Flak, it'll stop or kill any GV in the game within a couple of hits, even a panzer will lose it's turret in a couple of hits and be defenseless. When you need to knock down a town/airfield you launch a Flak, it has enough ammo to take out every structure unlike a Panzer that will expend half its' ammo killing 1 hanger ... etc etc etc. Add to that, the Flak seems almost impervious at times to the Panzer AP ammo(a constant complaint in the forums), the Flaks turret seems strangely hardened to strafing runs from above, and the Flak also can be repaired which makes anything less than completely killing it something of a waste. Typically it seems far easier to disable the turret of a Panzer with an Ostie than to disable the turret of an Ostie with a Panzer.
In the current tour (not finished so these numbers are rough) these are the kill ratios on common GV's:
Panzer 1.28:1
M16 0.74:1
M3 0.30:1
M8 0.55:1
Flak 2.02:1
Last tour they were like this
Panzer 1.21:1
M16 0.78:1
M3 0.33:1
M8 0.54:1
Flak 2:01:1
Amazingly similar numbers.
The Flak had almost twice the total kills as the Panzer in the MA last tour and it appears on perfect course to be about the same this tour. The M16 had only 1/4 the number of kills as the Flak. The M8, less than 1/16th.
My points are this then:
-it is overly abundant in the MA having double the usage as the next unit (Panzer) and 4 times the usage of the 3rd place unit (M16)
-it was a rare unit in real life
-we already have alternatives to it in other units, though no other single unit is as effective in all areas like the Flak.
-it is overly "tough" to AP and strafing it feels more like a Panzer than an open topped vehicle (a constant source of bbs threads)
-it is resuppliable so has an advantage to survivability that all GV's have so your risk of having one killed on you is less.
-it is the best GV for killing planes, typically 1 hit = 1 kill
-it is the best for killing buildings
-it is the best GV against any other GV except a Panzer which it will disable the Panzers turret almost immediately anyway.
-it consistently has the highest kill ratio of any GV.
-it doesn't suffer any firing effects (barrel overheat, reload times), it can fire all 1000 rounds in a continuous fashion. Where do they store 1000 ready rounds in the thing anyway?
-it has a overpowering amount of ammo, 1000 rounds, compared with their effectiveness.
-it's ammo seems dual-purpose, both HE and AP in one. I constantly have my Panzer turret knocked out from the front by one.
So, I say we make the Flak require some perks, 2-5 points, I mean, what have we got to use our vehicle perks on anyway until some new unit shows up that takes them. If you want to do the attack or defense thing and not risk a couple of perks, well, you still have the M16, M8, M3, LVT's and Panzer to do that work. I just hope to make the Flak a little more rare than the waves of them that just seem to drive around all the time defending or attacking with little fear of anything except a fair sized bomb or rockets (of which rockets seem more effective but require an attack to get within suicidal range of the Flak).
Note: There should be something done to allow de-spawning of one when using a remote spawnpoint. All remote spawnpoints should be marked for people who spawn from them and they could use that as a landing pad to disembark and not lose perks (same as on the runway or at the VH at their home field). Other than that the same rules as other perks apply regarding ditches/deaths/disco's/etc
-Soda
The Assassins
