My pet peeve: Ground Vehicles.

[Urchin]

I very rarely drive around in Ground Vehicles, but on the rare occasion that I do I get so pissed off I don't feel like playing Aces High anymore.  

The 'Air" game is relatively balanced.  Most planes are useful, if not entirely deadly, with a skilled pilot in the cockpit.  

The "Ground" game is totally out of whack.  The Ostwind rules all.  If the Ostwind could carry troops, you would literally see all the other GVs disapear entirely.  As it is, any base attack is made up of at least 90% Ostwinds, with some other GVs thrown in for flavor.  It doesn't matter if you don't know your bellybutton from a hole in the ground, you can kill stuff in a Flakpansie.  Can't aim to save your life?  Thats no problem at all!  One hit will kill an M16, M8, or M3, and a few will disable a tank.  You also get the ADDED bonus of being able to kill any single-engine plane with, that's right, one hit!

Need to destroy a town?  Take an Ostwind!  It can destroy the town faster than any other GV, plus defend itself against airborne defenders and other ground vehicles.

Pesky Ostwind bothering a base of yours?  Up an... Ostwind?  Thats RIGHT!  You can kill another Ostwind faster than a tank can!

Need to drop the ack at a base?  Up an Ostwind!  You can get close enough to spray at the base and knock the AA down with random hits, and still stay out of their range!  Plus you can kill anyone stupid enough to try to stop you with.. that's right!  ONE HIT!

At the time of this writing:

Flakpansies have a positive K/D against every unit in the game, except for Tempests (and that is one brave Tempest driver), and Panzers.  (in Tour 30 so far)

Last tour (before the 'tanker friendly' AK desert map), the Ostwind had 31,245 kills.  All other GVs had a total of 23,285 kills.  The second closest was the Panzer, with 12,421 kills.  Yes.. the Flakpansie was used almost THREE TIMES as much as the next closest ground vehicle... and it had nearly 60% of the total kills made by ground vehicles.  The Flakpansie had, in fact, the most kills by ANY unit last tour (air OR ground).

Perhaps the new map will see usage of other ground vehicles rise, but I'm fairly sure at least one will never see any significant use.  That would be the M8.  This is the closest thing to useless that I've ever seen in AH.  I like to use 'under-utilized' equipment... but not utterly useless equipment.  The M8 has so many problems that I'm not even sure I can fit them in the maximum limit for a post on the BBS.

The M8, for an 'armored fighting vehicle' is extremely frail.  More frail, in fact, than our "unarmored" M3s and M16s are.  Any bullet hitting the M8 will knock out the pintle gun.  Any bullet larger than a .303 will take out the turret with a few hits, leaving the M8 entirely unarmed (not that the gun is worth much anyway).  The Ostwind can kill the M8 with a single hit, at ranges of 1,500 yards and up.  While I am not entirely sure, I believe the 75mm HE round a panzer fires will destroy the M8 in one hit if it lands somewhere NEAR the M8.  The M3 has a much better than even shot at killing the M8 in a 'head to head" confrontation.  

Before you start your sortie, you have a choice of exactly how useless to be.  It is an interesting twist on your usual hangar selection screen.  Choose the HE rounds, and you have ZERO chance to hurt a Flakpansie or Panzer.   ZERO.  None.  You can, however, kill an M16 or M3 in 5 or 6 hits on average.  

But, you say, I would like to have a shot at hurting the most common GV.  Well, I have a solution for you.  You can load AP rounds instead!  You, in theory, can kill a Panzer or Flakpansie with these rounds.  This is how it works.  You must drive beside or behind the enemy vehicle, to a range of about 100 yards.  Fire 5 or 6 rounds, and if you are lucky enough that they don't notice you and turn their 7.92mm pintle gun on you, you have about a 30% chance to get a kill.  More commonly, you will disable the turret and/or engine (and you better hope it is the turret first), and waste the rest of your ammo until a Spitfire comes along and puts a couple Hizooka rounds into the tank (or Flakpansie) to finish it.  Another assist!  Way to go!  You are performing quite well in the M8, young Paduwan.    Of course... if a M3 or M16 wanders by, you better hope you can disable it with your pintle gun before they kill you with theirs, since 37mm AP rounds have ZERO effect on M16s and M3s.  That is absolutely right, I said no effect.  I've fired 10+ rounds into a disabled M3 or M16 before from point blank range and did no damage.

The M8 is utterly and completely useless.  I would really like for HTC to take a look at the M8 and decide why they made it suck as bad as it does and still put it in the game.  That is, if it was intentional.  If it was not intentional, I've got a few bugs to list out real fast.  

-  The M8's 37mm is about .05% as effective as the 37mm automatic gun mounted on the Flakpansie.  Even with AP rounds loaded.  I think there must be a bug in the AP rounds for the M8's gun, since the HE rounds for the Flakpansie can kill or disable an AFV with absolutely no problem at all (from any angle)

-  There is a bug in the durability of the M8.  The "armored" M8 is about one half to one third as durable as the unarmored (I presume) M3 and M16.  I don't care how thin the armor is... it should be more effective than not having any armor at all.

-  The M8 also can't go up hardly any slope... this is a problem with all GVs, but particularly so with the M8 since a thrown rock or quick glance can kill or disable it.  

Please take a look at the M8, and fix these problems.  They've existed since the vehicle was introduced, but it has been a while since I complained about it, so I figure maybe you forgot to fix it.

[ZeroPing]

ive killed a flak at 3.6k out (thats under the 32 mark in the panzer) with 2 shots, one for range, second to kill him.
No he wasnt aready smoking, no he wasnt hurt before I fired, mostly becuase he spawned 2 seconds before i shot my second round... Lucky shot? probley... but ya GVS are pure porkage

[Weave]

I'll give him a 7.5:D

[HFMudd]

I find it hard to rate Urchin on the whine chart since I don't associate Urchin with whining.  But if I did I would have to take point away for good grammer and puncuation.  Some of this is made up for by the use of the term "Flakpansie" however.

I'm sorry, but again, considering whom the author is, I just can't award any higher than a 6.0

[MrLars]

Originally posted by ZeroPing
ive killed a flak at 3.6k out (thats under the 32 mark in the panzer) with 2 shots, one for range, second to kill him.
No he wasnt aready smoking, no he wasnt hurt before I fired, mostly becuase he spawned 2 seconds before i shot my second round... Lucky shot? probley... but ya GVS are pure porkage

At that distance the trajectory would put the AP round at better angle than a much shorter distance.

Try this, kill a tank with a .50 cal equiped plane.
Attack from the front, sides or rear and the only effect you will have is maybe damaging his tracks. Attack from above at a 45% angle or greater and hit the turret, in 2-3 passes you'll kill him.

There is no doubt that GV's need some attention but until action is taken I would suggest useing the terrain and smoke to gain angles that put you outside of your targets 10oc - 2oc arch, you'll see more 1-2 hit kills that way against Panzers and Ostys. M3's and M16's are easy kills if you see them first. One AP hit on the front wheels of a moving M3 or M16 will make it crash or one AP hit dead on their 12 will kill any M8 or halftrack as long as you hit it where the engine is or, in the case of the M8, the driver.

These are my observations and these actions do not have 100% reliability but I've found them to be true more often than not.

[Innominate]

The M8 is an armored car, not a tank or a tank destroyer.  If you want to kill a panzer with it you need to circle behind it trying to use your speed to evade it's fire.  The ostwind might make a good use of everyones vehicle perk points.....  Everything it does, another GV is capable of doing effectivly.

[Voss]

Actually, Urchin, I'm undefeated against Osties. From the Cruiser, anyway.

[Urchin]

MrLars, couple things.  

1.  Smoke is now bugged.  The only person that SEES smoke is the person that fired it.  At least, that is how I presume it works, since I couldnt see any smoke people said they were firing (friendly anyway).

2.  I've fired 37mm AP rounds from the M8 at M3s and M16s and hit them EVERYWHERE.  Cabin, wheels, gun, whatever.  No damage.  None.  37mm HE round WILL kill an M3 or M16... it just takes more than one hit.  It will also friggin ricochet off an M3.  

The M8 is, hands-down, either the worst-modelled or most useless but properly modelled (in that case begging the question- WHY the hell is it in the game to begin with?) unit in the game.

The Ostwind, in my opinion, should be perked, and fairly heavily.  It does practically everything better than any other GV.  In the two nights I spent in GV battles... it was the vehicle of choice for the other side.  Yes, they outnumbered the tanks on the other side.. even though there were NO FRIENDLY AIRPLANES.  Furthermore... they are more than capable of killing any GV in the game at ranges of up to 2,000 yards (and it can probably kill an M8 at 5,000 or so if the round is tracked that far).

[Urchin]

Originally posted by Innominate
The M8 is an armored car, not a tank or a tank destroyer.  If you want to kill a panzer with it you need to circle behind it trying to use your speed to evade it's fire.  The ostwind might make a good use of everyones vehicle perk points.....  Everything it does, another GV is capable of doing effectivly.

Two things here to.  The M8 is an ARMORED CAR, not a tank or a tank destroyer.  Ok, I understand that.  The key phrase for me is ARMORED.  That should mean it should be somewhat more durable than the UNARMORED M3 and M16- but it isn't.

Also... you can't use your speed to evade an Ostwinds fire. It sprays in your general direction and you die.

I think you meant to say this for your last sentence- "The Ostwind would make a good use of everyones vehicle perk points... everything another GV is capable of doing the Ostwind does more effectively".  Of course, maybe you didn't mean that, but I do.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Urchin
The Ostwind, in my opinion, should be perked, and fairly heavily.  It does practically everything better than any other GV.  In the two nights I spent in GV battles... it was the vehicle of choice for the other side.  Yes, they outnumbered the tanks on the other side.. even though there were NO FRIENDLY AIRPLANES.  Furthermore... they are more than capable of killing any GV in the game at ranges of up to 2,000 yards (and it can probably kill an M8 at 5,000 or so if the round is tracked that far).

Perk the Osty or better yet, fix the Panzer.

[MrLars]

I wasn't aware there was a problem with the smoke. I just took it for granted that when I lay smoke and maneuver from the spot I was at the smoke was the reason I didn't get anymore hits.

I'm not sure there IS a smoke bug is what I'm getting at...YMMV obviously.

I used to drive GV's a lot and still do somewhat but I'm not seeing the same things you are on a regular basis it seems. The last time I had trouble killing a halftrack was over a month ago before I read a post by HT regarding angles and hit sprites with GV's. That post changed my GV tactics and now I see little of the problems you see.

On a side note...

I've hit Osty's dead on with a 1000 pound bomb with no effect...anyone that has ever been around military ordinance will know that this just can't happen...but with all the anomilies that the net throws into the equation I'm not surprised in the least.

[MrLars]

Originally posted by Sandman_SBM


Perk the Osty or better yet, fix the Panzer.

I say perk the Osty for remote spawning only....base defence in Ostys should be free IMO.

[minus]

that why we need ,, PUMA<< much much beter like  pesky  M 8 and some  other gvs , i think HTC can produce a mega pack of GVS and surely  the FM modeling wqil cose less discusion about owermodeling they jsut need ride of plane vs gv and vice versa icons so we can use some  perk gvs and , sure some modification on dmg modeling, thing  let ride of 50 calibers vs tanks, and beter givethem some molotov coctails

[eskimo2]

I think Urchin is both whining, and at the same time telling it like it is.  Osties are way too effective and need to be perked.  It's ammo load especially makes it unfairly effective.

I think head on, Osties and Panzers can both be pretty tough.  Side, top and rear hits clobber them, however.  It is pretty anoying how easily an Osty can take out a Panzers turret at any angle.  

There are some bugs still out there.  
I remember nailing an M-3 3 times at a GV base once.  He kept coming right by me, then opened up with his 50, killing my turret instantly, then killed my panzer... with his dang 50!  I even got a direct frontal hit on an M-3 once with a shore battery at 400 yards, he kept on going.

Each 75mm Panzer round seems no more powerful than each Oswind round.  The only thing that you gain with the Panzer is long range accuracy.  With the Panzer, you have got to kill them way out there, before they get into their range.

eskimo

[X2Lee]

Originally posted by Urchin


I give him a 9.1 because of these paragraphs

 
At the time of this writing:Flakpansies have a positive K/D against every unit in the game, except for Tempests (and that is one brave Tempest driver), and Panzers.  (in Tour 30 so far)

Last tour (before the 'tanker friendly' AK desert map), the Ostwind had 31,245 kills.  All other GVs had a total of 23,285 kills.  The second closest was the Panzer, with 12,421 kills.  Yes.. the Flakpansie was used almost THREE TIMES as much as the next closest ground vehicle... and it had nearly 60% of the total kills made by ground vehicles.  The Flakpansie had, in fact, the most kills by ANY unit last tour (air OR ground).

Thats the exact criteria I have heard was the basis for perking since I been playing AH....
But I cant say perk the osty cause thats maybe a borderline whine and I cant take the chance on that happnin