Useless F-16 AA VS PACT Helos

[FogofWar]

Playing as 11 ACR vs AI on various maps, I find that in _ 10 games_ my F-16 AA fighters have not shot down one PACT Helo on the first pass, at best it does some damage, before the PACT AA or Fighter shoots it down. How can that possibly be ? ( and no they are not landed)

[Heven]

Originally posted by FogofWar:

Playing as 11 ACR vs AI on various maps, I find that in _ 10 games_ my F-16 AA fighters have not shot down one PACT Helo on the first pass, at best it does some damage, before the PACT AA or Fighter shoots it down. How can that possibly be ? ( and no they are not landed)

Pak has literally 4 Mi-24 units for the entire game, and the F16 shoots down when hit by a missile.So everything is fine, the pact was weak and remained

[Traslo]

I do feel the PACT Helo's are far too resilient. Whether it's a Phantom, a Tornado, an F-16, anything with AA generally can't take them down. It feels like they should be the punishing hard-counter to helis without AA coverage but even transport helis full of fuel will take an AIM-9P and some cannon fire from an AA plane every single time.

[Podhalańczyk '90]

Originally posted by Traslo:

I do feel the PACT Helo's are far too resilient. Whether it's a Phantom, a Tornado, an F-16, anything with AA generally can't take them down. It feels like they should be the punishing hard-counter to helis without AA coverage but even transport helis full of fuel will take an AIM-9P and some cannon fire from an AA plane every single time.

try to shot down apache with pact also same thing i just feel like ecm does too much

[94660549]

It is probably due to relative speed. It might be worth considering a slower plane with a strong gun. After all the helicopter is hovering still, so the plane has very little time to get it's weapons off.

[Rabidnid]

ASF/helcopter balance has been something that Eugen have fiddled with since game launch.

A few patches ago the A-10 and the Su-25 were the best counters, but then Eugen nerfed their guns against air and now they have very little ability in that regard.

ASFs still work after a fashion but the guns have been so toned down that it requires 2 missile hits for most of them, so only the shotgun ASFs and 5 HE missiles with a good gun are reliable on helicopters.

[TornadoADV]

As others have said, aircraft cannons got heavily nerfed since release and are pretty poor against helos.

[LastTurkInPontus]

Just try to use either stingers or pivads. They are for this. F16 costs around 200 while enemy helo is 150 or 160. Even if you win engagemwnt you lose 200 points to enemy AA or don't have that 200 on the ground which means they will have 40 point advantage

[Lemonsquid]

Originally posted by 94660549:

It is probably due to relative speed. It might be worth considering a slower plane with a strong gun. After all the helicopter is hovering still, so the plane has very little time to get it's weapons off.

agreed. i try to keep a card of slower cheap aircraft around to clean up helos

[Grant]

Originally posted by FogofWar:

Playing as 11 ACR vs AI on various maps, I find that in _ 10 games_ my F-16 AA fighters have not shot down one PACT Helo on the first pass, at best it does some damage, before the PACT AA or Fighter shoots it down. How can that possibly be ? ( and no they are not landed)

It is why you use cheaper airplanes to take out high-value enemy helicopters. Granted, Redfor does this better due to the high availability of the MiG-23s and MiG-21s. Moreover, only the 35th have expensive KA-50s and the plentiful Mi-24 are around 180-240, so they weren't worth risking F-16s and F-15s. Meanwhile, the US have Apaches in several decks, and they are extremely high value targets for a suicidal MiG-21/23.

[ChargingSnail]

I have an opposite feeling. No matter. Pact or NATO, helos almost never survive attack runs.

[FogofWar]

I really appreciate the insights from everyone on the Aircraft VS Helos VS Air VS Flak. The game is a lot more complex then first thought, I`ll try to create NATO Flak Traps for the helos using Stingers & Hawks with a high value unit as bait, to try for better trades.