Anti-Air field manual

Hello,in this guide I will teach you the ways of an Anti-Air gunner,from the normal rifle one to the one that destroys any plane with their high caliber machine guns,so let us start.

The Anti Air role

So you want to make a big impact on the battlefield?Well you are on the right place.The role of an anti-air gunner is to neutralize any aircraft that might arm(directly or not)your team,that means that even the carrier planes might harm you.You are normally weak in direct combat and prefer to stay protected on the rear while using your anti-air guns.I must say it takes time for anyone to master this role but with practice you will be shooting down any plane that dares to fight you,so lets get to some basic things:

-You will die a lot
This means that you shouldn t get mad at the enemy aircraft for killing you constantly since AA is targeted by aircraft almost everytime.

-You will make an impact in war
AA guns are free for anyone to use that means that doesn t matter how many of them are respawned you they will not affect any general,but on the enemy side you will make a big impact,destroying planes will cut down not only the resources from the Assault Teams and if you keep destroying the planes you will end up making the generals lack any resources to resupply the Assault Team.

-You are not made for Anti-Armor/Infantary combat
Althought you might carry around a rifle you shouldn t focus on killing the infantary,your main job is to target the enemy planes(and don t try to shoot anyone with the AA guns let alone any infantary APC)

-Watch your back
In most AA guns your back is exposed and is normally an easy kill for any infantary that catches you shooting.

The Anti Air guns

Now we get to the ordenance,each faction has a certain gun with their advantages and flaws but any good soldier will know how to use them to their max efficiency.
Let me also point that sometimes has a soldier you will find sometimes enemy anti air ordenance on the field of battle and so you should learn of each one.

(Thanks to http://heroesandgenerals.gamepedia.com for the images)

Soviet Union

The Maxim M4 Quad
What a piece of ordenance,really shows the soviet union doctrine on the early stages of the war,with no weapons built to be cheap and easy to provide ammo to them they decided to strap 4 PM M1910 in an anti air pod and there you go,a cheap way to shoot down those pesky aircraft,althought it used the weak 7.62(against aircraft from land) and you better of trowing a potato in the air with the hope of it hitting the plane,but lets get into the advantages:

+Pros:

-AA gun with the most ammo on the "carried" mode
-AA gun with the most ammo on the "loaded" mode (basicly you have no reloads since if you waste all of your ammo with this gun you wasted all the ammo crates)
-Best turret speed on the AA guns
-Best Anti Air sights(in my opinion)

-Flaws:

-Weakest ammo caliber in all the AA guns resulting in shoots that land but the angle of impact might have been too high or armor was too thick
-The turret with less protection to the operator resulting in infantary always hitting you from long range attacks
-From the weak caliber you will find yourself using almost 1/4 of your ammo to normally take down a plane(if you aren t experienced with AA combat).

United States of America

The M55 Quad

Oh man the 50.cal gets the action in this gun,it was placed in so many halftracks or in stationary positions to defend the critical points/formations against any enemy aircraft and it got the job done!An upgraded version of the hold "double" design uses 2 more 50cal M2 Browning machine guns to increase the chances of a hit against aircraft,it really gives a new meaning to "needs more gun"

+Pros:

-Great caliber,always penetrates aircraft at any angle
-Decent damage
-Good firing rate

-Flaws:
-Long reload
-Worst Anti Air sights in my opinion,it uses a built in scope with a simple dot surronded by circles,but the fact that you are using a scope you loose your extern field of view
-Slow turret speed

Nazi Germany

The Flakvierling 38
German engineering!This gun is able to cause the most damage on an aircraft using 4 20mm cannons and perfect front protection with a thin metal plate that protects from rifle caliber bullets its trully a menace to any aircraft

+Pros:

-20mm bullet,trully the biggest factor on killing on this gun,hell even sometimes it seems like the 20mm is HE instead of AP if you are inside an aircraft
-Front protection is the best one and offers the best protection to the user
-Medium anti air sights

-Flaws:
-The magazine size is really low 80 bullets in total
-Since the low ammo count you will be reloading a lot of times


Each faction has their own AA guns but you will have to know how to use them,remember the big ammo acount of the 4M,use the 50cal power of the M55 to pen enemy aircraft glasses and kill their pilot and take advantage of the 20mm damage on aircraft.

Other anti air weapons

"Don t expect big guns to do the job for yourself,know your gun and know how to use it against every enemy"

Sometimes you will be faced on suprise against enemy aircraft,you have nothing than your normal semi automatic rifle and you want to damage the aircraft,you have 2 options(I am excluding SMG's pistols and rocket launchers for doing no damage or just being impossible to score a hit on it),remember always take an AA gun instead since you will have more sucess on killing the enemy aircraft.

-You take hits against the enemy place estructure normally not doing much damage and costing you a lot of ammo
-Hitting the plane cockpit;this is the weakpoint of the planes,the glass isn t reinforced and if you shot it you will normally score a hit against the pilot and you can possibly shoot him down of the aircraft with a bolt-action,it is far easier to shoot it when he is flying on low ground trying to kill infantary or drop a bomb since he will come headone and he will reveal is head inside the cockpit

The PTRD-41(working on the UTZ update)

So far one of the most hated weapons on the game,it is the "work against everything" tool downing infantary in 1 shoot,killing low tier tanks or annoying heavy tanks by shooting at the top and shooting down planes(fighter ones,I have yet to score hits against Para-Planes).

It takes some training but since fighter planes normally go on low speed you will be able to hit planes with the 14mm bullet,2-3 hits and the plane will go down,so go AND SHOOT FACIST PLANE WITH POWERFULL 14MM BULLET,erhm sorry I really love to shoot them down with it while yelling on TS to the enemies.

Moving on to the next topic

Ammo conservation/Re-Supply

You will after some time you will find yourself with no ammo left,you will need to resupply it!But you might ask yourself,how?Well here is the simple ways:

The basic way and the only one is to destroy the AA ordenance so it respawns with a new pack of ammo.

-Shoot the weakpoints of the gun with your rifle,it will take up some ammo to lower is life but no problem you can always resuply on nearby crates
-Use a panzerfaust,you can really find them everywhere on this update,just get one and shoot it on the back to cause the max damage
-Use an Anti-Tank mine and shoot it,preety explanatory

There you go a new ordenance full of ammo ready to take those planes down!

Conclusion/WiP list

Conclusion


Here we here is the end of the manual soldier,we hope we have provided you with enought information in how to take those pesky planes out of the sky and show them the meaning of lead rain!

And remember every soldier on the battle:



WiP list(I will try to bring more content related to anti air combat from the ground forces,I will try to focus in various topics and you can also leave corrections/suggestions on the comments!):

-Machine guns
-Tank built anti air machine guns
-More information on the stats of each piece of ordenance.

[Echoreon]

vehicles no has modules meaning in a aircraft you can individually damage the wings, fuselage and so on. what is the most effective way to shut down a plane? hit the nose? the fuselage? the wings?

ive destroyed a wing thinking it would be enough, but nope. its taking more time for me to shoot them down

[Green Tea]

One advice from a veteran pilot: When playing in staged, don't worry too much about bad fighter pilots on the opposing team. Mostly they will just take up space, and not actually help. Since staged does not involve warfunds and resources and since killing planes does not earn many credits, its not worth killing them. They will crash themselves anyway and if your team has just 1 veteran pilot, he will take care of them fairly easy anyway.
Instead focus on capping and defending objectives, as long as the enemy pilots are not helping their own team. Only go for pilots who actually gets many kills or similair.

[Happynoname]

oh hey that was quick thx man

[Mancom37]

2-3 minutes if I am not wrong

[Happynoname]

whats the respawn time for the AA guns?

[OPLON]

Tanks are grate some times in A/A defence. I kill several times planes and pilots with AP cells.

[Incel]

also, when the fighters strafe you adn are only a few feet of the ground, i shoot them with a bazooka and it oneshots the planes

[Mancom37]

See ya too Tom :)

[TomHD]

I really love to cause problems to enemy paratroopers, I think I also made ragequit two of them because of my intense shootin' but I had the problem of the Ammo.
Finally I know how to solve it, it was not so simple... I mean... why should I shoot to my great pieces of German Engineering? They're so beautiful and I've never thought to destroy them!
Thanks, you're tip are really useful even if I consider myself a decent AA gunner.
Sorry for my broken english, it's not my first language.
See ya on the battlefield :D

[Rasrors]

Author. One thing I think is worth adding is that getting a Kubelwagen or a jeep with a machinegun can be a very effective plane hunter. Quick to reallocate and always in abundant supply.