flak88 is a wunderwaffe, WAD?

[Stamb]

This is server game vs Stephan61, battle near Z town

Look at flak 88 stats. It this really WAD?

flak88.png (493.08 KiB) Viewed 1588 times

[Stamb]

Another thread were they shred infantry in enormous numbers
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6&t=382906

[Joel Billings]

My assumption is that in clear terrain and clear weather they are very powerful, especially now that range is much more of a factor than it was when the game was first released. For a long time I remember they were underpowered, not sure what changes happened that made them so effective. Do you have cases of them in closer range engagements (i.e. not clear terrain and clear weather) to compare?

[AlbertN]

Model + SS quality + excellent weapon system from my perspective.

Given 88s were very efficient vs AFVs and here may be used as generic HE and not AP artillery but there is also the massive problem (that someone else has documented in a Discord or on the forums) that the 88s production for Germany is 1/4 or 1/3 of what historically was.

[Stamb]

This is screenshot with more details.
We can see that 6 flak 88 destroyed HE hits (DES) - 44 elements or whatever it is

31 50mm mortars + 23 81mm mortars + 9 105mm howitzers + 7 150mm howitzers managed to destroy only 7 + 3 + 5 +2 + 4 = 21 elements

this is truly wonder weapon's efficiency

why would even Germans produce artillery and mortars in that case ?

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Joel, i do not have any other battles to provide examples
and seeing such results i will try to avoid this evil units by all costs

[ToxicThug11]

Flak 88 is balanced, they only destroyed 69 soft elements and 20 tanks

they did this while shooting down my il2

I was trolled by Tyrone's placement of these 88 flak

• sneed

[Stamb]

battle in light woods

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[ToxicThug11]

88 seems weird. Overperforming against infantry. I dont mind taking losses as Soviets, but strange that 88mm flak is performing better than artillery and tanks against infantry

[AlbertN]

The 88s are -direct artillery fire-. They shoot like an Anti Tank. Or if you favor as a Tiger Tank (That uses same gun I believe)

The artilleries are -ballistic- as per intrinsically imprecise. The crew fires and the projectile lands miles away (in fact you can see the Distance of artilleries).
The 88s shoots in direct sight.

Also I believe the fact it's in defense makes it matter a lot; and used in offense it can hardly replicate the feat.

Some people say that it's good vs AFV. That is what 88s are famous for - because many enemy tanks could not be pierced by 'lesser' weapon system by then. Already the British Matildas were proving impenetrable frontally in France at Arras. (and France too had some tanks that were too armoured to be taken on frontally by German panzers).
But the 88s do not shoot with AP stuff to planes, they shoot HE. And so they can easily do that to infantries that are advancing to storm a position.

The business combining exellent weapon system; good leadership and troop quality (Confident most of the 88s users are Motorized) implies an excellent performance in the end.
Simply I doubt in attack it offers the same efficiency.

[Joel Billings]

Personal note: My father was an artillery observer for a US corps arty battalion of 155s in Normandy. He described to me one attack he was part of where he saw the officer leading the infantry group he was with (Captain/company?) have all his clothes knocked off by an "88" round (he thought the officer was still alive at the time). Of course my father admitted that anything bad was attributed to be an 88 by the American soldiers. It's reputation at that time was off the charts. I suppose just like all tanks were Tigers.

[jubjub]

It's really not a problem, since there's not enough production to fill all of the demand for the gun. However, the discrepancy I pointed out here is making the StB campaign nearly unplayable with hundreds or thousands of extra 88's that you wouldn't get in the '41 campaign. Hasn't been addressed yet.

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 8&t=382642

[Stamb]

from my current game
for 24 turns Axis lost 9 flak 88
they produced, in theory, 25 per turn * 24 turns = 600 best defensive weapons in the game

i know that losses will be higher once Soviets start to push
but still it is an impressive number

[AlbertN]

These Russian AAs are way worse than '88s!

[Stamb]

were there changes to flak 88 in 02.29beta?

[Joel Billings]

No.

[Stamb]

looks like it was always pretty strong

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[jasonbroomer]

looks like it was always pretty strong
1.png

On a per gun basis the IG75mm look just as useful as the 88s

[Stamb]

what is funny that in some cases flak 88 is pretty useless vs ground targets and kill 1-2 elements
but then there are battles like this:

[Joel Billings]

We've made a change that will go out in the next beta version:

o Reduced the amount of shots taken by medium flak ground elements, more so against soft targets than AFVs.

[Stamb]

awesome