HEAA Have proved their worth against APCs, but I was unable to get a chance to use them against a T-90. I would imagine there isn't much in-game difference between this warhead and the RPG-7VR (Tandem warhead) in potency vs armour. These munitions proved ineffective against Firebases, which I suppose is reasonable considering the presence of HEDP rounds.
HEDP rounds pretty much suck. Having fired several into various points on the same firebase, the firebase appeared to be undamaged. A total of 3HEAA and two HEAA rounds at various points failed to visibly scratch the FB. It also failed to even force a Ural Logi truck to even smoke with a direct hit. I was gobsmacked.
Spotting Rifle is a great feature, but it is partially useless.
Its useful for, in fact, entirely necessary to get a round on target as the rounds have an unprecedented amount of drop and the optic lacks markings. The Spotting Rifle suffers from two critical flaws that made the SMAW the most inferior HAT weapon in the open Beta by quite a stretch, and is remeniscient to the 0.98 RPG-7VR in its impotency.
- Firstly, the spotting rounds do no render at worthwhile ranges and nor do their impacts. At least with the x4 - x6 optic mounted on the SMAW. Engaging anything out to or beyond 150m is simply a mystery and fired with a prayer. If these specific 9mm tracers could render clearly out to 500m to the naked x1 eye, and their impacts do the same, then SMAW gunners might have a fighting chance.
- Secondly, the time it takes to change from the spotting rifle to HEAA/HEDP rounds is cringeworthy. I'm worried we might not be able to change this, but if we can, it should be one of the weapons' top priorities for improvement.
By the time I had spotted, prepped AT and aimed the weapon to fire a real round, armour and INF were already looking directly at me. If a vehicle then moves or continues to move, the data gained from firing spotting rounds quickly becomes redundant over the long weapon-change period.
If there was anyway to couple a customised swap animation relationship (as you can see already when switching between UGLs and their attached rifles and visa versa) between the Spotting Rifle and HEDP/HEAA rounds, with a exclusively short weapon change time...
Overall, the SMAW needs a good fixing up for release.
- Most pressing is the lacking spotting rifle which greatly hinders it in is primary role.
- The HEDP rounds could be more DP. They need to be buffed against unarmoured vehicles and probably lightly armoured vehicles too, although the latter is untested. The HEDP rounds need to pose a greater threat, especially to deployables.
- I am concerned that, considering the round drop is so drastic on the SMAW, is the gunner able to actually still see his target when tilting the weapon up to engage a target up to the 500m max engagement range? I haven't tested this, but it could be a real breaker.
- Since Alt Rifleman do not carry binoculars (as I believe they actually should do to effectively fulfil MG, AT and AA assistant roles) and Std Rifleman at best carry no more than a x4 optic, they are incapable of observing the fall of spotting rounds, and are poor-suited to serve as effective spotters for AT troopers in general. Spotters, however, do not posses the necessary ammo bag to fullfil an assistant role.
- I haven't checked to see if the USMC Alt HAT has 2xHEPD,1xHEAA vs the Std HAT's x2HEAA, x1HEDP, but It'd be a great addition if both 'separate' weapons were ammo-linked, allowing the gunner to fire all 3 of the same round, or to mix them accordingly.
...mongol...
XD
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