AAV Worthless, or am I doing it wrong?

[epicelite]

I keep trying to shoot down enemy aircraft with the humvee AAV thing. Only managed to do so once, and the plane STILL managed to get me too. He came at me for one pass, but I manage to not get killed somehow, then I warmed up the gun and looked the opposite way he left because I knew he would come from behind. He came into view and I was looking right at him shooting the MG and missiles and we both ended up dead. The only time I have ever witnessed AAV killing an aircraft.

Hell, I can't even manage to kill a chopper with these things. I was up near the enemy base and saw this COW just hovering, so I warmed up the gun looking down. Then I looked up, locked on, fired 4 SAM's and started unloading the MG and he just casually flew away.

I try to support tanks by follow them around, but the planes just swoop down and kill me before I can even lock onto them.

Are you actually supposed to have a driver and gunner in these things? Why does it allow you to just hop into the gun from the drivers seat then? I always thought that was because it would be pretty dumb to have 2 players occupied by the AAV when most of the time theres nothing to do with it.

I think the problem is the draw distance is too short, so you cant even see the planes, they always fly high enough to not be seen (I don't blame them) but at the same time, it makes them able to swoop down and kill vehicles so fast you have no time to react.

[Prevtzer]

It's ok to one man it as long as you know when to move and when to stay in the gunner seat.

About the draw distance, fog etc.- your best bet to spot CAS before they spot you is this: set your mouse sensitivity very high, aim about 60?up in the sky and just spin around. 9 times out of 10 you will spot CAS faster this way.

[Ason]

Maybe they could include some kind of radar in AAVs (if it exist in real life) which just shows CAS around you like dots, to compensate for not being able to see high in the sky? radius = like 500m and height =1500-2000m something like this:

Maybe a bit more realistic than spinning around

[Kerryburgerking]

Anti Aircraft warfare is an art, you just don't shoot directly when you get a lock.

[Felix]

I was soloing the avenger this morning at Saaremaa and didn't find it useless at all.
I killed 3 havocs, 2 hinds, 1 cow, 1 gopher, and 11 infantry. I RTBd three times to reload and ended up with a score of 27-0. It was a lot of fun and I didn't find it useless at all...

[Prevtzer]

I was soloing the avenger this morning at Saaremaa and didn't find it useless at all.
I killed 3 havocs, 2 hinds, 1 cow, 1 gopher, and 11 infantry. I RTBd three times to reload and ended up with a score of 27-0. It was a lot of fun and I didn't find it useless at all...

You also absolutely love CAS so anything you say about AA(V) should be taken with a lot of salt, no offence.

[K4on]

Drove a MEC AAV today on Khamisiyah:
4 times spotted a jet
3 times opened fire (the other one was obvious to far away, had a bad angle and was covered with flares all time).
2 times received confirmed jet kills.
1 time instant kill of pilot in jet.

Then infantry HAT'ed me.

[ExeTick]

wait until he is almost over you then lock and fire.

it wont take so long to lock him if he is close that is how I get my kills with AA vehicles. I often just lock the shit out of jets when they fly high sometimes even fire 1 missile.

[Steeps]

Best tactic in my opinion is to find a little ditch or something where infantry can't see you but you can see the sky.

It's more likely that someone lazed you.

[notmyingamename]

if you guys have ever encountered the cooperative aav's, then you've probably seen how effective they are at scoring hits on anything (including friendly). the way they operate is lock anything they can for a 10th of a second and fire EVERYTHING. have you ever seen a helicopter on a pad in main get blown to hell by an errant missile? this property is a hold-over from vanilla bf2. if the missile passes through the lock, it will relock (instantly) anything with a lockable signature on it's terminal trajectory. the coop bots are not special. they do not have special missiles. they let the missiles do the work. their success rates are directly in line with their not giving a shit attitude about potential misses. another example: have you ever been flying and taken a quarter second lock-on tone before getting hit? this is that same property working against you. it's a missile that missed a flare and found you on it's last trajectory.

sometimes it's much better to just send everything. if you can lock a flare behind a jet and send 4 missiles, then take the shots. honestly, you'll score more kills than you might be inclined to think. danger there is friendly aircraft, which is something you'll have to account for when it happens. don't fire into a dogfight.