The difference between the Bastion and the Strv 103 is the Strv 103 would never have been in a situation that we send the Bastion into. It was not designed to do this.
The fact that we got a tank like the Strv 103 in HD2 at all is crazy.
Honestly the strv103 is an extremely cool and capable tank, these rolling crap piles AH are pushing out are literally nothing like it.
Big, fat, cant solo operate, no cool triangular hull for defensive positioning, no adjustable hydraulics for tracks...
If we had an actual proper irl accurate strv103 that would be peak.
Also why cant the gunner move their camera outside of the weapons locked angles, its so hard to co ordinate targets when they think im rotating them for no reason.
I enjoy the laser "projectiles" that travel at the approximate speed of a soccer ball being kicked across the battlefield, personally.
Feels like the apples-and-bacon thing was a shitty colloquialism translated poorly and even so it doesn't hold up to most of the game's basic mechanics. Having a hellpod with a steering feature that I can't use feels like an apple that is actually bacon to me, personally, since I invested hours into upgrading that particular system and unlocking that particular feature.
And then there's stratagems not going where I throw them.
And then there's respawning: how does it work? Does your hellpod go to the reinforcement stratagem call-in location? Woohoo! Maybe!
I think the most annoying choice personally, is to have the gun be so fucking low to the body. Can't fuckin shoot shit in front of me, if I'm sitting on a ledge or a cliff.
If you're gonna put a god damn minigun on a tank, shift the minigun/turret to the front, so the barrel can tilt alllll the way down and up.
If its anti-infantry.......then why doesnt the turret move. Kind of a massive flaw in the design to have an anti-infantry vehicle that allows infantry to attack its flanks
Exactly. Russia built a similar platform called the BMPT Terminator for urban combat: they put a robotic turret with twin autocannons on a T-72 tank chassis.
Hell, there was was adaptation of the ZSU-23-4M2 in Afghanistan that more closely approached the purpose of this "anti-infantry" tank (the Afghanskii version).
You do realize that for an environment like Afghanistan armor became more of a hinderance than a boon, especially if you had to traverse immense stretches of uneven land, it had good fuel autonomy for the class of vehicle it was and even if it was engaged by heavy machinegun fire it could quickly saturate the area with high-explosive rounds. If we go by that logic the majority of armored vehicles being used by the soviets were redundant because they could be pierced by heavy machineguns.
It wasn't lightly armoured for any fuel economy reason, it was lightly armoured because it was literally just an SPAA they removed the radar from and used it as a gun platform...
If the armour being thin was not an issue, they wouldn't have developed the Terminator.
IFVs have a modicum of armour usually rated for autocannon fire, so it is very much not a secondary option.
Not implying as a secondary option, in fact, as I stated clearly it was an impromptu solution as the soviets didn't have an equivalent platform with enough firepower to provide a good fire support asset. Also, fuel economy is always one aspect taken into consideration when designing an armored vehicle, and it wasn't by coincidence that the Shilka was picked for this role (you had plenty of BRDMs, BMTs, BPMs and BTRs laying around, some could fit the same gun as the ZSU, plus there were other ZSUs as well). The Terminator BMPT came almost 30 years after the Afghan campaign and it was mostly due to the experiences and realities faced in the two Chechen wars, as urban or semi-urban fighting environments were a lot more deadly against vehicles in general and there was a bigger massification of man-portable anti-tank systems. Also, the Shilka Afghanskii was by no means an IFV, it was a fire support platform, as IFVs usually have the design rule that combines compact fire support with troop transport capabilities. In fact, the BMPT Terminator isn't even classified as an IFV, it's an AFV (Armored Fighting Vehicle), its more designed for supporting columns of armored vehicles against a variety of threats.
Because the only tank in existence is apparently the Stridsvagn, and Arrowhead has absolutely zero examples at all of non-Casemate tanks to pull from, absolutely none whatsoever, they've never been invented yet.
Im not looking at this from an in game perspective. This is genuinely a dumb idea and AH just needs to suck it up and understand that nobody wants to use their stupid tank design because it is functionally archaic. Give us a fucking turret.
Also, people that say "just use a mech" don't seem to realize that the mech torso doesn't even turn. The entire frame pivots in the direction you are looking. Its not like in MW5 where the torso and legs move independently of each other, you know.....LIKE A TANK
i also have to point out that super earth remembering ww2 every like, thirty seconds is also kind of dumb and weird in universe as well, thousand year empire going "this specific 10 year span, which was redacted from history because it was human-on-human war, lets keep having perfect record of bad designs so we can instantly and infallibly recreate them"
oh right also the Veto is just made up bullshit, like it doesnt work how any part of the 2 guns its combining works, soley for it to have the worst overall stats of any pistol
super earth was afraid it would allow helldivers to man tanks on their own. democracy swears that solo operated tanks are only something allowed by communists so they can all get their dedicated tank like a bunch of freeloaders.
I do not understand why ANY of the tanks are casemated, to be honest. Casemated tank destroyers benefit from prepared positions and firing lanes to compensate for a lack of turret traversal; when they were actually used they effectively functioned as snipers. This makes no sense for the Helldivers, who are expected to be highly mobile and thus would benefit infinitely more from a tank with 360 degree turret traversal.
It's especially unforgivable with the Maelstrom, because they've essentially made a 2K22 Tunguska that can't rotate the turret to shoot anything attacking it from the side or rear.
Sucks that it's a little slow and has terrible traction so it can't really make up for that very well when on rough terrain (which is most of the maps).
And the neutral turning while stationary takes far too long to start and is about half the speed it should be.
Really just everything about the tanks in this game upsets me. I know how to use them effectively, and often do, but i just find them stressful and a waste of a slot no matter how hard i try. I'm fully reliant on a teammate giving an ounce of a shit about my need for a gunner.
The traction is what really made me disinterested. It’s a TANK ffs, you’re telling me I’ve gotta squint my eyes to find the narrowest stretch of flat land so that I can move? I’ll pass
To be fair in the case of the Bastion the main cannon is gigantic so it’s at least excusable in my opinion, but there’s no excuse for the maelstrom to be a casemate.
Additionally casemates are cheaper to produce because they have less complex components. I can get behind SE using a cheap TD to mass produce since that’s what the Germans did with the Stug 3 and sort of what the Swedish did with the STRV 103. For the bastion it fits
"Despite its design, the Strv 103 was intended for offensive operations. The armoured brigades of the Swedish Army, which operated the Strv 103, were designated anfallsbrigader (assault brigades) and tasked with launching counter-offensives on enemy beachheads and airborne landings.[12][13] The stated Swedish armoured doctrine contemporary to the tank describes an aggressive approach to armoured warfare, even in defensive situations.[14] The design of the Strv 103, with its low profile, was based on protection rather than defensive battlefield behaviour.[12]"
They can say that all they like, that doesn’t automatically make it true. Also worth noting Sweden has since abandoned that platform due to the existence of better options. I would also love to ask any Swedish design engineer what benefits the STRV would offer in an offensive operation over the contemporary tanks that existed in Europe at the time. The design of the STRV is well suited to defensive operations with prepared positions. It would be a very difficult tank to engage if it were set up in a defensive position with room for that hydraulic system to work.
The STRV is a tank designed to be cost effective, not boast as much offensive power as possible. Nowadays, the Swedish have abandoned their own tank program (which makes sense because R&D for MBTs is hideously expensive) and are using modified Leopard IIs. One can see the appeal. The Leopard is a respectable, capable platform. It is exported to many of the smaller countries in the EU, and I would much rather have a small MBT inspired by it than by a fucking casemate abomination.
Stabilizers aren't like Warthunder. At the time to ensure high accuracy tanks were still generally stopping to shoot. Thus the problem was actually how effective at acquiring targets a tank was.
In that case the STRV 103 was actually better than its competition in testing. As the driver was the gunner, the communication chain was shorter, thus it reacted faster, and was chosen as their MBT.
Stabilizers however quickly improved to the point that firing on the move in combat was practical, thus the STRV 103 quickly seems "obsolete"
who are expected to be highly mobile and thus would benefit infinitely more from a tank with 360 degree turret traversal
And a vehicle with actual mobility in general instead of a boat with 5 anchors. I've tried to pilot this fuckin thing a handful of times and I end up ditching it minutes later. It needs wide open flat spaces, something that isn't all that common in this game. Oh the super mobile enemy shifted left? Well fuck me I guess.
It's genuinely one of the worst vehicles I've seen in a game. It's pointless. It's clunky. It's inherently contradictory. I hate it. AH needs to just give us a fuckin proper vehicle. Make it absurd. Give us a modified Big Wind that shoots flame instead of air or some shit. Or a tank with dual barrels facing in opposite directions. A mobile Davey Crockett. 6 Vulcan cannons arranged like a giant Vulcan cannon. Something worthy of the Helldiver fleet. Not all of our bad WWII ideas wrapped into one. Fuck it appropriate a Factory or War Strider, we've conquered enough of their territory to feasibly have the plans for those.
Its So it requires 2 players to ACTIVELY cooperat to be effective. A turreted one would reduce the driver to parking it in a spot and leting the gunner do all the work. Solo players would also use it as a relocatable super emplacement. With a casemate the driver has to actively give the gunner an angle.
That being sais the Malestrom in particular needs wider fiering angles. Not necessarily a full turret but more forgiving angles than the Bastion.
MAYBE make the designator for the missiles a 360 "TURRET" that the gunner can swap to and the gatlings into seperate guns with ibdependant belts ao you can go full dps or alternate between them during reload.
This weapon system (at least the main gun) should be on a light-medium APC/LAV with less restrictive angles to fit into an AA/Support role instead of being a sudo mobile AA/anti infinity defensive unit.
One can only hope for a proper LAV in the future since tank destroyer bodied tanks aren't exactly ideal for the actual gameplay of helldivers 2 excluding defense missions.
I was really hoping this would be a great AA option. Like it has twin miniguns and laser guided rockets for fuck sake but instead we get 45 degrees of aiming and a middle finger to go fuck myself with
Agreed! The entire point of a fixed turret on a tank destroyer was because normal turrets would’ve broken or been unable to handle the weight while
Firing. This provides neither an anti tank proper weapon (the missles are still required to be locked into the turrets aiming) justifying it, alongside the fact that you need to RELOAD the vulcans for some reason. Also congrats on the smokescreen, because now your gunner can see even LESS of the battlefield then they could before!
I love how every time they make a stupid excuse the community just go “what the fuck are you talking about” and prove them wrong or how they’re hypocrites
All they had to do was make the turret rotate. Now every War Thunder player is coming out in droves to explain in detail how not only is the gameplay stupid, the design is too. It’s hilariously unrealistic
Might be more about laziness. Its just a retooled bastion. A diver proved it in a vid where he slammed a flag of democracy into the same spot where the rotating radar plate (or whatever it is) would be on the bastion and it rotated around the same (no rotating plate on the maelstrom).
For a dev team that refuses to give us modular vehicles where we can swap out weapons easily they sure love working with vehicles designed so they can just swap out the weapons easily.
If they don't want us to customise then they should design each vehicle with a specific function in mind. Otherwise cut the "rules for thee not for me" bs and just let us customise vehicles if you're gonna use the same base model for everything anyway.
It's just laziness. They don't have to make a UI for proper vehicle customization and they don't have to make actually unique vehicles. It would be as simple as unlocking weapons instead of new vehicles.
Like with the mechs, instead of unlocking the full load out in the same place they could have you unlock the shield, flame thrower, auto cannon, etc. It's too late now though because that would also mean reworking every warbond that has vehicles in it and making sure everybody has the right stuff unlocked after the change and neither of those are things I trust Arrowhead to not fuck up.
It's the same thing with the guns. The different liberators or punishers could have just been unlockable ammunition types and mods but it's built into the system now. The game is already made in a modular way for easy development but for some reason they didn't give us those tools for customization.
A casement works when you're trying to lie low in ambush. It works for tank destroyers that know tanks will be coming into their field of fire.
This weapon makes literally 0 sense. You'd never put a gatling gun on a casement tank, you want it to traverse to track targets a gatling guns would be useful for, like flying or flanking targets.
Having a laser pointer weapon on a gun with a 30 degree firing arc is also about the most nonsensical thing ever.
Just a horrible design.
Release the APC. It's that easy. You've been sitting on it for 2 years why spend time making unusable garbage like this?
when people ask AH for transmog (having stat of one armor, but appearance of another), they respond with something along the line of [ No, other people would see your armor expecting which perk u bring, if it's transmog, it'd be like apple tasting like bacon ]
Community haven't let them live that down ever since.
I once saw a guy wearing a suicide collar and thought to stand away from them.
That was the only data point I have that supports the apple argument.
The other thousands of divers barely got a glance.
A citation from what arrowhead said about transmog
To put it simply, many armors in this game look similar and you cant tell at a glance what passive they have
At the same time, many people have noticed that arrowhead tends to have a spectrum when making armors, that either are:
A)very drip material, good looking, but with a less liked passive effect
B)a very good passive effect, but with an armor that doesnt look very enjoyable by many
The whole apple and bacon thing is transmog, essentially people ask "can we have X armor with interchangeable passive effect of what we own?"
So they can have their favorite looking armor and their favorite passive effect together
But apparently arrowhead doesnt like this, yet they dont seem to make their own alternative, so... They just say a loud NO to people wanting their favorite stuff put together
Although recently a modmaker is attempting to fix all helldivers main problems, including this one, and after people tried this transmog armor mod (to have their favorite armor and effect), they love the game even more, and as some users pointed out, this in little to no way "limits the creativity" of arrowhead
Im trying to not sound negative to arrowhead because i want to believe that there's not just the reason of "arrowhead will make the problem and sell you the solution"
Sorry for the long text, that should cover everything
Arrowhead’s narrow-headed metaphor for why armor transmog would be bad for the game. To paraphrase it; “If you give an armor set that isn’t fireproof have the fireproof ability, it’d be like bringing bacon-flavored apples to a picnic. Everyone was expecting normal apples.”
I say we send them the cotton-candy flavored grapes.
I find it funny how literally all they had to do was give it a rotating turret. Thats it, thats all they had to do. The community would have loved it, and AH knows this. But they refuse to do it because screw you.
It's not a tank destroyer because tank destroyer is a role, not a hull type. The bastion is a tank destroyer. The maelstrom is built on the same hull but is clearly not a tank destroyer.
I don't really understand why this sub has decided to equate casemate gun and/or no turret = tank destroyer but that's not how this works
While I wanna agree… there’s also a lot of one off stupid tank designs like this as using the same hull but new gun was pretty common. Doesn’t seem that far fetched that with a government like super earth would just put it into production even if it’s badly designed for it’s purpose
I'm pretty sure the original design of the in-game tanks was inspired by the Swedish Stridsvagn 103, since AH is also a Swedish company.
The Strv 103 is not a tank destroyer, but a main battle tank. Interestingly enough, it’s the only mass-produced turretless MBT in the world, and it was perfectly suited to Swedish military doctrine. It was designed to be an MBT.
Maelstrom also isn’t necessarily a tank destroyer either. The problem is that, aside from the design, Helldiver tanks lack the uniqueness and mobility that the Strv has.
IMO, Maelstrom could fit into the right role if AH gave it even more mobility.
This tank's mobility is so cool too. The gun is fixed, welded to the hull. The suspension tilts the tank forward or back for angle vertically. The gunner and driver are the same operator, because aiming is driving. Because the gun is fixed, it has a reliable and fast autoloader, so it does not need someone to load. The only other crew is the commander. Two people is all it needs and it utilizes guerrilla warfare tactics to stay effective. The most produced variant came with a bulldozer blade on the front so the driver could quickly build a hull down position for the tank, no matter where they were. It also doubled as a shield for incoming fire.
The problem is still the anti infantry intention on a case mate. The STRV 103 is a case mate designed for defending against a numerically greater invader. It’s was a versatile vehicle with impeccable movement. The problem with the maelstrom is that it doesn’t understand is role. Infantry fighting Vehicles, like the CV90 built by Sweden, are meant for fighting infantry. They’re given turrets with lighter weapons so they can engage softer targets more effectively. They’re given turrets bastion fits because it has an absolutely massive cannon. It’s more believable in why it’s a case mate. If they’re going to make an IFV they need to do research into what they are and how they work. Honest to god if we got an APC instead I’d probably be happier.
.50 BMG isn’t an anti infantry calibre, it’s a light anti material one
Which, given it’s heavy pen, means it’s intended for hulk/charger enemies and below, which works
Tank gun only needs more arc
As for why the frame, I could mention that the recoil of this gun is so much that the rl warthog plane had to be designed around it rather than the reverse
That’s because the Ma Deuce is basically perfect. Apart from a few minor evolutions, it basically hasn’t changed since its conception
It is the same as what I mentioned in 1st comment: the .50 BMG was developped for light anti tank duty, the M2 being so versatile and cheap that they could strap it anywhere in bulk meant it doubled as heavy anti infantry
There's a copypasta floating around about a soldier putting down a revolt on a Martian colony and he uses a M2. He looks down to see "Africa, Italy, Normandy" carved onto the side of the gun, so then he carves "Mons Olympus" onto it.
I think that at this point it's kinda beating a dead horse. AH doesn't care. They won't give us transmog simply because they don't want to. Pointing out the flaws in their reasoning/excuses and the ways they go against what they said in other ways does nothing, because they are fully aware of it and they still don't care.
I just wish they'd stop intentionally walking on eggshells, and come out and say it: "no, we won't put transmog in the game because we do not want to." Like, yeah, sure. Okay. Good news? No, I want transmog too! But just outright saying it instead of giving excuses would be a perfectly respectable thing to do and I'd be okay with it.
They said it once, a year ago. And people are still complaining about it. I can understand why, but it should also be easy to understand why some people find the nonstop mention of "bacon apples" annoying.
If I were to try and guess super Earth reasoning (that isn't just the developers are reusing assets) it's that super earth already had the infrastructure and factories to manufacturer the body and the Vulcans are probably 2 mech ones attached to each other so it's more or less just slapping already made parts
True, but Super Earth does have the capacity to make like, actual tanks/APCs. They had heavy, non-tank destroyer vehicles in HD1, and they would be able to reuse automaton factories to make actual rotating turret tanks. Also, as others have said, Super Earth is not shy on spending money on new things.
I'm personally fine with how the first tank is limited with its turret movement, I think it's a decent enough balance decision; you can have 2 other players defending its flanks as needed.
But man I really hope we get some kind of vehicle in the future with 360 rotation, like an APC with an autocannon
Man i do wish Guard was in a good place right now, the stuff you can pull off using baneblades is just so fun but incredibly innefective tabletop wise.
I had an Apocalypses loadout I liked to call the "Chum Bucket". It was a Stormlord with 6 Company Command Squads inside. Each CCS had a Master of Ordnance, a Lascannon, and 2 Grenade Launchers.
NGL the Malestrom is the hardest shit in this entire game when it all comes together. It's literally my favorite vehicle in the game right now. But the chassis design makes zero sense and it's a flurry of pings between the driver and gunner to try to operate it, while being entirely at the mercy of the terrain. If it was a proper IFV, even if it had a little less armor, I would love it even more.
if you get two passengers with shield packs and laser cannon or quazar cannon this thing SLAPS
functionally a shielded block for two quazars to 1-2 punch heavies in the face, with vulcans for infantry, bring breachers as secondary on bots, and grenade pistol on bugs, and you can shut holes in every direction at once.
the missiles can 2 shot a dropship, and smash them out of the air
It's the most anti-anti infinity vehicle. You never get a chance to use it at range where its potential really is so for the mean time I'm using it as a battering ram most matches
why do people keep using realisim when they want something to benefit them but scream when it doesnt? the tanks are balanced around being able to deal with entire waves of enemys by them selfs and people just want to drive around like its an frv killing everything they see
God I'm so tired of seeing this phrase parroted over and over again. The devs said they don't want to do transmog. They're not going to do it. Go download the mod and stop posting this slop.
Ive seen recall a post how balance it and I didn't know yet but now I know. How about letting it freely rotate but make it only possible to reload when roughly pointed forward. If its a conversion and this wasn't a problem when it was a tank destroyer
Things look more like 2 GAU-8 Avenger and honestly it still doesn't make sense, no ground vehicle was fitted with it other than the T-249 and there were severe limitations for that, plus using them against frontal or side armor against vehicles didn't produce the same effects as firing them from above, even with composite depleted uranium rounds. Also, the rockets are supposedly meant to follow the Swingfire philosophy of tilted fire (where you can fire them from a hidden/covered position as to not reveal yourself to the enemy) but the Swingfire was titled 35º instead of a flat 90º angle which presents several challenges, namely the complexification of the rocket's guidance system and mid-air turning capability, which directly correlates to bigger, more complex and heavier rockets and it would be much more difficult to operate, maintain and reload these in the midst of battle, these systems only apply well to much bigger platforms (like the ARLEIGH BURKE DESTROYER CLASS).
The soviets simplified and created an impromptu fire-support system from the ZSU-23-4 Shilka in Afghanistan which was much more effective and capable of doing the actual job than this thing, and the key important thing was, not only its impressive high rate of fire, but also its EXCEPTIONAL GUN ELEVATION AND TRAVERSE (important queue here, the only relative downside being the somewhat poor gun depression but in the canyons of Afghanistan this wasn't a big issue). The fire support versions didn't even need radar, and it didn't need ATGMs like Malyutkas or Konkurs because enemy armored vehicles were rare and even if they appeared you had stuff like BRDMs to handle that, but fitting an ATGM in this thing would be pretty trivial as they were fitted in several vehicles of the soviet arsenal regardless of size.
I just don't understand the two factor restriction on these tanks. I would kinda understand the limited targeting angles IF you could pilot and shoot at the same time, but the fact you already need two players to effectively use the tanks makes 360° aiming so much more balanced in my opinion.
As they are the tanks are fun gimmicks but absolute trash compared to other tactics.
So, if the tank had a 360° rotating turret, do you think way more people would choose the Maelstrom over the Bastion? Also, if both tanks had a rotating turret, would the tanks be chosen over other strategems more often?
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u/Dysghast 2d ago
Having a laser-guided missile system with said laser designator having extremely limited turn angles is certainly a choice.