Anti-air - Bootcamp | War Thunder SPAA Guide

Good morning commanders, and welcome to War Thunder Bootcamp! In the long-awaited second episode of this series, we'll be taking a look at (self-propelled) anti-air. If you're tired of those pesky enemy planes wiping out your team, you've come to the right place. I'll go through all the tips and tricks to help you get better at SPAA in War Thunder.

─── TIMESTAMPS ───
0:00 Intro
0:23 Aiming
1:47 How to practice
2:43 Positioning
3:33 Extra tips
5:53 Outro
─────────────

Big shoutout to Pmag and Bagpiper for helping out with the tips

[tippedkarma]

"some spaa's have great firepower"
Zsu-57-2 never being used as anti-air, instead being the best anti-tank at its br: 😶

[PizzaBombz]

Every US main needs this. Once you've got a 50 cal slapped on top of you're roof you're effectively AA too

[Krzaczor]

spookston's teammates need to see this

[daviddavidson]

My advice, that some poor sod gave me a few years ago, is simple.
"If in doubt, lead your target further."
especially when dealing with planes going fast as fuck

[Smokasaurus]

The last tip was low key the best. Not that the rest weren't informative but that that monitor dust do be looking like aircrafts.

[epicguy-nkdd]

sometimes i want the enemy planes to fly towards me by shooting randomly in the sky so they can find me. when they start flying directly towards you then its MUCH easier to shoot them down (especially for SPAAs like ostwind) because you will only have to worry about aiming in one axis.

[ojaskumardubey]

Video Idea-
Make a vid on "Little War Thunder features costing games".
Here are "some" things I did not know before
> Click M to open map and then click on the map where ever u think there is an enemy
> You can see through your own smoke in thermals
> If the gun caliber is bigger than 100 mm then, HE can give consistent kills especially in lowtier.
> NEVER EVER BRING TOO MUCH AMMO, refer to war thunder wiki to know more about how much ammo u should carry
> [new trick] Shoot at the ammo inside of the barrel to kill Churchill AVRE. if u missed a shot, just turn and run away, he can't shoot u from + 150m
> Try to deduce the enemy team's future actions, like if 2 zones captured by enemy, they will try to reach the third zone.
> If u take time to kill a light tank, know that u must have been scouted.
> Certain maps have "exploitable" regions.
> Uptiers and Downtiers are key to success
> Sometimes very rarely, they newly researched shell is of lesser penetration.
> If no idea where to shoot, try shooting cupola for germany, gunner port for US, barell and tracks or lower front plate for Soviets
> Wiggling
> FOR GERMAIN MAINS, Always move after shooting a 2 km snipe, Yes, the enemy will attempt to CAS u
> You can make ur hit indicator last longer.
> Disable grass in tank sight
> Thumb rule- if camo white- good for snow maps, if camo mosty yellow/sandy- good for desert, if camo green and very messy- good for dense forest maps.
> Engine sounds
> Shut off engine in corners if u detect enemy.
> have different keys binded to primary and secondary weapons. very useful with dual armament tanks
There are many such tricks some less unknown and some nobody knows. I honestly wrote this to remember myself. XD

[logicmaster]

For the 3 useful teammates on the team
Or the overpowered secret tank destroyers
AAM SPAM

[skartimus]

I have a good tip which works more than you'd think it would. If you see an aircraft coming in but not on an angle you want, try and bait them by firing in a different direction or a distant enemy plane. Never take your eye off them and be ready to adjust when they turn right at you. They do it all the time, and it's basically a free kill if they come straight at you. Just be aware of your ammo, fast reloaders like the Wirbelwind are fine but careful with the longer ones. This legit works most times I do it.

[TheKayack]

you should do an entire guide on the missile radar (or without radar) SPAA's, because knowing when to shoot the different types of missiles is the hardest part when you want to kill jets.
even early missiles SPAA's like the ZSU-23-4M4 and even the "technically not SPAA" Shturm-S which can fire an HE-VT ATGM that has a range of 7 kilometers and has thermals and is fast (it acts as an SPAA at 8.7 lol), or talk about the SPAA without radar like the Strela-10M2.
there's lot of interesting vehicules with early missiles like this.
the Shturm-S is the funny one because no one expects to see an ATGM killing planes at such long ranges, it eats helis alive too and the HE-VT ATGM doesn't trigger on ground targets so you can take a full ammo load of the same ATGM's and still kill tanks/overpressure them.

[gtfogoogle]

"Wait till it comes close, under 1 km." - Mid and high BR CAS laughing at 5-20km range.

[Elninomalo]

I love your explanation to these other players 6:06

[fabians]

The shooting too early part hits so hard when you are playing early radar SPAA. I already got the waiting part down because it is very intuitive for me, and then seeing another Gepard fire as soon as the lead indicator appears is *painful*

[meferswift]

as SPAA player kinda (i got more fly swatter than heavy metal after all)

there are at least two method optimal of aiming for SPAA which primarily depend on the kind of weapon you had.
1. For MG or sprayer is to use an intercept, in which you predict a little bit to the front of where they gonna go and just spray that location. This way you eliminate space variability to trade it with time certainty. This method take is where you use of your gun ability to "guarantee hit" on a space within a time.

2. For auto cannon, is to use tracking, in which you actually track the enemy plane then shot and correct on the go. This don't need much explanation as already shown in the vid.

both of these are not mutual and you can ofc use one tactic when appropriate.

For high flying bomber i prefer to use the intercept method even using auto cannon, because bomber had a very predictable flight path. In which i only need the timing, to simplify this i just aim at its path and spam it there.

so does when when enemy are flying low and close, just track them as usual regardless of weapon type.

[zacharytang]

finally! I can have more than 1 competent spaa on my team… as a SPAA player you say it best. Though I think SPAAs in general should avoid being autocannon TDs. They’re almost always too vulnerable to everything, and when focused on ground targets airplanes will creep up. Smart plane players know to not go directly into the battlefield, and instead creep around the map. So when you start looking for planes in the line of sight to the air spawn, they strike from behind. All in all great guide.

[greatesterrboi]

HOW TF DO YOU NOT HAVE MORE SUBS THE PRODUCTION QUALITY IS SO HIGH!!!

[BagPiper]

Bagpiper02 again with the inside scoop, good work Sk

[abrunosON]

Great! That is very useful. Do it for gunners in bombers and how to achieve Unapproachable. I found that the best planes to do it with in order of difficulty, easy to less easy, are N.C.223.3, Ju288 and G4M1 (I don't have money for BV238). Them 20mm are nasty. Turn your smoke on, keep climbing and then you get them kills. Sometimes 4 in a single session.

[Ledt-durj]

I have clapped so many cheeks in low tier with 20mm HVAP rounds on the flakpanzer 💀

[Tsirkon]

Im over here using the dshk in my IS-3 as an anti air 😭 (and yes, getting kills with it too.) its super goofy because enemy planes thinks im just some unarmored truck with a machine gun, fun to watch them try to MG me.