# Air-to-Air, Ground-to-Air and Air-to-Ground

## Main Mechanics

I've already talked about several changes to air warfare, but there are quite a few left, first of all we'll talk about the two different stages of **Air Battles**

As there are **dedicated plane slots** from the start, planes **can** takeoff right at the beginning of the battle, however there are a few **restrictions** to that:

* While ground vehicles spawn after **45 seconds**, planes are **delayed**; The delay is proportional to the plane's top speed. This is done to give more time for light tanks to move and get to cover and to reduce airfield overcrowding

$$
\frac{planeTopSpeed}{40} = x
$$

> Where **planeTopSpeed** is the plane's top speed at sea level
>
> Where **x** is the amount of additional seconds added on top of the base **45 seconds**

* At first, **only fighters** (any type: twin engine fighters, heavy fighters, air defence fighters...) and **CAS** planes (though not recommended) can spawn. On top of that, they **cannot load** any **bomb**, **rockets** or **Air-to-Ground missiles**. This is the first stage of **Air Battles** which consists in **fighting for air superiority**, and is also the **most important** as it will pretty much decide what team gets the air superiority for the rest of the match
* **Bombers** and **helicopters** get unlocked and regular planes are **allowed** to load **bombs**/**rockets**/**Air-to-Ground missiles** once at least **half** of the enemy ground forces have been **seen** (marked by light tanks or been hit). This, instead of a simple timer, is done to **dynamically adjust when CAS duty can start based on how fast each team gathers intelligence** to encourage players to actively scout, but can be replaced by a timer of \~5 minutes if necessary
* Just like **fighters** and **CAS planes** once the battle has begun, there is **no limit** to how many **helicopters** can be deployed
* The second stage of **Air Battles** starts at this point, **fighters** should focus **less** on fighting for **air superiority** and **cover friendly bombers** or **intercept enemy bombers**
* Players who chose their **Air line-up** as **main line-up** get, just like the ones who chose ground, **2 uses per vehicle** (similar to **Simulator Battles**) **except for bombers that are single-usage only**, hence how important it is for fighters to protect them
* Jailing out of a plane takes **5 seconds** instead of **3** (Reason is explained below)

## Air-to-Ground Restrictions

Now let's get to the **Air-to-Ground restrictions**, part of why **CAS** is so destructive in **Realistic Battles** is due to the high amount of **reckless strikes**. You'll regularly see players hoping into their plane after getting killed into their tank and do a **suicide strike** on whoever killed them, and when pilots don't do a suicide strike, they still crash because their **greedy manoeuver** didn't give them enough **time to pull up**.

> *In real life, not only the life of the pilot had high importance, but also the good condition of the plane. Producing and repairing planes takes too much resources to just recklessly crash into the first target you see.*
>
> *Because in War Thunder the pilot's life has basically no value and repair costs are relatively cheap, players too often don't take the necessary precautions to safely deliver a ground strike.*

To fight against this, the following, perhaps a bit overboard restrictions apply:

* If the plane crashes **on the ground battle area** without having taken **any critical damage**, then it is considered a **deliberate suicide strike** or a **reckless** one
* Such crashes **multiply** the plane's repair cost by **1.5x, removes all** the **spawn points acquired** until now and notifies the player of it
* Crashes **outside** of the **ground battle area** are very likely to be due to **risky manoeuvers to shake a hostile plane off** and as such aren't counted

## Ground-to-Air Buffs

And finally let's talk about **Ground-to-Air**, which may seem underpowered against a constant air threat.&#x20;

Just like in **ARB** and **NRB**, to help counter **CAS**, ground vehicles should be able to **enable their machine guns to automatically fire at planes within 500 meters** as long as their ammunition last, machine gunner stays alive and is not filling the role of another crew members, or until the player decides to turn it off if they want to stay unnoticed.

This is to make a **better** and more **realistic** use of a vehicle's crew and secondary armament, as in real life some vehicles could **both engage planes** with their machine guns and **ground targets** with their main gun **simultaneously**.&#x20;

**The dispersion, and thus accuracy, would of course be poor, on top of the minor damage the bullets do**; However **it may scare hostile planes off, and even be quite deadly if multiple tanks are concentrating fire**. This will also **help against** the above mentioned **reckless strikes**.
