Black Sea Discussions

[raz_atoth]

Their armour is also very good at defeating AT-missiles, they rarely penetrate, but can still damage the tank.

I think this only statement holds only if you're driving an Abrams :) The frontal armor of an Abrams is strong enough to defeat any ATGMs up to and including AT-14. The AT-15 Springer ATGMs (fired by the Khrizantema) might be powerful enough to regularly defeat the Abrams, but i still need to test it :)

On the other hand the Russian/Ukrainian armor is very fragile. A Corsair/Skif rocket is more than enough to destroy the T-90, so don't rely on the armor to stop the ATGMs.

The American Javelin missile gives the US player a tremendous advantage because it dives from above into tanks thinner top armour, killing them nearly every time, and even APS-equipped tanks rarely stop it.

Correct. The Javelin dives from above, thus it'll completely bypass the APS. I haven't so far seen a single Javelin being stopped by Arena, although i've seen the javelins sometimes miss. Thus, if you're playing with the russians vs the US, don't spend your precious points on APS equipped AFVs because it'll die just as easily as those vehicles not having APS. If you're playing against Ukraine, buy as much APS equipped tanks as you can afford, it'll stop any ATGMs the ukrainians can throw at it.

A question that often comes up is "Who has the better equipment, Russians or Ukrainians?"

I think the Russian equipment is superior. Not by a huge margin, but if properly employed it should give the russian player the edge. I'll detail below why i think that's the case.

As for tanks, I can't see much difference between the countries at the moment, as both sides are capable of inflicting severe damage on the other with the latest tanks (Russian T-90AM and Ukrainian Oplot)

The T-90AM in my experience is still a superior tank to the Oplot. The difference isn't huge, it's small actually, but all things being equal, i'd still prefer to have the T-90AM.

For example if you like buying hard-hitting APC's, the Russian MT-LBM 6MB with its 30mm cannon is excellent value at only 116 purchase points.
By contrast, the cheapest Ukrainian APC with a 30mm cannon is the BTR-4E at 178 pts.

Good points, POS. The MT-LBM is quite a potent tool if used like it was intended aka: as a battlefield taxi. The russians can more cheaply transport units around the map using the MT-LBM than the ukrainians can with the BTR-4E. Also, the MT-LBM is a tracked vehicle, while BTR-4E is wheeled, thus MT-LBM has better cross-country capabilities.

Just one observation. MT-LBM is blind like a bat. Don't count on it on engaging enemy APCs/IFVs with to much success despite it's fancy 30mm cannon. If you're likely to encounter enemy AFVs pick the BMP-2/BMP-3. They're more expensive, but they're more expensive for a reason.

Also, some observations regarding the IFVs both sides can field. The best IFV the ukrainians can deploy is the BMP-2. The russians on the other hand have the BMP-2M, BMP-3, BMP-3M. For those of you who don't know, the 'M' in the 2M/3M stands for 'modernized'. Again, the russians win.

Last but not least, the ukrainians don't have an AFV i absolutely love: the Khrizantema. Khriz. is the only vehicle i'm aware of which can detect and engage targets through smoke using it's radar. A tactic i often employ is to have a t-90/BMP-3 drive in front of the khriz. and pop smoke once an enemy target comes into sight. Then, the Khriz will come forward and engage with it's potent ATGMs the enemy targets.