I dont get why people ar complaining about AA being that inefficient. I think it's a LOT better now than it was when the game was new. Try imagining being raped to kingdom come by a pilot getting a 55/0 K/D, JUST because he's got a plane. That's the way things USED to be.
First and foremost becuse the AA USED to be a LOT worse than now, and planes used to be a lot better.
If you think AA wont work against a plane, then you're just a bad AA gunner. Get more practice. It took me the better part of 15 hours (game time, so in reality more than a full week !) sitting in the essex and various groundbased AA on various maps to get the hang of shooting down airplanes and helos. Now I'm actually quite good at it. Even the most experienced of pilots will not do more than one or two strafings over the essex if I'm in the AA gun (Wake, Dalian and Oman maps), because I shoot them down 95% of the time if they want to rape the deck. In point of fact, I actually sometimes try to goad them into attacking the essex, even if I'm the only guy on it and they fet NOTHING for spawnraping except their own death. I yell and scream "the skies belong to ME", "come get some", "I OWN this airspace", and all the 10 year olds they get so pissed they just cant resist trying to attack me. They dont even NOTICE that they get one kill for every three times they get shot down, and most of the time that kill isnt' even me !
The smart guys take notice and just get their points elsewhere (damned, that means I have to MOVE.. crap), and the bad pilots just forget about taking a plane out for a ride.
Sure, it's darned annoying that the J10 can fly faster than your missles. That DOES make the stationary ground AA very hard to use against the J10, but not impossible. It's just a matter of a large part of skill, a little part of luck, and getting the right angle on their J10. The two western most flags on wake, those AA positions are almost USELESS against the J10s (good against the F35s and helos though) because of the flight paths that the J10s usually take once one of these flags have been taken, you may get lucky, but luck has more to do with it than skill on those two AA sites.
Also, remember that in order for an airplane to actually kill inf, he will have to point his nose DOWN either to strafe with MG, or to bomb (I've tried being missiled while an inf though.. Darned annoying). At these times almost 98% of pilots will be flying in a straight line (if he's not, he's either a god, or a noob who will crash regardless if you shoot at him or not). If you're good with an Eryx/Predator, then you can easily shoot him down. A single hit will kill the airplane. While I'm not a good shot with the M1's maingun, I've seen plenty of tankers take down the J10 with the main gun also, because they fly in a straight line, thus allowing you to anticipate their future location and firing at that point.
The time fo total ownage in a plane is over. Yes the J10 DOES take more skill/luck to hit, but you DO NOT see 55/0 K/D rations anymore because it IS possible to kill airplanes. The fact that someone doesnt put in the time to learn how to do it does not, IMO, give them the right to complain. After all, it IS just a matter of practice, and while it's not much fun to get baseraped back to the stoneage, it IS at times like that you get in your best practice times. So the next time the carrier gets spawnraped like there's no tomorrow, get in one of the AA guns, and learn how to use it ! Then move on to learning the Mobile AA and the stationary AA sites. Manning these can be critical because if they're NEVER manned, then the planes TRULY are the masters of the skies. On oman if you're MEC there IS no decent AA site to defend your mainbase with, and you pretty much have to learn how to shoot the planes down with AT shots ! So in conclusion, if you think that AA is useless, try to play the loosing side on Oman, Dalian or Wake, and you will get in great practice time. If you dont want to practice, then dont complain, because then you haven't earned the RIGHT to complain.
