The Fliegerfaust was a German prototype of an unguided, man-portable, and multi-barrelled ground-to-air rocket launcher, designed to destroy enemy ground attack planes. Designed by Hugo Schneider AG of Leipzig in 1944, it was produced in the A and B variants.
The Fliegerfaust was not a successful weapon because of its small effective range caused by too large dispersion of projectiles and the designed range of 500 meters was never attained. Although large orders for the weapon were placed in 1945 only 80 of these weapons were ever used in combat trials.[1]
Battlefield V[]
— In-game description
The Fliegerfaust is a gadget in Battlefield V. It was introduced an as in game reward for completing the Week Four community challenge of Battlefest. This challenge required the community to collectively obtain 100,000,000 kills or assists over the week in any gamemode and was completed on October 26, 2019. Those who did not participate in the challenge can purchase the weapon starting on November 7, 2019 for 1700
.[2]
The Fliegerfaust is an anti-aircraft weapon that fires a burst of nine rockets, set to explode in the air when in proximity to aircraft. It is treated as a two-shot burst-fire weapon, with the first shot containing four rockets, and the second five rockets. There is no way to fire single rockets or indeed anything other than the full nine round burst - switching to other weapons, getting in a vehicle, arming objectives or performing any other option to cancel the burst will instead consume all nine rockets regardless of how many were actually fired, requiring a full reload. The player spawns with enough ammo for two nine-rocket volleys, and can carry ammo for a maximum of three volleys once resupplied.
The rockets fired by the Fliegerfaust have the highest velocity of any rocket launcher available to the Assault kit but are still relatively slow, requiring the user to anticipate fast moving aircraft and lead accordingly. They also have a limited range of several hundred meters, meaning pilots can avoid Fliegerfaust attack by staying at high altitude. The launcher fires rockets in a spread pattern to increase likelihood of a hit, lessening the need for point accuracy.
The amount of damage each salvo does varies greatly based on how many rockets manage to "hit" their target and how close they are to the aircraft body when they explode. Even when dealing maximum damage, the Fliegerfaust cannot destroy an aircraft in a single volley unless it has already taken damage from other sources. A weak hit may cause as little as 5% damage to a fighter aircraft, while a full accurate volley can deal as much as 95% and inflict severe systemic damage - bombers and attack aircraft are slightly more resilient due to higher health. Regardless, even when it does not kill, a volley may inflict significant damage which can then be followed up by other teammates using AA weapons, or cause attacking pilots to divert from their intended target and retreat to safety. While limited in range, velocity and reload speed between volleys, the Fliegerfaust can be a powerful deterrent against aircraft, especially on air-focused maps.
Against ground targets, the Fliegerfaust is ineffective against tanks and light vehicles, dealing only minor damage at best, with a high chance of deflection. It is also generally ineffective against cover as it cannot easily destroy structures or Fortifications. The rockets do inflict relatively high damage to infantry and can kill in a single volley, however this is difficult to achieve consistently for several reasons. As with aerial targets the rockets have a limited splash damage area and must be landed close to or directly hit the enemy player to deal any significant damage, with six rockets needed to kill from full health. Furthermore while the inherent spread of the rockets increases hit probability against aircraft, a consequence of this is that only a few of the nine fired are likely hit a much smaller, man-sized target, especially at range. Effectiveness is further reduced by the delay of firing all rockets in the volley, which increase inaccuracy against moving targets and means the weapon has a relatively low Time-To-Kill, as well as the inability to fire single shots and the long reload process.
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Trivia[]
- It was originally intended for use by the scrapped Anti-Tank Class Archetype, a variant of the Assault kit. Although not present on launch, the gadget could be seen in the background of The Armory and in official renders.[3]