A recent Baidu Tieba thread sparked a pretty heated discussion. The OP, V猫骑士V, was flying the Mirage 2000D and noticed something that bugged him: even when ground vehicles with laser warning receivers (LWR) got painted by a continuous laser, almost nobody popped smoke. Out of everyone he tested it on, fewer than 5 players responded correctly. He couldn’t figure out why, so he posted about it. The replies piled up fast, and what came out of the thread was a lot more complicated than “players just don’t know how to play.”
1. The Laser Warning System Itself Has Real Issues
The Elevation Blind Spot Is a Genuine Problem
Several players pointed out that LWR systems don’t have full 360-degree coverage — there’s a hard elevation limit built in. If a helicopter is flying high enough, the laser angle exceeds what the LWR can detect, and the ground vehicle gets no warning at all. Player “余慌_” mentioned getting killed by AS-30L rockets with zero warning trigger, purely because the helicopter was at an angle that bypassed the LWR entirely.
The BMPT’s Warning System Is a Mess
Multiple players specifically called out the BMPT. When it gets lased, the warning display throws up indicators in several directions at once, sometimes even showing the threat coming from the complete opposite side. Player “没手感” described it as “split into top and bottom halves — you have no idea where the laser is actually coming from.” Practically useless for real situational awareness.
2. A Lot of Players Simply Don’t Have the Smoke Launcher Modification Yet
Want to Pop Smoke? Finish the Modification Tree First
This came up more than anything else in the thread. Top-tier vehicles in War Thunder require researching vehicle modifications before the smoke launcher becomes available, and that modification tends to sit near the bottom of the upgrade tree. Players who are still grinding modifications don’t have the option to pop smoke even if they want to.
Player “静安小王子” laid it out plainly: it’s not that they don’t want to use smoke, it’s that the modification isn’t unlocked yet. The OP admitted after reading this that he hadn’t thought about it. Player “亻404” said the same thing — spending most of his time grinding modifications means the smoke launcher simply isn’t available, and there’s nothing he can do about it mid-match.
3. Friendly Fire Lasing Is the Biggest Source of False Alarms
The Ka-50’s Vikhr Guidance Laser Covers Half the Map
This was the point that got the most agreement across the thread. The Ka-50 uses laser beam-riding guidance for its Vikhr missiles, and the laser footprint is large enough that nearby friendly vehicles constantly get triggered. Player “俄罗斯原神麻酱” described a typical situation: he was pushing in a 2S38, kept getting laser warnings, looked everywhere for a threat, and eventually figured out it was a friendly Ka-50 firing Vikhrs at a target nearby — the guidance laser was sweeping over him the whole time.
After Getting Lased by Teammates Enough Times, You Just Stop Caring
Player “椎叶紬” put it well: teammates randomly lase him for rangefinding all the time, and after getting startled enough times in the late game by nothing, the warning just becomes background noise. Player “PriceSmith” said he got lased by a teammate for an entire match on Kursk, and after that, he stopped reacting to laser warnings altogether.
The general consensus in the community now: if you get a laser warning from behind, check if there’s a friendly Ka-50 nearby first. Nine times out of ten, that’s what it is.
4. Popping Smoke Isn’t Always the Right Call
In Some Situations, Smoking Yourself Is the Worst Move
A few players pushed back on the idea that smoke should be the automatic response to any laser warning. Player “贴吧用户_79JaJX4” made a fair point: if the enemy shot at you and didn’t one-shot you, you can still shoot back. Pop smoke and suddenly you can’t see anything, and you’re just sitting there waiting to get finished off.
Brimstone Laughs at Your Smoke
Player “G2.Niko” noted that if the incoming missile is an active radar-guided weapon like Brimstone, smoke does nothing. In that case, a laser warning tells you basically nothing useful, so he ignores it. Others added that if the missile is already close enough, there’s no time to get smoke out anyway — so reacting at that point is pointless.
5. Player Habits and Experience Levels Vary Wildly
From Panic-Smoking Everything to Ignoring It Completely
Player “游戏领域大神才羽桃” described a progression that a lot of experienced players will recognize: early on, any laser warning triggers an immediate smoke response. Then you learn to pause and assess the situation first. But that pause gets you killed often enough that eventually you just stop reacting to laser warnings at all. It’s a direct result of getting false alarmed by teammates too many times.
Some Players Use the Laser Just to Troll
Player “lmh” shared a story that went the other way. While flying a helicopter, he pointed his laser at ground vehicles that had no LWR at all, purely to mess with them. Turns out a lot of players would pop smoke anyway just from seeing a helicopter pointing at them — he kept four vehicles on the Polish C-point smoking themselves for nearly ten minutes straight, completely neutralizing their push without firing a single shot.
Wrap-Up
What this thread actually shows is that low LWR utilization in top-tier matches isn’t just a skill issue. The system’s own elevation blind spots and buggy directional indicators, the smoke launcher modification grind, the constant false alarms from friendly Ka-50 guidance lasers, and the fact that smoke isn’t even effective against certain missile types — all of it stacks up. The OP himself said at the end of the thread that the responses changed his initial take, and the situation is a lot more layered than he expected.
For players just getting into top-tier: unlock the smoke launcher modification as early as possible, learn to identify where the laser is actually coming from before reacting, and don’t just blindly pop smoke every time the warning goes off. But don’t completely ignore it either.