AS-20 Nord - Death from Above!

The AS-20 Nord is a French guided Air-to-Surface missile, roughly analogous to the U.S. AGM-12 Bullpup in that both are early MCLOS missiles that you use your Alt + WASD keys to control on PC. Used to give aircraft like the G.91 their long-ranged 'teeth' but also giving them their notoriety as well, let’s dive into the intricacies of Nords and how to use them effectively!

Compared to the AGM-12B Bullpup, the AS-20 weighs just over half its weight (259kg vs 143.8kg), while having a third of the explosive mass (58kg TNTe vs 15.85kg TNTe). What this translates to in practice is that the AS-20 is much more akin to a scalpel than a sledgehammer, with even near misses being highly punishing due to the low explosive mass of the missile. To compensate for this, the AS-20 is a quite nimble missile, and once familiarized with the controls, it can be quite fun guiding missiles in onto unsuspecting people’s roofs!

Tactics

AS-20s suffer from one crippling limitation when compared to its contemporaries such as the AGM-12B Bullpup or Kh-23Ms, which is its warhead explosive mass — a mere 15kg TNTe. Compared to the smallest bombs the G.91 R/3 can carry, the AN-M57 Bomb, the M57 looks like overkill compared to the Nord with a TNTe of 58.5kg! This shapes the Nord’s gameplay, as even a near miss is often enough distance to let your would-be kill escape scot-free.

Aiming M/SACLOS missiles is not an easy task at the best of times, and doing so while also flying your plane and evading enemy fire can be quite difficult. Aiming Nords requires much practice, and you won’t magically be able to use them from the get-go, but there are certain ways to improve your odds. This primarily involves diving from a higher angle — you may need to deploy your airbrakes or lower your throttle if you’re more inexperienced to prevent 'lawndarting' into the ground, but by coming in with a high angle means you get a more top-down view and only have to consider their two-dimensional movement, rather than both dimensions as well as the added 'depth' of the vehicle. In certain situations (poor weather, enemy SAM systems being present) this may not be possible, and in those situations a more conventional horizontal launch is also possible, albeit a bit harder if the enemy is moving than when launched top-down.

For your missile controls, you may also choose to re-bind the vertical axis, as it’s inverted much like MCLOS ATGM controls. If you’ve already gotten used to your keybinds it’s not an issue, but if you’re just starting out learning and keep getting confused by why pressing the 'upwards' direction sends the missile the other way and vice versa, maybe consider inverting those controls in the Settings to save yourself some trouble.

A big part of using Nords is target prioritization. Hold your Nords, if you were about to just run at the guy that just killed you to show him a taste of his own medicine! Specifically for the G.91 family and Etendard, the most common Nord carriers, your lack of RWRs on these systems and lack of countermeasures mean that you would be none the wiser if you’re being locked by a SPAA on the ground and/or fired upon by a SAM — Prioritizing enemy air defenses will clear the way for you to deliver sweet Nord justice afterwards with impunity. Of course, if there is an enemy that’s holding a vantage point that just has to go immediately, you can take the risk — just make sure to dodge!

A more minor tactic primarily reserved for Air Battles would be the use of carrying these Nords as 'head-on deniers', firing them and spooking people with the red MSL icon (Air only) or smoke in the air, although it is also admittedly pointless given most if not all aircraft that can carry AS-20s can also carry AA-20s or even AIM-9Bs, and AA-20s actually have proximity fuses that punish head-ons better. Even still, very rarely, if you have to spook someone or use one as a flare, always remember that the option is there! Most people will instinctively choose to pull out when they see smoke coming their way, even in Ground Battles where there are no missile markers, so it’s by no means ineffective in the rare instances it matters.

Limitations

As described earlier, Nords struggle in arguably the most important metric of them all — explosive mass content. Being able to guide in your missiles onto someone’s roof is definitely rewarding and also an incredibly powerful ability, but even near misses are rarely enough. Let’s look at an example case:

As the XM803 player, if you saw something like this, you would probably think your time on this mortal plane was over. A Nord, flying directly at you, with nothing you can do about it coming from that high of an angle. However…

As shown, he survived without a scratch. No critical hit, no fire, just a simple “Hit” from a Nord that landed in sneezing distance of his exposed engine deck. Nords are prone to acting like this due to that lack of explosive mass, so don’t be too disheartened if this happens to you — it’s just 'how it is.' Later Nords like the AS-30 fix this by effectively increasing the missile’s lethality by over 6 times, increasing the explosive mass of the warhead to just under 100kg of TNTe — but with the AS-20, these are the limitations you have to play around. Even near misses on non-open top SPAAs such as the Gepard or AMX-30 S DCA may not critically damage them if at all, so it is truly your skill at guiding these missiles in that will make all the difference between being gunned down on your first Nord or getting a quad killstreak.

Notable Vehicles

For notable AS-20 Nord carriers we can’t forget about G.91s, most likely the plane people associate the most with Nords. The German G.91s (both Tech Tree and Premium ones) come equipped with 4, while the Italian G.91s (except for the premium one) cap out at only 2 for the ones that do carry them, making Germany the more versatile nation when not factoring in premium vehicles. The French Etendard IVM also carries AS-20s, but as it carries AS-30s when spaded, much like the G.91Y, there is no reason to use the AS-20s once you have them unlocked.

For notable vehicles you can face in these aircraft we can split them into two categories; The first category will be vehicles you’ll be seeing regularly, while the second will be ones you’ll have to watch out for if you bring the G.91s to higher BRs.

Notable Threats (7.7-9.7)

The biggest threat at these Battle Ratings end up being proximity fuse AAs like the M247 and WZ305, simply for the fact that you can’t see them coming nearly as easily as SAMs. The M247 especially will be a very dangerous vehicle to your way of life, as its tracerless proximity rounds mean unless you find and kill it first it will rip your wings off effortlessly. Combined SAM/Gun vehicles such as the PGZ04A or Gepard 1A2 will be annoying to deal with, but in contrast their shells are more telegraphed and if they start firing from longer ranges you can simply reposition and Nord them from beyond their effective range. MANPADS-type systems such as the Ozelot and Type 93 can pose some threat if you don’t see the missiles coming, but you’ll usually be able to dodge them with little issue with some pre-warning.

Notable Threats (10.0-10.7)

This will mostly not be an issue for most players if they use the G.91s or Etendard at their designated BRs. However, for one reason or another, it’s not unreasonable to want to put the G.91 in your German 9.3 or even 9.7 lineup for example if you’re still in the process of grinding out a different vehicle — so these are the vehicles that will give you the most trouble, if uptiered.

The Strela series of SAM systems will be the bane of your existence as you cannot kinetically dodge the missiles unless fired from very far out, and with your lack of flares, even the small chance of flaring the missile is out of the question. SACLOS SAM systems such as the Osa, Tunguska or Roland will pose a threat to you for quite far out due to your inability to know if you’re being locked combined with the need to fly higher than most to spot your targets, and advanced proximity fuse equipped vehicles like the 2S38, Begleitpanzer 57, and Lvkv 9040C can ruin your day as well — even having a RWR wouldn’t save you against these, given some have IRST lock capabilities. Given you need a fairly long time to guide in your missiles and also fly mostly straight while doing so, these vehicles can be very problematic to you.

Conclusion

AS-20 Nords are in a way, stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, in a full downtier to 7.7, if the enemy team has no SPAAs or only has open-topped short ranged vehicles such as the M163, you can easily dispatch of them and secure your kills handily. However, on the other hand, if you choose to even slightly uptier your vehicles and use them in a 9.3+ lineup, and then get uptiered to 10.3+…Well, you have no RWR nor flares, and have to face off against much more competent anti-air vehicles such as the Strela-10M2 or 2S38. A good way to tackle enemy anti-air vehicles from long range, but very much lacking the consistency of other similar munitions like Bullpups and falling short of true Fire-and-Forget guided munitions such as the AGM-65A Maverick.

Still, even with their flaws, Nords are quite satisfying to use, offering longer ranged 'teeth' for Germany, Italy and France at those BRs. Landing Nords next to open-top vehicles will still result in an overpressure kill, and they’re nimble enough to be guided into tank roofs just fine as long as you aren’t interrupted. They’re not Mavericks or Kh-38MTs — capable of homing in on their own with large warheads — but they don’t have to be. With their current place in the game, almost no one has access to those kinds of ranged and especially guided damage options at their respective BRs, so even with their inconsistencies you’re still very much ahead of the pack with AS-20s. They might not be the easiest to use, but with proficient skill you’ll be able to precisely kill the enemies you want, like a surgeon with a scalapel.

So, perfect your skill, and go out there and terrorize the enemy team. Show them that TV and laser guidance isn’t the only way you can achive surgical precision; Happy hunting!