It's the War Thunder issue, people think you point straight at it, and the bullet goes->into the plane. However, it's->Point away from the engine, and the plane go bye bye.
I don’t know what they were thinking not adding some sort of ai defense that exists against everything else in the game. Especially with paratroopers they can just rain hell on your facility in the middle of the night and there’s nothing you can do unless you stay up at all hours to use the awful aa guns that keep getting nerfs.
I feel like it's more a skill issue on their part than skill on your part. Usually people say the AA is ineffective because when they try to track one plane, another plane shoots them in the back. The fact that these planes did not do that shows they were a bunch of uncoordinated solos.
As for the cranker seat, I think you're supposed to have binos and call out enemy directions with the o'clock system.