Thanks for the suggestions!
I BEG YOU, PLEASE TAKE THAT SMOKE AWAY FROM THE AIRSTRIKE, JUST NOT THE WAR THUNDER AGAIN. Use IR beacons to guide missiles; the crawler can certainly warn you about it.
While this would be more realistic, smoke gives enemies the chance to react and run away like with the spider bombs. I think readability is a lot more important in that regard, plus it helps distinguish it from enemy air strikes which won't have the smoke visible.
1. An electromagnetic emitter. It requires a certain amount of exposure to the enemy to disable them, but it allows you to completely or almost completely avoid collateral damage (the same goes for sonic weapons, but I don't know how it would work against unmanned vehicles.)
That's an interesting concept and I'll definitely consider it for missions where one needs to keep collateral damage down, though it does seem extremely specialized.
7. Drones with machine guns and kamikaze drones in the missile slot. They can follow terrain and are homing, but their slow speed makes them susceptible to being shot down by machine guns and autocannons, but they can't be intercepted by APS.
This one sounds fun, I like it.