Radar is very useful to slave missiles like the aim9L or the python that will lock on the first flare they see and you cant unlock from that for some time.
And the F-5E radar is quite useful even in look-down at shorter ranges.
How can these be reliable if they rely on the enemy not flaring and not shooting a missile at someone else? Because the python 3/Aim-9L will easily be baited in both situations.
FGR2 only has aim7e2s which is considerably worse than the aim7fs the F-4J and F-4S get.
Some of those are fine, but others like the F-16A. Could be argued to already be under BRed Vs many at or around 11.7/12.0 and moving them down is just making compression worse for everyone else. Whilst an F-16A with only 9Ls may struggle Vs things uptiers (what doesn’t ).I would argue the F-16A has a better chance Vs most in an uptier than most 11.3s do Vs an F-16
@HighRiskNoReward Slaving IR missiles does nothing, especially without HMD; it use to do something when IR missile warm up time was 3+ seconds.
The boresight of IR missiles is literally the same as the radar boresight.
FGR2 has Skyflash, which is still a competitive missile, and the FGR 2 has notably better airframe performance to make up for the minor differences between AIM-7F and Skyflash in the context of air RB.
FGR2 and F-4J are sidegrades.
What is your opinion on the m2k or the bison sitting at 12.3? Would you rather face 4 m2k on the opposing team while flying a F-4E or Mig21bis, or face 4 F-16A instead?
M2Ks. They are generally slower and I would have half a chance of outrunning them in stuff like the Tornado Gr1, F3 or Phantoms (my aircraft of that bracket)
@HighRiskNoReward
IR warm up time is 1 second or less, I don’t need assistance between pre-flaring cause no one preflares every <1 second unless they turn on auto-flare, especially if they’re in flare-limited aircraft like F-16, F-5, F-14, etc. They tend to save their flares for actual emergencies.
If I had a skill issue in timing, maybe it might help but there’s no guarantee.
Maybe my rhythm gaming helped me, maybe the warm up time is genuinely just meta, maybe both.
Either way I run without radar on because radars give warnings.
JH-7A change BR 12.3 → 12.0
J-7E : increase to 12.0, PL-2 & PL-5B replace with PL-8 & PL-5E
F-5T SCU : up to 12.3 or 12.7, move to rank 8 and AIM-9L replace with Python 4
But USAF F-16A (Blk 10) drop to 12.0, and F-16A Block 10 Netz decreased BR 12.7 → 12.3
Hey, my first opposition to one of your posts.
Hard no.
In the case of J-7 and F-5T: Not enough flares or flight performance, and aircraft should not be carried by missiles when possible.
F-16A is arguably under-BR’d.
And JH-7A is correctly BR’d, especially when the next decompression happens.
Test drive the event m2k if you don’t have it. Nothing outruns it except typhoons (and advarks), and trying to run from one is a death sentence because of magic 2’s.
You couldn’t even outrun an F1C in your tornado or phantom.
Disclaimer: While it is possible to flare off a magic 2 from rear aspect even at 1km, it’s a bit difficult and you need to time it well, and it only works in some jets with some flare patterns. I never saw someone do that to my magic 2s but I did it a few times, even in sequence.
While with an Aim9L all you need to do is cut afterburner and press the flare button.
I argue that the Bison is more dangerous than the F-16A, because it has fantastic radar missiles for 12.3 and you can’t let one get on your six or even close to you without pre-flaring the entire time, and many jets around that BR don’t have many CM’s to do that for long. While an F-16A needs to gun kill you, which requires much more skill and time to get into a good position, especially if you are good at nose countering.
The only times the F-16A can get easy kills is if it is unspotted, usually at higher altitudes, and as soon as you launch your missile, half the enemy team knows there’s someone there because of the missile red diamond appearing in the sky.
I can’t speak for the F-5T, but the J-7E has 72cms and pretty good flight performance to go along with it. Maybe Gaijin could add a foldered (late) variant instead.
How is it correctly BRed when it only has 4 all aspect missiles at 12.3?
F-16A cant even deal with the 13.0 su-27/j11 assuming both are good. The F-16A is forced to be so defensive all the time that by the time the su-27 gets close to the merge its R-73 spamming time, you need to consider that the su-27 will have altitude and nose position advantage all the time.
Yes I can kill flankers with it, but those were all bad pilots
When the enemy knows of your position, locking him for a brief second doesn’t make a difference.
Having your IR missile slaved helps it keep the original lock in case he flares or launches a missile somewhere at the same time you launch. It happens.
I’m not saying you should keep your search radar on, just use ACM lock to slave a missile if the situation calls for that.
With the Kfir C7 I spend a big chunk of the match trying to get a solid IR lock between all the flares, missiles, multiple jets crossing each other etc. If your target drops a flare, your python 3 will sit there staring at his flare for a long time and sometimes that’s time you cant afford
JH-7A performs better than FGR2 [the best performing Phantom in the game] while having a base load of bombs and digital RWR.
It is also hilariously fast.
Economically and general effectiveness in a match is 12.3 potential.
If F-5s were anywhere near as fast as it they’d be close to its BR as well.
Also @HighRiskNoReward
IR missiles don’t have datalink and radar slaving only “helps” in the initial lock, nothing more.
It allows you to fire more reliably at the edge of the seekers FoV/slightly off-boresight which if used to lead the shot ahead of the target, helps the IR missiles ignore flares as they can be outside of the FoV of the IR seeker. Once fired. It does nothing
I never mentioned datalink, that’s a thing for radar missiles.
Yes. Once fired you should unlock or disable your radar (unless you are trying to confuse the enemy between IR/radar missiles which is funny when it works). Slaving only helps at having a more reliable lock pre-launch like you said.
Due to the confusion on this topic regarding BR placement =/= compression and the general lack of consensus, I edited my OP to explain myself a little better. Hopefully.