Well, apologies for bringing this dead thread back to life, but I was wondering what people’s thoughts and opinions were on it now that we’ve had a little time to play around with it in game.
Firstly, the F-84G-21-RE. I only play Japan, so I had never really gotten to use this thing before. I think this plane is a great addition in terms of CAS. Japan had really only had the R2Y2s for CAS around this BR, and while good, they are a little finicky to use as their cannons are their main anti-ground selling point.
Secondly, the Alpha Jets. These planes are cool but feel a little out of place (especially the A variant). The Alpha Jet TH definitely can hold its own in air battles with its all-aspect missiles and it’s great that we finally get countermeasures before 11.0 BR, but they really don’t seem to fit any other roll. While they’re classified as strike aircraft, I honestly feel that the F-84 or even the T-2 and F-1 can outperform it in terms of ground ordinance. Perhaps I don’t know how to properly use them, but the A variant especially feels like a plane with no real use case that isn’t already filled by something at a lower BR.
Next up, the A-7E. Perfect, love the carpet-bombing abilities, couldn’t want anything more. Missiles ain’t the greatest, but they’re definitely more for defense. Glad to finally have something with a nearly up to snuff bomb load.
For the AV-8S, I’m just happy we finally got a VTOL aircraft. It will still take some time learning how to use this. I haven’t unlocked this one and have only gotten to test fly it, but I think it is nice to have a more unique platform to mess around with.
I really like the F-5s, as they give some semblance of dogfighting to us at Rank 7. Again, really haven’t gotten to play around with them much, but I greatly appreciate getting something to research Rank 8 with in air battles besides the F-4EJ, as it can be a little… hard to master. Honestly, I think that the Thai sub-tech tree has been a massive glow up for Rank 7 Japan more than anything else. We went from having one decent interceptor/fighter plane to having that, plus a great CAS plane, plus a fun VTOL plane, plus two pretty good dogfighters to play at Rank 7. It actually feels like a semi-complete Rank now! Plus, having the Air to Ground guided missiles on the F-5s is excellent, as that makes them be able to play counter-CAS somewhat effectively as they’ll have some way to counter or distract SPAA. Getting such a low BR HMD on the F-5T SCU is also a nice treat.
As for the F-16A OCU and JAS39C, I haven’t gotten them, so I can’t comment too much on them. I hear that the F-16 is underperforming quite a lot, but at the very least it is an actual high tier CAS option that Japan desperately needed. Same thing with the Gripen. I’m not particularly looking forwards to the Gripen too much (as I honestly prefer the F-15 both in style and performance), but that too fills the need for CAS at top tier and gives us an option besides the F-16A OCU if that plane is as mediocre as I’ve been hearing. Overall, I think that both of these will give us the CAS we’ve lacked, but neither are monumental additions beyond that, and I’ll probably stick to really only using them in ground battles when I eventually get them. I’ll stick with my F-15J and F-16AJ for top tier air battles right now. Hopefully, the F-2 will be added this year, and that should be lots of fun as well for air combat.
Anyway, those were just some of my thoughts on the update. Anyone else have any thought, agreements, or disagreements with what I’ve said here? I’m interested to know what other Japanese/Thailand mains think about the new additions now that they’re here.
Also, I’d love to hear about what loadouts people are using for the new planes, as I’m not entirely sure about what the best guided armaments are for air-to-ground, as the only ones I’ve ever used before were the AGM-65Bs on the F-16AJ, so I’m in a little over my head with all this new stuff. I’m not sure how the new CAS planes stack up to helicopters, as I have yet to play through the Japanese heli tech tree, so if anyone else knows better than me, please feel free to chime in.
