Meta massive shift and the changes in the missiles capabilities weakening its chasing capability. You cant even hit the mig 15 from behind with a 1.5km shot if you had to lose any speed trying to “viff” attack it or just turn in behind it for example, GL trying to do that to a plane flying at over mach 1.
When GR1 was overpowered, it was pretty much the fastest accelerating/top speed bar mach plane out there bar a couple of exceptions and had an air spawn allowing them to fly to 6km and dive down on enemy formations taking off and still trying to gain speed with a qwasi all aspect capability which is now gone too.
I think the wiki sums it up well
Cons:
Very short range, missiles fired outside of 1 km are unlikely to hit unless you have a notable speed advantage over your opponent
Cannot hit anything reliably, due to its 3.2 second guidance time
Relatively small explosive mass means hits are not always fatal (at least immediately)
Flares can easily fool the SRAAM due to its high FoV
Likely to lose control if fired at low speed due to thrust vectoring
It was literally the first Harrier GR.1 game in the last 2-3 years because I usually bring Hunter F.6, but it is not the bad plane that the OP and you seem to think it is.
I mean there are still many fighters and attackers that doesn’t have CM, and for them, SRAAM is still a threat.
Also, I thought my aim is crap because I play SBEC recently but, it was still fine for killing players lol.
Exactly and I can see you’ve climbed which I guarantee almost none of these guys do if they think this plane sucks. I almost never see anyone climb and they’re dead in minutes. Absolute insanity but they just keep doing it then complain it’s the plane that’s bad.
Which is why I could accept them not giving it all-aspect for the sake of “balance” but instead just giving it really good rear and side aspect shots, like 90 ° off tail. So could engage people reasonably effectively in a dogfight but wouldnt be totally broken.
Honestly, I didn’t climb much because Harrier GR.1 has no CM or RWR, and if the enemy team has Mirage IIIC/CJ, MiG-21S, or MiG-21SPS-K, I will be sent back to the hangar by their SARH missiles.
Only things what I did was spam SRAAMs against flareless jets.
I always climb, staying low is suicide. It’s super rare I’m not the highest plane in the battle. I side climb to not be seen first and then fliy over the battle. Diving from height means their Max speed soesnt matter, 1.2km launch will very rarely be flared or fail to hit from top down. I’ve always found this to be easy and repeatable being very rare I’m missiles by radar or outclimbed.
How you have matches where you can climb and not catch a SARH is beyond me. Never had that experience in my GR. 1 - Couldn’t climb because I’d catch SARHs or magics from that scum A-5C and flying low ran the risk of catching an All-aspect from an A-10 or Su-25 provided I wasn’t dogpiled, first. Didn’t matter if I took a side flight either because once I was spotted people were on me. SRAAMs are so trash they really only worked on energy-trapped people - provided they had no CMs - or as decoys to stop all-aspects.
GR.1 is a miserable aircraft to play, even as a premium. Almost as bad as the F-84F.
A10 and su 25 are never getting close enough to aim9 you and as I said I’ve never found missiles to be a problem with a side climb. Maybe your not to the side enough?
If anything is up at alt with you, you have to try to dance around to avoid them. You have no cm so you also have the dance around anything with aams. Doesnt help that sraams need to be within 1km to hit and anything with flares will hard counter you.
The hunter can at least dogfight so it it is not as bad.
Never get close enough? I mean yeah, but if you want to get close enough to hit them, they 100% are now close enough to hit you lol, the A10 especially isnt a plane that has issues with turning to engage you if the pilot has basic awareness.
For “side climb”, do you mean climb to the side and wait for the initial combat to begin in which its likely those with SARH have already started using them? Because those are kind of 2 different strats, and if your strat is literally “wait until the enemy doesnt have the missile anymore” its not exactly the ringing confidence you are making it out to be.
