Oh definitely. The first missile I learned to defeat purely from maneuvering was the E-2, then the 27ER as the 2nd missile. Haven’t learned how to defeat the 27R tho, a tad to maneuverable for me.
Irrelevant of your beliefs around F-14A TT, F-4J and FG series need to be 0.3 below it again, 0.7 is ridiculous for the almost exclusively difference being flight performance, especially since the Phantoms use better engines so you can bring half the fuel of an F-14.
F-14 with full fuel = 20 minutes in F-4J and 17 minutes in F-4 FG1.
The R27ER/R i find so much easier to avoid than the Aim7F and M for some reason cant get that cork screw down.
BTW on the topic of the FG1 / FGR2 i just took the FGR2 out not long ago and got an ace with it.
The issue is but they dont have the agile eagle slats, and FGR2 and FG1 have no HMD, compared to the F4J and F4S ( dont forget the F4S is better than teh F4J and both should be 12.3 IMO, the mig23 MLD too could do with going up) gotta love some decompression. EDIT: forgot to say, i mean all the phantoms to 12.3. (and F4F ICE back to 13.3 dont know why its 13.0 while the F3 Late is 13.3)
However the IRIAF IMO does need to go up, when the gen 4.5s get moved at least to 14.3.
such is the ways of the F14, fuel management is key to victory.
Especially since all 13.0s and most 12.7s are objectively [and some more subjectively] superior to the F-14A IRIAF at this time.
And especially when the PD Phantoms remain at 12.0 when the 2 exclusively buffs over the Phantoms on the F-14A IRIAF is the F-90 and flight performance, all for worse engines and everything else on-par.
And I do agree that F-4J/S and F-4FG1 and FGR2 should be moved up with decompression, with F-4JUK staying the same BR.
F-4FG1 perform notably better in flight performance compared to F-4J/S and that makes up for using Skyflash over AIM-7F, especially when the primary difference is a slightly longer time to maneuver that’s easily countered with proper leading which people hopefully learned with AIM-9G/Js.
poor old F4J UK. it really just isnt that good is it.
The biggest mistake IMO was moving things like the F16AJ down to 12.7, in what world is it equal to an F14A. its Fm is better, radar is better, better IR missiles, and the same Aim7f’s but with a better radar.
See im more of an FGR2 user but theyre basically the same no? do they really have better flight performance due to the spey engines?
the skyflash arent that bad anyways for what they are tbh
No, but it’s a good indicator if someone knows what they are talking about. People complain that the F4S for example is bad, but then you check their games and it turns out all they do is press W and Space while playing air.
The issue is that you simply lack experience in said plane when you are below a 1 K/D. I for example thought the Shahak was a bad plane at 10.0, after flying it I have a 6ish K/D, making it one of my best planes after playing like 30 games.
Coming back to the issue of the F14A, it’s sort of where it should be relative to it’s competitors. The issue is that we need a 15.0 or even 16.0. F4F ICE, the ARH Viggen etc should not be 13.0, but they can’t go higher because they are simply outclassed by 14.0s. We need MASSIVE decompression at the BRs above 7.0.
If we compare Shahak to ‘obviously underrated’ counterparts which are slaughtering subsonic jets (J-7D or F8U-2 for example), it can feel as bad.
RWR is meh (better than never, Still quite annoying when it can’t detect soviet radar ping)
No R.530 Magic compared to the French version.
No countermeasures which are very annoying when facing all-aspect IR.
still, back to the plane itself,
Even though my KD with Shahak is meh, I think Shahak itself is a quite decent plane. just… those shameless ones are better.
Yes. A silly compression problem always makes things worse.
F-14A IRIAF obviously needs to go higher than F-14A USN
but heavy compression just doesn’t let it happen.
if IRIAF goes 13.0 without decompressing, It will be simply outclassed by 14.0s just like F-4F ICE or JA37Di does. (in a worse way.) :|
a 12.85-ish plane which only can be balanced properly in a decompressing way.
magic 1s are objectively better due to the uncaged seeker head and the better Gs it can pull.
The D is better at longer ranges but the caged seeker is a massive detriment in any sub 1.2 km shots that arent total rear aspect