It’s probably the most annoying thing for me in the SHar at the moment.
I don’t mind the 9L, it just needs fixing as per the stats posted on the old forum.
IIRC, it was something like 20% of the time, it would re-lock a flare in the rear aspect against an after burning target. The rest, it would maintain lock on the after burner plume.
But as we know, fire a 9L in game now at the rear of an after burning target, it pops one flare, and bam, 9L defeated.
You might get lucky and it remains locked to the jet, but that’s very rare in my experience.
Meanwhile, me in the Shar, a none after burning jet, gets wiped out by 9Es that ignore 2, 3 & sometimes 4 shots of reinforced flares.
I also feel like the Sea Harrier FRS.1 is underperforming in the manoeuvrability department, I highly doubt the Harrier IIs manage to make such a difference with extended wings and leading edge extension. It simply feels like the thing isn’t modelled that well in-game, I mean in the Falklands War this would’ve been a issue fighting the nimble A-4Es but there weren’t much manoeuvrability concerns especially whist using thrust vectoring, just feels like a game issue.
It isn’t, was recently flight tested by one of the Tech mod team. We used the AV-8A manual for the data to compare against. It is perfect to the manual.
Real life differs from the game in that. The SHAR pilots had a radar and had much great situational awareness thanks to it (no markers in real life). And to add to that, better missiles then the A-4s.
Still hard to believe but I’ll take your word on it.
Another issue is the lack of a historical skin since the Sea Harrier FRS.1 we’ve got in-game is the post Falklands variant or the Late and yet the aircraft in the developer server shares the same camo as the Early variant. Hopefully this gets fixed when the update is out
Last but not least is the lack of a refuelling probe, this may sounds silly but if historical accuracy is something Gaijin strives for in War Thunder it should be expected.
Refuelling probes weren’t fitted very often. They had a general negative impact on performance other than extending the aircraft’s range with aerial refuelling for ferry flights etc. And in some weather conditions they could make take off and landings from deck more hazardous.
Realistically, putting one on would only exacerbate the issue you have with the aircraft’s manoeuvrability
Yes they look kind of cool, but their omission on a model designed to represent the Harrier in combat conditions is sound.
IIRC FA.2s had them fairly routinely when they were tasked with air policing around Iraq enforcing the no-fly zone. But that was the nature of air policing tasks that lasted several hours with fairly light armament, and having round-the-clock tanker support from the RAF and USAF close at hand to sustain the patrols.
As others have said it’s actually quite rare to see a Sea Harrier with a refueling probe. The probe was removable and only fitted when needed (which wasn’t often).
I dont feel like the jet itself is under-performing, just the 9L in terms of rear aspect flare decoy.
It feels much like its described in the books from pilots who have flown the FRS.1 in the Falklands.
As for skins, PhoenixFire on Live.wt does great skins for the SHar.
It wouldn’t effect manoeuvrability by much to be noticeable, it would be like the difference between the Kurnass 200 and Israeli F-4E. The performance impact would be negligible.
Erm the harriers in combat in the falks didn’t have the refuling porbes fitted those were only used while ferrying aircraft between location’s
The current variant we’ve got in-game is the Post Falklands or Late variant. We know this simply because in the upcoming Sons of Atilla update they plan to introduced the Sea Harrier FRS.1 Early.
As others have said it’s actually quite rare to see a Sea Harrier with a refueling probe. The probe was removable and only fitted when needed (which wasn’t often).
It will make the aircraft visually distinguishable compared to the Sea Harrier FRS.1 Early, it would also provide a possible future mechanic which will make Simulator a more enjoyable gamemode.
Is that guided bombs for the Harrier Gr3 in the bottom picture?
They can’t guide the GBUs alone, they need outside assistance. This can come in the form of buddy lasering or radio guidance (I believe).
So first you complain about the performance and now you want to add a refueling probe which will worsen performance. The pegasus is efficient enough so that fuel won’t become an issue and there are still drop tanks addable.
Yeah, even in SB, I rarely run more than 30 minutes and that is plenty. If air to air refueling ever comes, then for something like the FRS1 maybe an optional fuel probe could be interesting. But I think you’d run out of ammo long before you ran out of fuel, especially with tanks.
So first you complain about the performance and now you want to add a refueling probe which will worsen performance. The pegasus is efficient enough so that fuel won’t become an issue and there are still drop tanks addable.
The performance difference it would negligible like I said earlier, if you took your time to read what I said you’d already know this. It would also provide a visual difference compared to the Sea Harrier FRS.1 Early anyways especially since they share the same camouflage which is Ahistorical.
The average maximum G the Harrier IIs can pull in real like was +8 and -3 compared to the Sea Harriers (FRS.1s) +7.8 and -4.2. In-game though the Harrier IIs pull 4 more Gs than the Sea Harriers
Whilst a visual difference would be nice. and it may or may not make a big difference. On those points, you are right.
But by all accounts it was an optional fitting, that was only fitted when air to air refueling was needed. With that mechanic not in game, I’d say its not needed.
On a personal note though, it looks like it would create a fairly sizable blindspot when in SB and I think that would actually be quite annoying. ( i think its the Buc S2 that has a rather annoyingly placed fuel probe in game) If air to air refueling comes. Then as a toggle-able addition to the airframe before take-off / loadout option, could be really good. Until then. It just feels like adding something for the sake of adding something, would rather htey focus on the FA2 at the moment
First priority should be getting rid of the obsolete camouflage though, I can see were you’re coming from but the biggest issue is the Ahistorical camouflage.
