From what I heard japanese planes are food if you know how to play
I was told they’re just noob annihilators
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In theory, that might hold true under ideal conditions. But GRB isn’t that forgiving—you can’t take on Japanese fighters with idealism alone. It’s like telling someone to poke a bear in the eye with their finger if they run into one in the mountains. Only a Ninja could pull that off.
Idk about GRB as I only play ARB. But even though I haven’t played the Japanese props, planes with sub-par speed are often pretty vulnerable to attacks from faster planes and can only play defensive, which doesn’t really work against experienced players.
You can make a noob overshoot, but hardly an experienced player
Only at a certain BR, and only when you play in a certain way. The issue is also that the game basically forces low altitude fights, pretty low one. Which just so happens to be the strength of a lot of Russian props.
In the end the game encourages and sets up a relatively big dogfight brawl that massively benefits turn fighters that do well at low altitude.
Yes you can dive, energy trap, etc. But all of that takes time, skill, and the enemy falling for it. If they refuse to actually play that game they can often times ignore you or just dodge your dive on them which will end up costing you a lot of time and energy.
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This is from my repeated 1on1 fights against skilled Bf109G player in SB using the Ki-100 and Yak-1B.
Whenever they dove to hit around 500 km/h, the 109 suddenly got as sluggish as a brick—its controls became extremely heavy, making it nearly impossible to follow the sharp turns of a turning fighter.
This gives the turning fighter plenty of time to either slowly regain altitude or just wait for reinforcements to show up.
The lower the altitude, the faster the 109 bleeds its energy advantage, putting the turning fighter in a completely dominant position.
That’s basically why the German team struggles to hold air superiority in GRB.
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Yeah I noticed that issue with the 109s, I gave up on bnz for that reason
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Which funnily enough, is what you should be doing according to most folks. Because the 109s and eve 190s kinda suck at most everything else in WT. While they aren’t “horrible” they’re just outclassed by various other planes. Hell a Yak9k can casually out turn many 109s.
The way they’re modeled, how the Instructor works. It’s just really bad.
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the Yak 9s are pretty undertiered though aren’t they?
Arguably, yes. But the Yak-9k is the big funny gun one that annihilates ground vehicles up to a much higher BR with APHE. The one that SHOULD turn like a brick, that shook so badly when firing the plane came apart and gave the pilot a concussion.
In WT? It out turns quite a few dedicated fighters, and the gun is reliably enough to fire consecutively, stays on target, and can even destroy other planes with semi accurate shots.
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They are not food if played right.
Imagine Ta-152H (6.0) vs A6M5 at 5.3.
You are faster than Zero, you retain the energy better, but Zero can pull 14G at 660 IAS and perform an insanely tight reversal, and since Type 99 Mk 2 have very good ballistics (they barely lose any speed at distance, so they reach 1000m in like 1,8s) one can get clapped even if trying some high speed BnZ. Oh and if said 0 has 13mm MGs, they tend to fire mini nukes, so you’re not safe even past 1000m, if 1 HE bullet hits your wing, your entire maneuvrability and energy retention goes down the shitter.
So if A6M5 has some alt to work with, they are an absolute pain to fight against. Of course if A6M5 is turnfighting people and have fairly low speed then if you are a decent shot, you may kill them before they slaughter your team.
But if A6M5 is using its maneuvrability to force people to dive away/1-turn kill them and conserve its energy, then GL HF.
Best you can do is force him down, down, down and eventually draining his balls of energy. But by the time you do this, you’re at at 1200m yourself going 400km/h. And in all that time the rest of your team likely evaporated (any good German player at 6.0 knows one has to carry anout 33% of games to get 60% WR as Germany gravitates towards 40% naturally - so if you’re just doing 1 v 1, you have a 60% chance of losing the match) and you’re getting swarmed by planes that absolutely wipe the floor with you (Yak-3U, P-51H with energy advantage, Spitfire Lf Mk IX, Spitfire Mk XVIII/XIV/22, RE.2005 VDM, J2M2 and J2M3, and I am not entitely sure if 1 v 1 vs N1K2 is actually winnable at equal skill, vs Ki-84 there’s a chance, but not if he starts on your 6, lol)
So I’ll never call A6M5 “food”. It’s not great on its own, vs a disciplined team of high speed fighters it may get dragged, it may get 2 v 1 etc., but vs random team, if it’s 1 v 1 vs said A6M5 you are already being lucky, and if you absolutely have to kill one - tough luck, especially with piece of shit ballistics of German guns (BTW at this point it’d not just about German guns having bad ballistics, it’s about everyone else having unreasonably good ballistics, Ho-5 80g shell has way better long range performance than German 117g shell, which makes absolute 0 sense).
BTW, somebody talked about gunpods on 109 - IMO no point in using these, after real sh*tter 3.0, you can 1-2 shot most fighters, that is if you land HE, which is not guaranteed of course, since best belt from ballistic POV (stealth) is 40% AP which is very likely to not do anything.
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Everyone’s talking about the Bf109, you know?
We all know your beloved Ta152H is strong as hell, boy.
I’m talking about A6M5 being food fallacy. If you switch Ta for K4, exactly same scenario applies except in K4 in the end you get roflstomped by like 80% (maybe more, lol) of fighters you can encounter if they have energy advantage.
And the point is also - even for Ta, A6M5 is nowhere close to “food”. Actually vs some decently flown A6M5s I had to truelt sweat to get the win, and I died because of Zeros quite a lot.
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That’s why I said this.
In good players’ hand they can be good but is not because the plane is good, is just because the player is skillful. And in this situation even they play Po-2 in 5.0 they will also score a kill. But most of us here is not Hartmann’s level skillful and more importantly this is just a game, why we have to suffer ourselves and play a plane that not well in both stat and environment while there are tons of better second option that offer better experience in similar playstyle?
Only Zero, I don’t really understand why those ppl can said Zero is OP after they got killed because they don’t climb in a fking P-51 but instead joined a dogfight in low attitude against the Zero 🤦🏻
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You know that i have a potato aim and refuse to take head-ons due to the lack of accuracy of my joystick usage 😂
The early 109s are absolute monsters if flown correct - but it looks like that most of their players either lack Air RB experience or are unable to unlock the potential of these aircraft.
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I have to use BnR (with 800m convergence instead of 600m) vs E-3/4/7 as even as my Hellcat beats 4.0/4.3 Yak-3s in turnfights these early 109s outturn me rather effortlessly (if the pilot uses Mouse and Keyboard without instructor).
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F-1s, F-2s & F-4s and G-2s have no chance on equal states but perfect energy management and changes of the supercharger gears at the right point in time of the Hellcat is essential.
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The only plane i feel confident to take on the 109 E-7 3.0 JP premium version is the C-3604 - and even then the set up of the engagement is decisive.
Coming back to 109s: Starting from the F-4s all of them could use a BR decrease of one step if you see how the fighters like P-51Cs, Spitfires or Yaks are positioned.
The guy in the G-6 was (ofc) from the ENSO squad - on the very large and cold Moscow map with 3 airfields for each team a G-6 outclimbs everything in a 4.0-5.0 match - the J2M2s and I-225 are rather rare these days - i see way more A7M1 or Yak-3Ps at 5.0 and the Yak-9U at 4.7 is often lower.
Lmao - good guess - my ENSO G-6 opponent played actually together with a random F4U-4 and both played perfect bait & switch, there is sometimes nothing you can do that be patient and outfuel them.
I do agree that the new FR-1 turns surprisingly well - but the UK Hellcat turns better😉
The B7A2 is still the best weapon to counter the Yak-3 spam 😂
In case you decide to play Air RB again - stay away from an Asian player (i can’t spell his tag) - he has around 23-25k kills (with minimal number of deaths ) in it. If i meet him on the other team I have to focus on neutralizing / occupying him by outclimbing him - we reached 9-9.5 km altitude in these engagements 😂
Have a good one!
Whilst i agree with your general way of thinking i do not share this view.
My post was trying to point out that these early 109s are not bad - they simply need a very experienced player to make them work as those players are able to play around the weaknesses and use their strengths.
If you meet a competent pilot in a JP 3.0 E-7 you have severe issues - simply because it is an excellent energy fighter with an amazing turn rate and good climb - just the rather slow top speed and the low ammo count of 20mm shells are negative aspects.
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i adore the jap 109 E-7, its insanely good, and the fact that it used to be 2.3 lol
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It was down-BRd by accident for ages - a gaijin intern mixed it up with the E-3.
I lost in 150+ matches in the Ju 88 A-1 (80% WR) just 2 planes - one due to overpowered midfield aaa and one vs a 170+ days fighter jock in the JP E-7 when it was 2.3…
Have a good one!
the jap 109 is so far my most played plane, also the one that got me into air rb, have a good one yourself :)
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Oh how I miss Fw 190 A5/U2 being this tough counter to any high maneuvrability/slow speed dingus out there… Back in the day when it could tank some 20mm, and had the ability to dodge and recommit almost instantly.
Nowadays the only counter to B7A2 is diving away + teammate with a brain. Ultra rare.
But this guy’s performance is a testament to Gaijin’s excellent balancing “efforts”, which can only be rivaled by their impenetrable anti-team rammer policy, which strictly adheres to the following words of lord Jebus: “if you’re being mistreated, it’s your own damn fault, so suck it up, loser, here, let me rub some salt into your wounds”.
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