These planes has several equivalent in other tree with either lower BR, better Flight characteristic, better weaponry, or straight up more support technology like Countermeasures, where Fishbed SMT sees Countermeasures, R60, SARH R3R at 10.3, Italian 104 sees 9J and countermeasures at 10.7, the german one, has 4 9J and CM also at 10.7, F5C has flares despite not having one, French Jaguar got CM and Magic, China has Tigers, all the while F-104J is flareless while seeing flare usage despite the actual predicament was that, their flares was placed hidden on the airbrake (wtf JASDF?), F-1 has seen AIM-9L usage, why it hasn’t been implemented yet? the least you can do, if you don’t want to give F1 it’s 9L and 104J it’s AN/ALE-40 then crank their BR down by at least .7 BR if you want to artificially cripple their performance by not giving it weapons or defensive method.
Want to nerf Japanese plane? Go nerf EJ Phantom, because it was made without ground attack capability in mind as it was, first thing first, an Interceptor and fighter as Japan was bound by a treaty that forbade them from having Air to ground armaments, the one with Air to ground capability was, EJ Kai.
So nerf regular EJ by removing it’s ground attack capability and buff tier 6 with flares and Sidewinder L if you want an equivalent exchange like that.
F-1 is a trainer its not made for combat therefore its not using AIM-9L.
JASDF has a very thin air tree already even without the trainers, you can consider the two trainer jets as a bonus they arent being used in combat IRL, next up is F-15 and a variant a licence produced F-16 and then the F-35 and thats it, kinda lame compared to the other nations.
T-2 is trainer, F-1 is the modified variant, it’s like equipping T-33 with AN/M3 cannon and some rocket and calling it a day, and retrofitting BAE Hawk with CCIP, bombs and sidewinder.
F-1 is F-1 because it is a fighter variant of T-2, not a T-2 with missile that they just call “F-1”. And it being a retrofitted trainer doesn’t mean that it is limited to “Trainer” role, it’s still a fighter at the end of the day, just like T-50 golden eagle that can be converted to FA-50 Golden Eagle that is equipped with wide array of weaponry including but not limited to Sidewinder, AMRAAM, Maverick, dumb bomb, JDAM and Sniper pod, this is also the case with F-1, it is an upgunned T-2, there’s no reason for it to not use it’s designated AIM-9L except for balancing.
Exactly my thought their air force is way too small actually all of their trees are small naval excluded they have a very large navy, i would like to see korea as the sub tree. (south korea)
don’t, just add SEA as it’s sub-tree, Koreans will absolutely mald if you put them near Japan. At least in southeast Asia you have great variety of armament from both side of the superpower, it’s gonna be China no.2, but with the correct pick-and-choose, it’s going to be good.
F4EJ already sucks as is my friend it suffers at 11.0 because of no DF missiles or Agile eagle kit if anything it should be buffed with aim9Ls or lowered to 10.7