In my experience. Whether its ARB or ASB. Guns still play a major role in deciding the outcome of fights and even when missiles are brought to bear. Rear aspect shots are still important. Tornado F3 by all accounts has comparable weapons to that found on the F-16 or Mig-29, but sits multiple stops lower because its a bus that cannot turn even slightly.
So I’d personally take a great airframe with very limited weapons any day of the week because a good airframe can always put guns on target and evade incoming fire, but a bad airframe with great weapons is going to have a hard time defending itself and people will just moan about “OP” weapons and they’ll be nerfed to the point of almost uselessness (looking at SRAAM here)
I think that depends quite a bit tbh, and I think the primary deciding factor is how reliable the missiles are at a set point in time.
ATM, missiles feels atrocious, particularly the radar guided ones. Not only are they subject to a comicly idiotic level of multipath which makes hitting an AFK target sub 100m literally impossible, nvm a maneuvering target near any sort of ground clutter, I cant even be confident they’ll hit a head on target at sub 10km anymore.
IR missiles were also substantially less dependent back when Gaijin suddenly nerfed their flare resistance across the board in the past.
As long as missiles remain as terribly unreliable as they are, flight performance will remain a major factor of gameplay, particularly when there are so many ways to completely invalidate their use, such as the multipath hypercrutch.
What are you talking about? You know that Germany has always been behind other nations in terms of aircraft and tech introduction, right?
Germany got its first F-4 over a year after everyone else(including Britain), and they got it as an event vehicle first, followed by gaijin giving them the worst top tier (at the time) phantom in-game the next update, which not only has HALF the missile load of other F-4’s (literally the F-4’s “biggest advantage” at the time), but also didnt have its historical AIM-9L’s (which is STILL doesn’t have). They also got their MiG-21bis over a year late and AFTER it stopped being meta, they got their MiG-23MF late and as an event vehicle, they got their MiG-23MLA late, they got their MiG-29 late, Su-22’s late, and their Tornado’s are gutted.
Gaijin downright hates Germany, and they’ve proven it even more so with german ground, with their first Rank 7 vehicle in almost 3 years (L2PSO) being a trash sidegrade of the 2A5 thats so badly modelled, its add on armor makes it LESS protected than the 2A5!
Britain is far from hated by gaijin compared to Germany, they just suffer from War Thunders modelling of western tech in general. An unfortunate casualty of Gaijins war on reality and blatant propaganda for Russian vehicles and weapons.
And britain had the Phantom FGR2/FG1 as their ONLY top tier jet for 3 years and we only got something better in the form of the Harrier Gr7, a ground attacker. Above 9.7 we only had the Jaguar Gr1A to fill the gap until the Phantom FGR2 at 11.3 and that has only just been remedied in the form of a C&P SQV that should have been added a year ago. Whilst Britain has a decent 9.3-9.7 list of aircraft, we have almost nothing competitive above 9.7. You’ve listed a number of aircraft that might have been late, but were added. That cannot be said for Britain.
so are all Tornados
Have you ever looked at the CR2s? They are all C&Ps of each other and quite literally all use the same code from the Leopard for armor. They are the worst top tier tank in game right now bar-none.
At the end of the day. there isnt a least favourite. There is US, USSR and their flavour of the month nation, which I think is Israel or Italy at the moment. Everyone is forgotten about totally. But withwise of Air. Germany has one of the best A2A jets in the game. Britain does not have a Top tier A2A jet. Full stop
They got their F3 at the same time as the germans got their 29. Performance is irrelevant in this argument as both were late behind other nations.
The british jets have 2x the missile load though and actually used the missiles their equipped with operationally, unlike the F-4F’s 9J’s.
Call up the British MOD and complain to them about their acquisition of aircrafts then.
The difference between Germany is that Germany HAD aircrafts that could have, and WERE added to other nations, but NOT to germany until later dates, britain was more limited. Even then though, the british phantoms were very strong for a long time and the GR.7, though a ground attacker, was the best ground attacker, and a capable air to air fighter when it was added.
Germanys top fighter for a year and a half was the MiG-21 MF, and this was AFTER britain got the FGR.2 in the first place. Germany didnt even get a jet that was competitive to the FGR.2 until 2 years later when the EVENT MiG-23MF was added xD
Britain at least GOT Challenger 2’s lmao, Germany didn’t even get any new Leo 2’s for almost 3 years, and when they did, the new one was mediocre at best as well.
An 11.3 that was barely finished vs a 12.0 Mig-29 that was meta. Tornado F3 was only truly added in La Royale when it got a radar worth mentioning. It was a totally DOA jet for the first 3 months and still the worst “top tier jet” in game. If it can even be described as such being a Full BR behind Top tier currently
To take this back to the necro post you commented on. It is 100% the MO of Gaijin to add aircraft to Britain late or out of order. We could have gotten F3 alongside Mig-29 and F-16, but we got the Gr1. I fully expect Tornado GR4 at or around the same time other nations field the Typhoon. No way Britain gets Typhoon first or with the other 2. As it stands, Im not even sure we’ll get a single addition this year. can almost guarantee F4 ICE this year for Germany
Its not a top tier jet tho lmao. This argument expecting an 11.3 to match a 12.0 is silly. If it did, they’d both be 12.0.
As I already said, the Brits are an unfortunate casualty of Gaijins war against reality and blatant russian propaganda, as well as the fact that in some cases, they just had more substantial jumps in performance compared to some other nations smaller but more frequent performance bumps. The next option for Britain are AMRAAM’s on Tornados, or Eurofighter.
imagine fighting something thats twice as fast as you with almost the same weapons, like 400 countermeasures, automatic dispensing of said countermeasures, a HMD, a MWS that could potentially detect aircraft, turns better than you, accelerates better than you even without using afterburner and has a radar thats borderline unnotchable with more range than an f-14 radar.
the airframe has a huge effect on the aircraft’s performance.
Sounds good. Typhoon then :) The missing in action F-4F ICE can be added in a year or so as event plane. Just to fit the sceme of the strange F-4 Phantom policy for Germany. Its just too late now to add another F-4 into the current game meta. Would be eaten alive by current and future meta jets. Too late, far too late.
which basicaly isnt possible anymore if they add amraams together with the Grippen C and give access to them to the F16s at the same time as well, if the typhoon isnt getting added at the same time the ICE basicaly gonna be the worst airframe carrier with AMRAAM and doesnt matter if it gets F18 radar or not
if it got added right next patch with amraams it has a chance but gaijin stated they wanted them to be added to everyone at the same time.
Eurofighter is just a whole new level of power. Gripen C just does not compare lol… you’d need like su-35 and f-16v to counter it somewhat effectively. it wont be added anytime soon unless gaijin nerfs the absolute fuck out of it and gave it 9Js
They could artificially limit it to just having its 4 recessed carry points as well as the two wingtip SRAAM pylons, that plus datalink not being in-game, it would be broken sure, but only as broken as the F-14, or F-16 or Mig-29 have been when first added as flavour of the month type aircraft.
Its at the point where its inevitable that something is going to be broken, there’s calls for the F-15C which is touted as being an excellent dogfighter. I don’t know why we are so concerned with balance for other nations anymore when the big two nations have been stomping for the few years.
The issue is probably that for some nations its more or less common and accepted that they are almost always the first ones which make the next step up the tech ladder. So its accepted that F-16’s run amok in Air RB and tbh much more in Ground RB.
For another group of nations its unthinkable. They always lag behind and when they finally do their own step forward, the leading nations are ahead once again, cause meanwhile they get even more modern stuff.
Germany is a prime example… Can we have the F-4F ICE? Noooo too early, too broken, to modern weapons. Its way too early soooo… No.
You’ll see when its finally a thing, this obsolete Phantom air frame is put up agains F-15’s and whatnot. Just one example. Happened in the past alot, also to other nations. Tornados anyone…far too late for no reason…they’re now agains Mig-29, Pantsir, F-16, F-14…and have nothing special in their armory, while every F-16 is going with 6 Mavericks + 2 TV guided bombs and are still as maneuverable as a F-5. Dodging every SAM with ease, while spamming their F&F weapons. This reasoning is quite frustrating. Why wasn’t Tornado allowed to play against Mig-23 and late Phantoms, as well as vs 2S6, Adats and stuff as best SPAAs? Now ground and air opponents are just too op and this whole jet is DOA in ARB and GRB.
You aren’t wrong. I’m just slowly becoming less and less concerned with maintaining balance, because its accepted that the Eurofighter and Rafale will be added simultaneously and no nation which mains those has dominated AIR RB in a long time (other than Germany but if they get to be meta again so the rest of them can be then so be it).
F-14A wasnt broken on release, thats blatantly false lmao. If nobody remembers, radar missiles were absolutely gutted for almost a year following the 7F being added for the F-4J. This lead to aircrafts that relied on radar missiles (such as most NATO aircrafts at the time) also being gutted by association. Add to that that on release the F-14’s wings tended to like to just blow up anytime you pulled, and the absurd levels of heat from the engine pre-IR missile nerf, all made for a rather tame package.
The F-14A SEEMED broken because it was massively popular, and so you were more likely to die to one than not, just like the F-16 currently, but it actually was performing worse than the MiG-23MLD and J-7E at the time, and those aircrafts had been dominating for months prior to the F-14A even being added.
Radar missiles didnt get fixed until September btw, which leaves a 3 month period where the F-14’s primary weapon was unreliable trash, and if you think im overplaying how brutal the radar missile nerf of the time was, they increased their speedgates by 10-15x across all radar missiles, which is what lead to the massive spike in teamkills at the time
It probably won’t happen, alot tech suggestion mods, content creators and large parts of the community would riot if f.e. the Tyhoon would be added now. Even if it wouldn’t be alot different than Harrier vs . F-16 or Tornado vs- F-16 as we have it now. in this case it just would be F-16 vs. early Typhoon pre production model, imho acceptable.
F-4F Ice got the issue that it used Amraams. Since for the same reason it will be impossible that a Ger jet gets this missile first, Gajin will probably add it when US get their F-15 or whatever with Amraams as well. This would mean F-4 vs. F-15/16 etc… awwwg… Doesn’t sound like fun.
The only positive of waiting is it gives me some time to grind out the British top tier because trying to grind out the Phantom with the flareless Jaguar takes a while. But given that i have both Germany and Britain to high tier, I’d rather play the British one.
Might need a few little restrictions (non-IRCCM aim-9L, or maybe a G limiter, or AMRAAM cap to 4, placeholder
engines etc) but i agree. Typhoon at 12.7 could come now and it would have little impact on balance. Without that Sea Harrier FA2 and F4 ICE are going to be “interesting” next update