It has a relatively poor radar, poor RWR, low CM count, rear-aspect IR missiles and easily defeated ARH missiles.
It’s actually not that good of an aircraft
Just poor map design, having everyone take off from a single point creates a perfect kill valley to spam off F-90s or Aim-54s and you get a lot of premies that don’t know how to defend
IRIAF only does better in full uptiers. If it’s a 13.3-12.3 or 13.0-12.0 game the MiG-29A and F-16A are better.
this is not remotely true. the rwr at least gives direction if not a launch warning and it will detect arh missiles within 9 miles so enough to dodge. the aim9p is an aim9j so while a little dated it definitely works and has some flare resistant. the r27r is a wonderful sarh with 35g of overload it’s just superior to the aim7f for close in fights, and the arh fakours 90s compliment them perfectly by giving you a super long reach while also being maneuverable and fast enough to hit medium range targets just outside r27r range. The cm situation is kinda suffering but most people bring radar missiles so you can mostly just stay and notch until people are distracted or lose interest.
It feels quite balanced in my opinion.
And compared to most it sees this is very little information. Many aircraft will warn far further than that and even tell you exactly what is locking you and the moment you have been fired at
But a fraction of the IRCCM all-aspect IR missiles both above and below the F-14
And this is their only meaningful strength, but again, compared to much that they face, this is little strength, R-27ERs and all the other ARH missiles like AMRAAM outperform any weapon system the F-14 poccesses.
Truth is, the F-14A is not a well equipped aircraft, nor is it an overly powerful airframe. It does well because it has 1 strength, ARH missiles at a slightly lower BR than most and by good fortune, often sees downtiers and limited experience players in premium aircraft that defend poorly.
@SFmerc
F-16A and Mig-29 have superior semi-active radar missiles, superior IR missiles, superior airframe performance, superior engines, superior RWRs and radars, so on and so forth.
IRIAF doesn’t have “the best” long range missile.
At 120km AIM-54 is the superior missile to F-90, the F-90 just gets to 80km faster than AIM-54. Speed = less maneuverability.
At 50km where F-90 is best, R-27ER and AIM-7F are superior in maneuverability, they just don’t have active seekers. Once you defeat the F-90 by doing an S-maneuver on the deck, you destroy the F-14A with an AIM-7F/R-27R-ER, or out-do it in flight performance.
Mig-29 and F-16 are so vastly superior to F-14A in dogfighting and energy retention, anyone saying otherwise has never flown F-14As, F-16s, or Mig-29s.
Your entire post bleeds Tomcat fanboyism [I hope that was not your intention]; sorry to burst your bubble, but no matter how much false information your post has, F-16A and Mig-29 will always be superior aircraft.
@magikvfx
F-16A and Mig-29A do vastly better than F-14A IRIAF in full uptiers due to flight performance and RWRs.
I refuse to believe that something with only 9Ls is better against ARH missiles than something with long range and very quick ARH missiles.
Regardless, the F-14IRAF shouldn’t be facing 11.7 planes, and the F-14A definitely doesn’t need to go down and ruin 11.3 again.
One single aircraft shouldn’t be able to dictate a match as much as it currently does. Gaijin either needs to add a comparable plane with comparable capabilities, or move the IRAF up to 13.0 where it belongs.
F-14A IRIAF is incapable of fragging any competent 11.7 pilot with radar missiles, they’d need to get in dirty with AIM-9Hs and/or guns.
F-14A tech tree never ruined 11.3, that’s a myth made up by people that want their vehicles to be OP and unkillable.
IRIAF only moves to 13.0 when F-4J/FGR2 move up to 12.3, ALL 13.0s move up to 13.3, Mig-23ML moves to 12.0, ALL 12.7s to 13.0, ALL 12.3s to 12.7…
There is zero justification for a Mig-23 with SPO-10 to be facing not garbage ARH missiles. And afaik, the FGR2 is overtiered when compared to the F-4S.
It did, and it’s the main reason why we have the Mig-21bis at 11.0.
You’re also failing to mention that it has superior flight performance to almost everything under 12.7. Once again, Gaijin needs to add a plane with similar capability in another tree. There is zero excuse for a single plane to be able to dictate matches as much as it currently does.
I also highly doubt that it’s worse than the 13.0 harriers, which also can’t move down.
you’re critically underselling the Persian tomcat dude. Literally think critically for a second just a few months ago people were bemoaning it as the most op jet in the game it going up .3 br won’t make it bad. I really don’t see your point about planes at a higher br being better either, for example let’s take the mig29 for comparison, the spo15 is comparable to the f14a rwr, it doesn’t tell you aircraft or exact location (definitely good enough though) it does have a launch warning and radar type though and both wouldn’t alert you to Fox3s until they’re pitbull, the f14a radar is superior with better detection and longer range with the ability to use src mode(it can be a little tricky to get close range rear aspect locks if you’re looking down at low alt because you lack a regular pr mode however it’s not a big issue) the mig has a hmd but only the r27 can really use it effectively dude to the r60s gimble limits speaking of, the r60 is about as flare resistant as the aim9p if a little worse while having less range for all aspect, honestly I prefer the sidewinder. the r27er IS NOT better than the fakour 90 (in neither range or energy) besides anything but a close range fight in which you should be using the r27r which would can actually pull more high aspect shots than the er due to not sh*tting out a ton of energy immediately after launch (I have extensive experience in the yak141 which carries both). the only real weakness would be the extremely hot engines, you get the same amount of countermeasures as the mig29. And you’re lying if you think the f14a is a bad airframe it’s fast with the wings back and has incredible turn rate with them fully forward (if you’re too lazy to control it manually it’s on you).
It’s not that it is not good or you can’t go well with it. It just isn’t unbalanced which is what the title says.
Some people like it some others not…
But in any case it is not unbalanced. There are planes in the game that are unbalanced and not even deserve to be good in “dogfights” , let’s put it like this.
The problem starts with people not wanting to even try to defend against the missile. I see them what they do all the time. I’ve seen Tomcat getting Ace from the get go. Guess what the others did… a hint, they didn’t even turn , not notch.
the plane is comparable to others around the br range and just a flat upgrade over the f14a (although the aim9h does outrange the p). fakour90s are not comparable to aim54s whatsoever the energy difference is night and day bring both in a test drive and you’ll understand, the fakour is more comparable to medium range fox3s while having far superior range. if the br was increased I would want the ability to bring 6 fakours and 2 fatter (Iranian sidewinder copy)
Two terms that should never be in the same sentence
AIM-9P*
Nah, F-14A USN were ruining Meta shamelessly thanks to the unique characteristic of AIM-54 and exclusiveness to the USA.
Two years of bloodshed.
Sorry sir, but this sounds like a bad take to me.
I agree with you on some point that
But, Brit-thoms seem quite overrated I nearly saw none of them flying.
Just like F-14A USN<->F-14A IRIAF does,
Brit-thoms shouldn’t be the same BR with F-4J/S USN thanks to Skyflash(normie)
Lmao how people get shocked that mig23 can bomb… If you log in the game you will find almost every mig23 carrying 2x R-24R and napalm bomb. And without the bomb you can only carry 4 more R-60M missiles which are useless unless for airfield strafing.
This makes me remember people blaming the premium F-104S bombing. Yeah the first 2 fastest vehicles in this BR… are not supposed to bomb, according to fighter jocks (or some angry Tornado bombers? Haha)
Uhh, the MiG-23 is one of the most potent fighters at its BR, even moreso now that it’s at 11.7. I’m not shocked per se for the MiG-23 being able to bomb, I’ve literally played it before, I find it more shocking that people would buy a $70 digital fighter aircraft with some of the best air to air armaments for the tier, and waste four of them for bombs that you don’t even get a computer for.
The difference is in the fact the F-104 has a turn radius thats just ever so slightly smaller than the LHC and its best missiles are AIM-7Es and AIM-9Js, which are not All-Aspect IR Missiles, unlike the R-60Ms and R-24Ts, nor are they Radar-Slaving
Flogger Bombers are literally the aircraft equivalent of this dude
bro just get good at the game, the mig23ml isn’t a bomber the 4 r60m will net you way more rp/sl
Lol, currently the reward (RP) for bombing one base is nearly 1.5-2 times the one for killing one enemy. Can you reliably get 2 kills using those r60 missiles? In addition when you join furball you often get spammed by those op missiles like magic 2 and r73 and finally get killed, and I just run between the airfield and bases printing RP and SL.
you have 72 large countermeasures that’s more than enough to defeat a couple irrcm fox2s just pre flare and the r73 can’t lock and napalm gives you like nothing lmao, I can reliable get 2-3 kills without issues
Anyone who base bombs in a Mig-21 or Mig-23 (minus the BN) should be banned from air RB.
Or Gaijin needs to remove napalm on every plane classified as a fighter.
