The F-14 has similar performance increase over other fighter types due to the swing wings in spite of the T/W. You’re also probably comparing the static T/W of MiG-23 which doesn’t show the whole story.
Likewise with the F-14A, which has less than a 1.0 T/W static… Has a higher sustained turn rate than even the F-16 depending on fuel loads.
Anyhow to avoid derailing we should probably discuss the F-15 and I happen to agree with the consensus on the issues that has been discussed thus far… not trying to say it doesn’t deserve some fixes. (So does the F-14).
There is not a single point where the MiG-23ML variants have better thrust to weight ratio to the MiG-29 or Su-27 in-game.
The difference between turn rates between the F-16 variants and the F-14 ends up being a lot less pronounced in practice. Even if optimally flown in full real controls the F-16A will not struggle with the F-14A. On the other hand the MiG-29 and Su-27 practically fall out of the sky due to extremely high drag in turns other than at a targeted rate speed.
But regardless I don’t think there is anything out there that supports the idea of the F-14A being able to maintain a flat turn at 24 degrees per second.
Basically all those US evaluations refer to older MiG-23 variants that aren’t remotely as capable to the ML/MLA/MLD.
The G rating for the MiG23ML and derivatives is 8.5G, and in warthunder it doesn’t pull more than 12.5 (which is a bit less than 8.5 times 1.5) in standard conditions.
MiG-23MLDs flown by experienced pilots put up a good fight against MiG-29As flown by less experienced pilots.
The only reason the MiG-23 is remembered badly is the fact that it had a troubled start and has a poor K/D, which was mainly caused by hundreds MiG-23BNs shot down, and not the actually capable air to air variants.
The reason MiG-23ML is massively outrating the MiG-29 and Su-27 is the instructor. If you sit at optimal speeds the difference in rate is minimal.
MiG-23s are expected to perform good in rate fights because they have very high aspect wings which give very low induced drag.
MiG-23ML rate performance seems to match charts although there is no chart for full forward wings rate performance so that might be over performing a bit
What isn’t shown in turn rate diagrams is how much energy is lost while reducing turn radius and bleeding off speed between optimal rate speed and minimal turn radius. In-game the MiG-29 and Su-27 can only turn above their sustained rate for minimal periods of time whereas something like the MiG-23 can do it for much longer and recover to optimal rate speed much easier.
This difference becomes readily apparent when you take something like the Gripen that has a turn rate that is worse on paper than the Su-27…and realize that it just runs circles around it in an actual fight.
I think that was self-evident and not my point at all. The F-14 is superior to the F-15 but has a lower T/W, just an example of swing wing superiority.
Doesn’t matter if ‘in practice’ they are almost equal. For comparison, both at equal fuel the F-14 beats it with much worse T/W.
So all swing wings are overperforming to you? I’d like to see how you gathered that assumption.
I don’t know anything about the Tornado so I can’t say if it is accurate or not. Perhaps there are more available data for wings forward turn rate.
Regardless, the swing wings allow for much better sustained turn performance than swept wings by nature. The Tornado is quite a big / heavy bird and doesn’t have nearly the same wing loading if I recall correctly.
The F-14 is definitively superior to the F-15 in dogfights in both AoA, and turn rate.
It’s an example of Gaijin being incredibly generous towards the F-14 and MiG-23 flight models. I don’t think there is any evidence of the F-14A being able to sustain the turn rates that it does in War Thunder with it’s wings fully swept forward.
In practice the F-14A loses to the F-16 in a dogfight in both Air RB and Air SB modes.
Its most likely that the F-14A and MiG-23 variants are over-performing due to being able to utilize forward swept wings that were not feasible in real life.
I really don’t think it is that generous. Both FM’s match their sustained turn charts and specific excess power charts for auto speed and with loadings mentioned in the manuals, etc.
The F-16 has considerably larger specific excess power and as such does not bleed as badly in turns. This is where having a higher T/W ratio would come in handy depending on the design. Certainly the F-14B does not suffer as badly… but the F-16 is sort of king at rate fighting and is heavily overperforming in available AoA / stability otherwise leaving the F-14 with little in regards to a defense against it.
The F-14A certainly did sweep the wings forward for dogfighting in real life, the MiG-23 pilots were hardly ever trained on such tactics. They were used to flying with wings no further forward than 33 degrees for the higher speeds and dogfights. In-game the concerns that warranted such procedures do not exist… and it is totally plausible they could have relied on the forward sweep in real life if need be… just wasn’t done operationally.
That doesn’t mean anything when there are no charts that exist for the fully forward swept wing of both planes. Yes they are accurate-ish insofar as they match the charts at specific points but the fully deployed wing is pure conjecture.
To my knowledge neither the F-14 or MiG-23 wing sweep was utilized by pilots in the same way it’s utilized in War Thunder; i.e full forward sweep at just below Mach 1.
All the information I’ve seen on the MiG-23MLD says that even with the 33 degree wing sweep position was only recommend for experienced pilots to use as it was a rather difficult plane to fly. I’ve seen no indication that anyone ever tried to max perform with it in the full forward position…not even test pilots.
No data for it exists and it’s turning performance beyond it’s documented flight envelope is pure speculation on Gaijins part. It is no more or less accurate than the conjecture that is the Gripen flight model.
The F-14B doesn’t suffer as badly but I would still wager that it loses the dogfight to the F-16 the majority of the time.
Even the 33 degree position was an upgrade to the MLD and even then the plane was difficult to fly. The fully deployed wing flight envelope that is present in War Thunder is a pure fantasy.
I recommend not wasting your energy on that matter. The performances of the mig23 and f14 have been discussed hundreds of times in other threads and the most accepted conclusion is that it is the best we can get ingame at the moment…
I’m not wasting my energy. It should be common knowledge that War Thunder is good enough at hitting a few data points on a chart but is also completely insane when it comes to interpolating data that isn’t readily accessible.
Look at the first iteration of the Gripen for the most recent example of this. Or even the current iteration of it…it’s almost purely speculation. The only turn rate data point they hit is a guestimation of it’s turn rate as around 20 degrees per second with the highest energy retention in the game.
There are basically two ways to interpret the way that the Gripen should perform in relation to War Thunder flight models; it’s either very similar to an F-16 and maintains high turn rates for minimal loss of speed because that’s what it dogfights against in Norway vs Sweden exercises…or it’s similar to a Mirage 2000 where it has very high initial turn and good nose authority at the cost of energy retention.
I think the later interpretation is a lot more reasonable but the interpretation that Gaijin initially went with was basically something they got from the Daily Caller written on the back of a napkin.
This isn’t really anything new; plane like the F-104 can pull 14G instantaneous turns at speeds above Mach 1…what’s even funnier is that the F-104 is competitive and maybe even superior to the Tornado F.3 in a dogfight.
