Statshark does not account for the drag or weight of the missile load, see:
And I’d even go so far as to guess you left the fuel load at minimums as well. Try in the actual game.
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@WolfTangoFoxtrot
If I’m out of touch with “the meta” why am I winning? Don’t bring personal issues into a conversation about War Thunder.
The F-15C GE’s flight performance is average, which is fine. Average is good for the BR system.
Missile quality’s great, AIM-120s are good missiles.
You should fill your fuel tanks.
I test all aircraft at FIF [full internal fuel], 9 minutes of reheat [if able], and 5 minutes of reheat.
AIM-120 still needs more fixes to seeker and flight performance to be it’s true self. Especially the C-5.
With BOL, fixed 120C, and LEGION pod, and maybe even EPAWSS, F-15C will be able to fight Rafale and EFT on more equal terms
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It does, however until dual plane is a feature in War Thunder, it’s still fine at this time without it.
Of course when dual plane is added that’ll buff dozens of missiles.
Not dual plane dependent iirc. Especially not the seeker
they are not, they are some of the worst top tier ARH missiles
I’ve had zero issues with my AIM-120s.
I’ve had issues involving MICA EMs swapping to friendlies that pass within the same business zone as an enemy aircraft.
I’ve had the drag issues of R-77s bite me as I was trying to use them the same way I use Derby missiles, and R-77s just don’t have that range when maneuvering.
R-77-1s also suffer that drag issue, but it do have stronger motor.
AIM-120s and Derbys have been perfect in comparison.
My 120 will do the same. It should be said that all Fox3 missiles are possible
Those that resort to personal attacks have ran out of knowledge to discuss.
Myself, ID Heaven, quartas, Alpharius, Cyrus, Backrage, Zanna… all of us discussed the F-15C GE, all of us treated each other well.
All of us sought information.
I sought information for the beauty of knowledge, and to share it.
Others sought information to prove something.
Others sought information to disprove something.
No one deserves attack.
We have this beautiful hobby in common, and we all seek knowledge.
Even with a AIM-120C-5 buff you would still have the problem that the EFT is just a better BVR plane at the same BR.
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Israel recently confirmed the purchase of F-15IA(F-15EX with Israeli tech). Though the first one will be delivered in 2031.
Ironically, the F-15IA will probably be better than the US F-15EX.
Since for example, the US F-15EX removed the MAW system due to cost concern. Meanwhile, the Israeli one will be for sure equipped with it. The MAW system was originally present on Gulf States F-15EX(cause they got that cash for it) but the mounting for it are empty on the US one.
We love American military decisions. /s
Other nations use UV MAWS for their Advanced Eagle, but the problem is that such MAWS is completely useless for the ANG, because these are air superiority aircraft and UV is useless there unless you engage in maneuverable combat with IR missiles.
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Yep, with the radar missiles available today, good luck getting into IR missile range. Accurate AIM-120D in War Thunder would prove that.
Well, IR MAWS can help, cuz it can see PBO missiles, but UV… UV is bad.
Please keep discussions polite and constructive.
Personal insults and inflammatory remarks violate forum guidelines.
thank you.
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I can get behind this to an extent, but average can be a double edged sword. Regardless of if we agree on just how average or bad it’s flight performance might be, I think we can definitely agree that within that three part equation of capability I mentioned, it won’t be so good that it can make up for a potential deficiency in one of the other categories. We know the plane has good avionics, and for the sake of debate I’ll say average flight performance, now everything is riding on armament to fulfill that 2/3 rule.
Which brings us to
I just don’t think this is supported by the data we have access to, all personal anecdotes aside. The F-15C is the perfect vehicle to have this discussion around because it has a basically identical sister plane in the F-15J(M) where the only meaningful difference is the missile kit. If we take a look at the Statshark global vehicle statistics for the month of September 2025 (latest available), we find this:
As you can see, by merely swapping out AIM-120s for AAM-4s (at least for the 4 belly pylons, imagine if you could take them on all of the AMRAAM pylons), and AIM-9M’s for AAM-3s, depending on if you use KPS or KD, you’ve got anywhere from a 23-28% performance difference off that alone.
One might be tempted to argue “but USA players are just worse that’s why it’s so much lower”. I do not agree that the playerbase of each tree has that much of a swing to it on a global scale. You can somewhat empirically prove this, and that it is the plane’s fault not the playerbase by looking at the relative winrates. For September 2025, the US winrate overall at 13.7 was 49.2%, while the F-15C lags behind at 48.7%. Yes this is a small difference you could chalk up to luck and variance if it was in your own service record but over hundreds of thousands of matches it becomes more statistically significant to indicate poor performance. The 120 is just not suiting the meta especially when paired specifically with the heavy F-15C airframe which also doesn’t fit the current meta.
By contrast, Japan’s winrate overall at 13.7 was 50.6% and the F-15J(M) kept up also at 50.6%. The missile kit is making up the difference.
So we’ve looked at the data, the AIM-120 is clearly not doing the plane any favors. Why is that? It struggles with high-offbore being worst-in-class, which is the preferred performance metric currently. That deficiency gets exacerbated by the previously mentioned average-at-best flight performance which really doesn’t lend itself to HOB fights making repeated attacks and defenses. It only excels at having a long range, which is negated by how easy seekers are to defeat especially when you have the amount of warning time that a missile fired from long range and now low on speed gives you. It’s for those reasons why I don’t think 120s can be called particularly good at all anymore. We’ve come a long way from the Seek and Destroy pre-buff SU-27SM vs F-15C meta.
That only leaves quantity, which is the crux of the thread. For a plane that struggles with deficiencies that the other 14.3s with 8 missiles (Rafale, Typhoon) don’t, this thing only getting 8 is just not gonna cut it at 14.3.
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Euro has better flight performance, makes u for lack of missiles
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15JM also weights less
A small amount, nice to have but not a meaningful difference