idk if there are any other F-16 enjoyers here that play the PoBIT as much as I have been recently, but I’m a little confused on the general loadout of this aircraft. It’s a 14.3 along with the Golden Eagle, non-AESA typhoons and the SM, while getting less than half the missiles of any of these aircraft, and if you want to make use of the BOL pods (that also are the MAW pods), you cannot carry AMRAAMS on that pylon, meaning the total AAM count drops from 6 to a meager 4 missiles if you want the extra countermeasures.
I guess the bigger question for discussion is: does anyone have documentation (unclassified of course) relating to these BOL rails that shows they can carry air to air missiles? This seems like such a dumb nerf for a plane that already has so few AAMs compared to the aircraft at its exact same BR, not to mention the gap between things like the SM2, AESA typhoons and this thing.
Or better yet, look at the F-2A at 13.7! Thats also an AESA equipped plane that has a similar missile count, slightly weaker air to ground ordinance, but also a very similar airframe. Surely the existence of the F-2A at 13.7 could be reason enough for the PoBIT to be a 13.7-14.0 aircraft. I’ve played 220 games in this thing, and it just feels so underwhelming compared to the competition. But idk, let me know what y’all think, should it stay at 14.3? is this this just a skill issue on my part?
edit: forgot to mention its still missing the double amraam racks that I think it has been pictured with, or even the possibility of adding the triple amraam racks, though I believe those were just concept photos and none have actually been mounted as of yet. Still, it would not be unlike gaijin to mount missiles to a place that never used that mounting system…
yep! and I think ultimately this gets at the bigger issue of how gaijin does matches in War Thunder, because irl you will rarely see 20 fighters fly up to meet 20 more fighters, where having these big “missile buses” is useful. Maybe this issue could be fixed altogether if they made matches like, idk, 5v5 or something where you wouldn’t need 14 fucking amraams to be competative.
like, there’s a reason we don’t load up a single F-15s with 20 AMRAAMS to engage in air combat today.
1.) missiles are heavy, and 2.) there is rarely a case where having that many air to air missiles mounted actually makes sense. And if you get into a dogfight and you still have 8 AMRAAMs on your place? Good luck winning that…
less fox 3s is true, though I usually take at least 1 AIM-9M on the viper anyways so its not that much of a difference. Both these aircraft are kinda useless in the initial BVR engagement, and no HMD isn’t really an issue because AAM-3s arent thrust vectoring, so even if you had an HMD, not sure how useful that’d be in a dogfight. Same goes for the PoBITs HMD btw, 9Ms are great missiles but they don’t do too well in really tight engagements, so the HMD is kinda wasted. Maybe if it had the AIM-9X this would be a different story…
no HMD is an issue at 13.7 when jousting, as you’re not entirely capable of quickly locking someone off-bore quickly to fire off a missile and random clutter will make that more difficult
1st it dosent matter if you IR missiles have TVC or not for a HMD to be useful and the AAM-3 and the Magic 2 are prime examples of that
2nd you dont only use a HMD for your IR missiles
13.7 is too low, but should be 14.0, F-16V too naturally.
It has a “bad/slow” aesa, and no HMD, which is the main drawback. Loadout is debatable, since it gets more missiles but less fox3. It is also quite a slow aircraft, almost as slow as the F-18. Great for sustained turns though, but the lack of HMD really hurts it in a dogfight and your vertical ACM will lock missiles more often than the enemy