Aight, the responsibility for this misunderstanding falls on me for not explaining clearly what I mean; I apologize, english isnt my first language.
What my comment to CmdrVince was aimed at was that if two planes are compared, from which one is clearly worse (here F-4E against MiG-23ML), one must assume the two pilots piloting them are of equal skill; not that player statistics overall have to be ignored.
Because otherwise the debate boils down to “X plane wins as long as he does Y” which ignores the fact that most games do not allow for perfect conditions under which the pilot of X plane can do Y; nor do most games allow for pilot of X plane to create such conditions.
Even with my skill issue, Im confident enough that if I manage to merge, I can gun down any Su-27/30/33 within F-16A BR range on 1v1. Does that make F-16A automatically better than any Su-27/30/33?
Same with what CmdrVice said. If he can dunk on MiG-23MLs with F-4E, more power to him. Im certain thats no small feat since the F-4E is factually worse than MiG-23ML.
But being able to fly a plane and win through your own skill doesnt make said plane better than plane thats factually better but flown by worse pilot.
Which is what I am talking about. If you won a dogfight in F-100D against MiG-21, it wasnt because F-100D is better than MiG-21, it was because you were better than MiG-21 pilot and knew what to do.
Arguments such as “I know X plane is faster, lighter, more manueverable, has better sustained turn, has better missiles, has more missiles, has CMs, has better RWR, but as long as the pilot makes this one absolutely crucial mistake, I easily win” have no place in debate about vehicle balance. Because the moment the enemy pilot doesnt do that one crucial mistake, he will absolutely curbstomp you.
Not everyone wanna sit there and waste time of their life trying to figure out how to make this jet work out perfectly. AIM-7E2 is great, it is actually excellent when combined with the Swedish JA37C with PD radar. But when I look at the radar on phantom the frustration just keeps me away from it. We prefer to make our life easier.
The F-4E is a mixed bag, but imagine flying out the F-4F in the german tree, which is worse in almost every single department, and fighting in the same matchmaker because its at 11.0. Gaijin please put it down to 10.7. If the japanese F-4EJ is at 11.0), and the F-4E is at 11.3, I wouldn’t even be surprised if putting the F-4F to 10.7 is something that would happen sooner or later.
If they give the FGR.2 its 9Ls then it will belong at 12.0 properly. And the FG.1 should go down to 11.7 because it never got 9Ls IRL and has no business being at 12.0 with that godawful loadout.
Their PD radars aren’t even that great. Easy to defeat and the Aim-7E is one of the easiest Fox-1s in the entire 11.0 to 13.0 spread to roll. Most people who play at this BR can defeat an Aim-7E as that is what they did to defeat the R-23Rs. They have gunpods so their flight models are ruined (stronger engines? doesn’t matter when you’re flying with a lead weight strapped to the bottom so you can have a gun) and their missiles are just one corkscrew or one flare away from being defeated and the radar can be easily chaffed especially at look-down aspect. This is my experience having spaded my FGR.2 and also having fought the FGR.2 as well. It was harder to do that vs the F-4S because their Aim-7Fs are harder to defeat. But if a lumbering brick like the Tornado can roll an Aim-7E then I don’t see why the more agile planes in other tech trees cannot.
don’t you have countermeasures? How about you use them.
I swear americans get more countermeasures than everyone else combined and still complain about fighting all aspects while subsonic countermeasure lacking jets have to face their a10s…
