The F-4J is easily the worst phantom at this BR. It has absolutely nothing going for it over other phantoms, and it underperforms constantly. It’s the worst F4… That is capable of facing F16s frequently, and F/A-18’s almost every game it feels like. It’s unable to do any sort of BVR with the skyflash’s, and being forced to carry around a huge gun pod and no wing slats (like the F-4S) means it is completely unable to dogfight. Your best bet in this thing is to take a head-on in which you fire all of your missiles, if you’re lucky one will hit and score you a kill. After that you’re pretty much out of the match, because your slow turn radius, bad engines and abysmal countermeasure amount means you’re getting cleaned up by the rest of the enemy team the second you try to pull back away from that head on.
This is not to mention it is at the exact same BR as the FGR.2 which is the exact same plane, but with a significantly better engine, and an extra 30 countermeasures. It’s an unfair jab at people who bought the F-4J, seemingly to convince them to buy the bison.
Furthermore, this makes grinding the UK air tree extremely long-winded, due to the fact unless you’re buying multiple rank 6 premiums you have to complete every line but one in the tech tree to reach rank 7, so - with the F-4J being the main grinding jet for the UK (premium wise at least) it means your grind from rank 6 to finally reach a decent plane like the Gripen/Typhoon is excruciatingly painful. Might as well have just purchased a talisman for the FGR.2, as it beats out the J completely and is at the exact same BR. (I’d even go as far to say that the FGR.2 is still weak for its BR range.)
I’ve seen countless discussions on this jet, all sharing this same frustration. Imho, it should be given the AIM-9L’s as an upgrade for the IR missiles, and they need to buff or tweak the skyflash. Because, despite its apparent 31 mile launch range if you dare to fire this thing from further than 10 miles, even while head-on, it will just explode mid-air or dive straight to the ground.
Honestly it’s a fine aircraft even through it being underpowered, I just personally think others should go up. I have no issues with the plane itself - aside from the SkyTrash never ever working lol, it’s AIM-9Gs are good but it should definitely get 9L and HMD if it wants to stay at 12.0, otherwise give it 9L, HMD, AIM-7F/M and maybe even BOL and move it to 12.3, I know that would be historically inaccurate but what isn’t now?
With a joke, I think RAF got scammed by USN about buying a used F-4J.
At least Gaijin managed to update F-4J(UK)'s RWR to better one at some point. :/
IIRC, it wasn’t detected the radar ping from MiG-21/23 at all, and was inferior to F-4J/S on that parts too.
I am fine with historical AIM-9L, which will compensate for AIM-7F of USN.
BOL feels a bit too much if we consider direct USN counterparts or MiG-21Bison in higher BR, also have 60CM.
I heard we had the option to equip Skyflash SuperTEMP in F-4K/M(FG/FGR ones) irl, but that feels a bit off topic if we concentrate on F-4J(UK) Phantom F.3
RAF Phantoms operated with 9L and the launch rail on FGR.2 is the same as F4J, all sidewinders use a common launch rail so there’s no reason it can’t get 9L.
^ Yeah, its definitely unjustified how these things were stripped of any useful capabilities before ever being shipped over to the UK, but there are still plenty of historically accurate buffs that gaijin could give it nonetheless.
It baffles me how this thing is still so bad, i’ve never seen it praised, and i’ve seen countless posts going into detail on how it could be fixed / why it needs to be fixed but never a single even acknowledgement by gaijin on it. Not one for conspiracy theories, but it seems like a clever play from gaijin to convince (force) people who bought the F4 back when it was useful to take the hit on purchasing the Mig-21 Bison, otherwise the british air grind is absolutely painstaking.
It requires 4 tech tree lines fully unlocked up to Rank VII to unlock a rank VIII plane for the UK, where as other nations like the USSR only have to do 2 if you pick wisely. Doing that without buying any premiums seems impossible, and even with buying the F-4 in its current state its no help at all. Absolutely any buff to this thing would be amazing, even if tiny because it’s ridiculous just how underpowered it is for its BR.
I recently purchased the UK F-4J with Golden Eagles and, after playing it for a while, I feel that it is noticeably weaker than the American F-4S, despite both aircraft sitting at the same battle rating.
One of the main problems, in my opinion, is the missile loadout. The UK F-4J does not have particularly strong missiles for its BR, which puts it at a disadvantage against many aircraft it regularly faces. Compared to the F-4S, which benefits from better overall capabilities and missile performance, the difference feels quite significant.
At the same time, the US tech tree also has an F-4J variant that feels very similar, yet performs better , because it does have AIM-7F while staying at the same BR.
Because of this, I wanted to ask the community:
Are there any plans to improve the UK F-4J (for example, better missiles or performance changes)?
Is a BR reduction being considered?
Do other players feel that the UK F-4J is balanced at its current BR?
If we consider the neglect duration which we had on F-4J(UK), I don’t think we ever gonna get any kind of improvement.
Well…
Maybe we could ‘theorically’ can get
-Skyflash SuperTEMP, which I heard is compatible with other British Phantom variants / or AIM-7F, which they used when they were in USN *[TMI: F-4J(UK) is EX-USN F-4J, which was bought from USN because of the Falklands]
-AIM-9L, which we used IRL
-and a napalm bomb, which USN F-4J can use, and can help the tech tree grind.
Ehhh it’s my most played vehicle, while it is a lot weaker than other 12.0s including the F-4M and F-4K it’s still usable as a vehicle in custom battles 👍