I feel that the UK F-4J is significantly worse than the US variants, despite all of them being placed at the same Battle Rating.
The main issue is the missile performance. The US variants have access to the AIM-7F, which is considerably more capable than the Skyflash missiles available to the UK F-4J. This creates a noticeable performance gap between aircraft that are supposed to be balanced at the same BR.
Nah 11.3 is too low.
Even though F-4J(UK) is in an awful state
It is definitely better than
-Tornado IDS
-Su-24M
-JA37C Viggen
-F-4E phantom
So-
If we reaaally- need to send them down, 11.7BR might be lowest.
Well, decompression and sending everything on 12.3 and higher to a higher place would be better, though.
11.7 would make sense for now, given it is better than the Viggen C and a direct upgrade over the F-4E but notably weaker than the F-4J(US)
There is no justification for the F-4J(UK) to be at the same BR as the US version with the better SARH and Napalm
(The double standards on "technical compatibility is very annoying in this regard too and even then, accepted bug reports for all 3 British F-4s to get the Skyflash SuperTEMP)
Please explain why you think a PD phantom should exist at the same BR as non-PD phantoms.
Haeh? F-4J UK doesn’t get napalm?
Sonion…
Yes. If we look at technical compatibility, we didn’t get
VTAS HMS (IIRC, historically we only got F-4J, which removed their HMS or hasn’t been installed yet)
AIM-7F (Because we had historically superior inverse-monopulse but in-game worse Skyflash, so we didn’t buy them)
Napalms (because we didn’t keep a large stockpile of napalm bombs.)
FFAR and Zuni (because we used SNEB instead of Zuni, iirc, full-loaded Zuni loadout still can frag single base, in longer range.)
And originally had worse RWR because F-4J got RWR buff bit faster
So, basically, same F-4J, same BR (even in Air sim), had same price, but drastically worse.
Gaijin’s technical compatibility standard is just damn too iffy.
They let US main have their flares in their precious F-5C, but they didn’t let them have AIM-9J/P on their F-5C.
They let us have JAGM on ou BritPache Mk.2, but they didn’t let us have AIM-7F and such.
Weapons have always been a balancing tool for Gaijin unfortunately.
All the articles have been able to find state that the F-4J(UK) was upgraded to F-4S standard before being delivered to the UK and given the F-4S is a modernization of the F-4J, shouldn’t the only difference be it using the UKs weapons?
An article by John Rawlings in the RAF Yearbook 1985 said that it was almost to the F-4S standard, but didn’t include the leading-edge slats and helmet gun sight.
https://boxartden.com/reference/gallery/index.php/Historical-Library/Royal-Air-Force/RAF-Yearbook-1985/33-960
Compression is really killing top tier air, I tried playing the US F-4J but every match is an uptier to 13.0 against SU-30s, not to mention top tier games last 5 minutes since the maps are way too small.
They also didn’t receive the smokeless J79-GE-10B engines the F-4S has (but this feature isn’t visible in-game).
depends.
Skyflash outclasses basic 7F’s anyday on close ranges, since it pulls immediately after launch.
To be honest, it would be serious buff on F4S to get DF versions of 7F.
And not sure is it modelled in game or not, but skyflash got different seeker compared to 7F’s
Well, if we think about F-4J(US) also can be equipped with regular AIM-7E-2, I don’t think it is major advance, in-game-wise.
Theoretically, AIM-7E-2/Skyflash could be better than AIM-7F in close range, but generally, AIM-7F just outclasses Skyflash.
IIRC, it is not modelled.
Skyflash IRL used an Inverse-Monopulse seeker compared to an American-built regular conical scanning one in AIM-7E-2/F
But in War Thunder, Skyflash is basically AIM-7E-2 with a larger proxy distance.
Oh, nice, thanks.
Yeah I know J can equip them .
But like I wrote, it depends on situation, if you want to shoot those sparrows +10Km range, basic sparrow (7f) is better, but if you play close and personal DF version outperforms those basic 7’s anytime. And personally I would keep it as a buff on F4S.
And somehow it doesnt surprise me at all, that it is not modelled in game :D
F-4J/S hms is based on very small numbers of production afaik… which is given to every one in game
The F-4E USA at 11.3 is essentially a very similar aircraft to the F-4J(UK), yet the F-4J(UK) sits at 12.0 BR. I don’t really understand the reasoning behind this difference.
Given its current performance and limitations, 12.0 feels too high, especially compared to similar Phantoms at lower BRs. Even moving it to 11.7 likely wouldn’t make a major difference in matchmaking, but it would feel more reasonable considering its capabilities.
Yeah, you can’t play the F-4J(UK) in uptiers, it’s awful. So, 11.3 should be considered, like the USA F-4E at 11.3.