It’s really not that hard, you just have to stay low and not get too close (it takes some practice for sure but it’s not impossible). The Mig-29 only has 2 radar missiles, once it’s fired it’s quickly vulnerable. Plus it only has 60 countermeasures, it quickly runs out.
You said that the Mig-23 was the best plane in the game in simulator with the latest Br changes, it’s just wrong. When it’s in the F-4S/J bracket it gets demolished and even at its own Br it can’t do anything, its radar is crap and its only decent missiles are the R-60M
Why are you flying an 12.0 jet in 12.3+ rotations? You CAN chose when to fly a certain BR, so you can easily avoid those rotations (exception is 12.3, which only gets matches with 12.7).
I’m not surprised that the F-4S is unplayable on that BR. 4 obsolete IR missiles and 4 AIM-7s that are easy to defeat by notching. I crush them almost all the time with the MiG-23MLD, which has significantly better flight characteristics and more effective missile armament (2x R-24T + 4x R-60M).
Theres only 1 bracket to play Navy Phantoms and during that time nobody wants to play that BR because of the Phantom spam. At least make it 11.7 in sim so in only 1 bracket it will face 4th gens.
Ok then, take your F-4J and try to fight against some MiG-29s. Or maybe Japanese F-16s or F-15s.
MiG-23ML/MLDs R-24 is faster at close ranges. And you can’t use AIM-7s range advantage because once you fire they will immediately notch, you always get kills in close range. Also R-24R has IOG, making it better against notching.
As someone that got gifted the F4S and bought the MIG23ML to grind top tier cuz I’m lazy to go through every low tier jet cuz I can’t stand them, I don’t mind the F4S, it’s not a bad jet at all. When I first got it, I hated it and played like garbage in it and was so negative on it, it was probably .25K/D and I didn’t care to pick it up again but I did and have slowly climbed it to a near 1.0K/D. But the Mig23ML, that was a beast until the last update and now it’s garbage and so bad I don’t even touch it anymore. But I have the RU side finished to my liking anyways. If either of these jets were your first jets, you’re bound to hate them no matter what but as you learn other jets they really don’t seem so bad. Especially after learning what to look for with RU’s bad radar and US’s good missiles, you can start to pull together a decent skill gap in most jets VS what you fight against. Which is all time consuming but learn as you go. Do I think the F14’s should go up in BR because of the 54s. Yes because they are overpowered when half the team is just spamming them in a 12.0BR lobby. Doesn’t matter if they are easy to dodge or not because they are, but add that on top of the cheaters that radar lock through mountains and rock pillars, it’s annoying enough to say they need to be 13.3+ or the F4S should be dropped down to 11.3. Either way, it’s a viable jet to get a handful of kills every game unless yours in a 13.0 game getting ARH spammed by AV8Bs and F14s, but that’s a topic that’s been battered so much it’s useless to bring up just like the same nations on both sides shouldn’t be a thing but it is because everyone favors one country over all others in top tier of anything.
Done it multiple times. It is hard but not impossible. The F-16 and F-15 are really harder to fight. URSS radar are quite bad in game so if you learn how to play against them it is a easy win
For the Mig-23 the R-24 are useless. The radar is so bad that it can’t lock anything after 1 chaff if you are higher. + The last flight model change made it incapable of dogfighting (I have win every dogfight against Mig-23 with my Tornado Gr1 recently)
Those Mig29 pilots must be really bad, in SB if you get killed in a Mig29 by a Phantom is because you are fighting someone else, and the F-4S takes profit …
Hm, just realized: That is indeed a tricky situation: more than half of the possible aircraft for 12.0 matches are Phantoms, and the only way to get out of this is to join 12.7 matches (as there are no 12.3), which means a whole two BR-steps higher…
I feel like the average level of sim players is decreasing these days. I don’t know if it’s related to the event but the players are really getting worse and worse.
The fact that you’re whining about your plane being ineffective in a max up tier is really funny. (USSR/Germany have no broken, under tiered 13.0 planes)
Try playing the MiG-23ML in an 11.7-12.7 bracket and then get back to me.
All Floggers shouldn’t see 12.7, just like Phantoms. At least theres only 1 bracket for that to happen. Phantom only has one playable bracket and nobody wants to play the red team during that bracket is active.
As the next BR-rotation available is at 12.7, those vehicles basically can just fight each other (for which there are barely matches), or then the 12.7 rotations with those adversaries:
F-14A/B
F-16A
F-20A
Mirage 2000D-R1
Mirage 2000C-S4/S5
Su-25SM3
MiG-29
Yak-141
Harrier GR.7
MiG-21 Bison
JH-7A
F-4EJ Kai
F-15J / Baz
I’m also of the opinion now that the 12.0 BR is the worst possible…