Got the F-5E. I have played around it for a bit, and God, what a horrible plane to fly.
2 missiles at 11.0, really? the Mitsubishi F-1 gets 4 Aim-9Ps (similar to J) at 10.0, the F-104J at 10.3 gets 6 of them, the F8U-2 gets 4 of them at 10.3, MiG-21 Lazur-M at 11.0 gets 6x R60MK
These missiles are garbage, easily flared and not like the magic
The radar, which provides guidance for the gunsight, does not filter out ground clutter and therefore you are forced to be below. Not to mention, the plane is only maneuverable in specific, middling speed. Any speed else it will compress. In fact, the MiG-21 series of jets can “death drain” their energy by turning because of delta wings, something the F-5 cannot do.
Engines are bad and slow, targets can run away by not deploying airbrake/flaps and turnfight. On the same time, the horrible missiles you have are also average in speed and manuverability, unlike Magic 1s. In addition, the low engine power prevents base bombing or running away.
It needs to drop to 10.3 or 10.7. Clearly this is the “zero” of high tier, very unplayable against anyone with some experience.
Mitsibishi F-1 is inferior to the F-5E in airframe performance and doesn’t have flares.
The F-104J is inferior and doesn’t have flares.
F8U uses inferior missiles as well as an inferior airframe.
F-5E is at least as good as Mig-21Bis if not better.
F-5C, which has a worse engine and missile at 10.7, is undertiered awfully.
There is no need to decrease BR of F-5E which will causing compression shitstorm even worse.
No, it’s not overtiered. It out-fights pretty much everything and missiles aren’t really the strong point of this aircraft. If you cannot dogfight and rely on missiles switch over to MiGs instead.
The reason the F-5E is so good is a combination of it’s guns, and the fact that it is somehow cooler than the arctic.
You can simply point your nose at the nearest enemy and either pilot snipe them in a headon or follow them (since a barely supersonic plane can keep up with mach 2 jets on the deck apparently) until you are close enough to spray, and given the sheer amount of ammo they have, any argument of poor damage goes out the window.
Furthermore, it’s practically immune to any of the scary IR missiles at the BR like PL-5B since it’s so god damn cold, you have to be directly behind it and a kilometre out just to achieve a lock, and it can 1/2 flare anything without IRCCM
F-5E has better IR missiles overall. Flare resistance matters more than the ability to have your missile flared off from the front aspect.
All-aspect is not everything.
J-7D is inferior in speed and dogfight.
Launch them from 0.8km from behind/side or <1.6km head on. They have enough pull to hit the target and not enough time to see the flare. Besides - you get to carry 5/6 of them on 21bis.
I’m aware, have played plenty of Bis SAU, they are simply not good missiles outside of the Yak-38 and Su-25s. Besides if I could carry 6 R-13Ms then best believe I would.