you mean that 90%+ of what it fights cant easily out run it?
you dont have to take a fight with an f18 unless you want to and its not like it can do anything from more than 3-4km rear aspect
They also burn through most of their speed with 1-2 turns. If you don’t take them out its likely a friendly will make quick work of them when their slow.
F-18A should be the same exact BR as F-14B.
There is no real reason to put it at 13.0. The su33 at that BR beats you in just about every way and you don’t even get DL on your fox1’s. 12.7 is fine and then maybe the C early to 13.0 but it wouldn’t be super competitive there
Su-33 wouldn’t be 13.0 in the BR change, so bringing that up just confirms F-18 should be 13.0.
Why exactly?
18A doesn’t get BOL launcher rails like F-14B does. The highest speed you can clock in on deck is M1.05 and I’m pretty sure F-14B can do much better. F-14B will also leave 18A in the dust thanks to F110 engines.
If top bracket moves by two steps (14.3 to 15.0) then yes, you can comfortably move it to 13.0 given that other stuff gets moved up as well. Otherwise, not a single soul will play 18A because of the speed and missiles it has.
You could theoretically give it 9Ms but it will still be limited by number of missiles compared to later 18C which can take utilize outer wing pylons for missile carriage.
Speed doesn’t creator victory.
And as BOL pods make 1 thing better: High altitude BVR.
F-14 with its inferior radar has to choose between having the same missiles as F-18 or slow to accelerate active missiles that impact time to climb even more.
Right now there’s no reason for me to play F-14B when I have F-18A 2 BR notches lower.
Better radar, similar flight performance in the subsonic range, better climb performance for low high attacks.
All for losing BOL and top speed…
You’re right. Speed isn’t everything but it certainly is helpful to have it.
Despite having inferior radar, you can still put more missiles on Tomcat than Hornet. On Hornet you have to sacrifice one Sparrow if you want 4x Sidewinders (4x 9L + 3x 7M or 2x 9L + 4x 7M). But on Tomcat you don’t have to make such compromises. Four Sidewinders and four Sparrows? No problem.
Flight performance… Eh, I’m unsure. At low speeds Hornet is a monster but that slow speed is also its greatest drawback. Tomcat can unfold wings, lower flaps to combat setting and it can also dogfight to some extent.
As for radar, yes, that one is clearly in Hornets favor but Tomcat was TV tracker which can also give you EEGS and/or slave missiles if I remember correctly.
I also wouldn’t really say that climb performance is Hornets advantage.