literally does ? you can lock way past ACM with it by using it you can use TWS as basically a soft lock and switch to hard lock
Su27 is far better suited for the missile bus role than a dogfighter any pilot knows the trade space of american planes is dogfighting this was the whole yin and yang thing
SU27 F15A
better radar missiles amazing FM
slightly better IR missiles mediocre missiles all around
there trade offs of eachother the SU27 plays keep away while F15 tries to close the distance using superior FM
An it can, because the Su-27’s radar while okay at keeping lock is still easier to defeat than an F-15A’s radar lock.
And with 150 or more chaff countermeasures, it’s a relatively easy feat at higher altitudes which the F-15A will get to sooner.
Let alone terrain following options on maps like Pyrenees.
if you loose lock just relock its not that crazy you have that option and the SU27 are high alt planes for best performance and its way easier to dodge the F15A sparrow like unbelievebly easy and you get 96 large caliber flares and chaff more than enough you only have a worse RWR which is your only flaw
you also get 6 R27ERs quite literally the best SARH missile in game nothing comes close there raw energy and range gives them insane speed especially if you manually loft them
you only get 4 AIM-7Ms which are mediocre at best honestly only use the F15A main strength is CQC dogfighting its strength in BVR is very limited
theres your problem your playing LOW the SU27 is suited best For high altitudes 10k Ft or higher its the best BVR plane at 13.0 thats not a FOX-3 spammer
I didnt wanna go completly off-topic by potentionally opening another 12 cans of worms.
But for ex. (except the MiG-23MLA) every techtree 11.7 plane is a bomber/strike fighter like the A-10.
They could easily go 11.3 without causing any harm.
You could then shove the intermediate (like the F18) SARH slingers to 12.3
And the legacy ARH slingers onto 12.7
11.7 can then be used for the first SARH slingers like the MiG-23 aswell
Planes like the F16As would go to 12.0
Planes armed like the Su-33, and the first modern ARH slingers still go to 13.0-13.3
The more advanced ARH slingers onto 13.7
And P/A -ESA Radar planes to 14.3
Thats a bit anecdotal though, if you do everything correct you wouldnt even need that amount of chaffs most of the time, especially not in planes youre not space climbing with.
Applies to the Su-33 too, those usually dont need to fly that high to be effective.
Not surprising since the F-15 and the Su-33 are almost 20 years younger than the F4F or the Viggen as a platform.
Because 13.0 planes are not fighting at Top Tier AND theres already a BR that is basicly empty, so why add even more BRs?
Hell, you could even move said Bombers/Strike fighters to 11.0 instead of 11.3 (like i mentioned above) and it would still not change anything about the meta, leaving you with yet another empty BR to play with
But the ViggenDI and the next Grippen (A) have literally the same BR.
Theres no point in going for the ViggenDI during the grind unless you wanna gimp yourself on purpose.
But it does.
Because in a game, your target isnt actually stationairy either, the doodoo radar on the Phoenix needs you to keep the Datalink going until its pitbull or the slightest turn of the target will cause the HDN on the missile to filter him.
The AMRAAM wont filter out targets that go sideways, thats a huge difference in terms of autonomy.
Theres no other ARH missile that does this like the Phoenix, i.e. no other missile requires you to aggressively guide it in like that.
If i read that picture correctly its only 15kms distance this time.
You must have also entered a Launch angle for those missiles to go up like that, because i just tried to recreate the test even with 30km and none of the missiles arched like that.
In my test, the AMRAAM was 5 seconds faster, using the known stats you used last.
The Phoenix only overtakes the Amraam at roughly 25km
37km - 25km = 12km “safe” attack window.
Launching the Phoenix at 37 Kms distance-to-target, the Pitbull-Timer almost doubles to 40 seconds.
And the impact time to 80 seconds.
at 30km it stats has you wait roughly 23 seconds before the missile goes pitbull (at around 18kms to-target) and another 35 seconds before impact.
The F14 travels at 1200kmh, 333m/s. If we divide this by the 5km and 15km of safe space,
we get 15 and 45 seconds, before we are getting into the WEZ of another legacy slinger.
Since you’ll have to fly relatively towards the target because of the HDN and the Datalink, we subtract the time it takes to go pitbull from our safe attack window:
At 37km: 45 - 40 = 5 seconds (before enemy missile launch)
At 30km: 15 - 23 = -8 seconds (after enemy enemy missile launch)
So this will be where your time window to dodge or fire another missile starts, granted the amraam slingers all slow down to 1200km/h, otherwise you can subtract another 3 seconds from the time for enemy planes that go 1500km/h.
sorry but thats quite insane compression youre suggesting, and it would solve literally no issues with legacy ARH carriers, in fact it would create new issues.
One thing I dont understand is why move things down when entire community is fighting tooth and nail to get max BR raised.
and your argument wasnt annecdotal?
nonetheless if we want to go off something more objective, we can easily look at Statshark data for december 2025.
all tomcats are sitting at KD above 1, with IRIAF, which is a F-14A Tomcat at 13.0 with only 60x CMs, is reaching as high as 1.41.
Theres absolutely no indication that Tomcats struggle.
In fact IRIAF has better KD than F-15C MSIP for example.
Anyone who stays below 7km alt nowadays is just gimping himself.
These “empty BRs”, whatever they are, can be filled by moving more planes up. With more BRs you can move more vehicles around. MiG-29G, Su-27 and Su-33 wont have to sit on the same BR if we got decompression.
Theres literally no reason to argue against decompression.
because youre compressing. move these aircrafts up and use the newly created “empty BR” to move aircraft below up.
and vastly different kit and role. Gripen A will never do BVR with Skyflashes at 13.0; but JA37Di will.
There is a point - wanting a 13.0 ARH slinger. Thats not exactly hard concept to grasp.
Almost as if I mentioned targets being stationary and said chart being used to demonstrate time to target and nothing else.
AMRAAM will absolutely lose a lock on a target thats notching it, what are you on about?
30km range actually. As I said, same conditions.
I didnt enter any launch angle.
Youre firing your missiles at target thats only 15km away, from 3km alt at target that is at 0km alt.
I was firing them at target 30km away, both launcher and target were at 5km alt.
Obviously your missile wont have to loft as much when they have to hit target thats lower.
If anything, you technically entered a downward launch angle with such alt difference.
Now put your target at the same 3km alt.
almost as if Phoenix is meant to be used as long range missile.
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the reason there KD is so high is cause of never ending premium noobs at the br in there shiny JF17 or SU33 or JA37DI premium version or F/A-18c
against any actual smart pilot the F14 looses
who dont know how to multi path dont know how to notch are just pinatas youll at most get 1-2 kills a match in the F14A/B but its not guarnteed
You can farm idiots in almost any plane, thats not Tomcat specific.
TOMCAT is just the best at doing it since the AIM54 has so much range and its one of the lowest br FOX-3 slingers
btw im specfically talking about the F14B and A not the IRAIF
Glad you agree with me.
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i do im just saying its kd is not cause its a good plane tho its not great its beyond mid
Su27 is far better option for the br or Su33 i like that one too
However any plane in the premium bracket can farm the premium noobs, its not tomcat specific.
Moreso, if Tomcat would be “beyond mid”, other planes in the premium bracket would have easier time farming the premium noobs, which in turn would increase their KDs to levels exceeding the Tomcat, which is not the case. 14A and 14B KDs are in line with their contemporaries.
Hell, 14B has better KD than F-15A, and F-15A has better IRs, better RWR, better CMs as some here would claim (since they are all standard caliber unlike 14B BOLs), arguably better radar (tho it lacks TWS) and better FM and the very same Sparrows.
A plane with better kit at the very same BR as 14B should have at least similiar if not better KD than “beyond mid” Tomcat, which simply is not the case, global statistics dont support that.
statstics are subjective
rember survivor ship bias ? with ww2 damaged planes ?
pilots matter the F14 doesnt really take much skill to fly right now you take 25mins of fuel 6 aim54s and BVR with it and land
the F15 has to dogfight for all its kills and if you suck at dogfighting you die hence why KD is so low so
which why physical vehicle performance needs to be looked at not player kd as if you go off just kd you get undertiered vehicles
for example M48A2C
no.
If you argued my interpretation of the statistics might be subjective you might have a point there but the very same logic would then need to be applied to your interpretation of 14B stats as well.
Thats the whole point behind survivor bias. Its the interpretation, not the statistics themselves that might be flawed.
Statistics are single objective thing we have on this hellhole of the forum, its just people constantly misinterpret them.
For example premium hornets. They have quite low KD. Wrong interpretation would be that it is because the plane sucks; whereas we know its a premium vehicle which is more accessible to general playerbase which is likely the leading factor behind their current stats.
im pretty sure where saying the same thing here
The issue really comes down to playstyle. The F-14 with Fakour or AIM-54 has a more “efficient” way to play: climb high, fire Fox-3s, and then do whatever it wants. Meanwhile, the F-15A has to carefully pick the right target among dozens of contacts using a radar without TWS. You don’t know the exact altitude difference between you and the target until you hard-lock, AIM-7 has never been a reliable missile, and the AIM-9M is extremely situational.
The F-15A needs to close in to be effective, and no matter how good its flight model is, closing in is very dangerous — you can easily end up facing multiple enemies at once and getting third-partied.
You could say that Phoenixes fit the meta more. Which agains, to me it seems like F-14s are nowhere near being in bad spot currently.
Yes, they are not in bad spot, they just too boring to play.
yeah well should “too boring to play” ever have affect on BR placement?
I find playing strike tornadoes in ARB boring as hell, and God decided to punish me by giving me the Tornado MFG from the SL lootboxes, meaning I have to eventually spade it and im not looking forward to it one bit.
Even then I dont think that me finding Tornadoes playstyle unfun should lead to Tornado being lowered in BR.