I’ve been grinding Air RB quite a bit recently and I’ve invested my RP in to the F15, A10C, and F15E series. I’m just wondering which line would have the best rank 7 planes as a workhorse for when I’m grinding planes.
I’ve been doing basebombing to grind and TRY to dogfight people but I suck ass at it. I know missiles IR or radar and how to counter/use them, although I don’t actually have the radar missles yet. I’m using the Canberra and F86F-2 Sabre right now
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If base bombing is your thing (as it was for me at exactly that stage…), the A-7D is a pretty good choice, but a F-4 would work very well too, or the F-105. Always liked the A-7 best though , for various reasons: Very useful for base bombing, but also great against ground forces and even ships, it that’s your thing. And a nice cockpit with a good HUD, pretty good visibility (compared to Phantom and Thunderchief), comfortable to fly, stable weapons platform…
You can probably skip the A-7E, as it offers only the LANA FLIR targeting pod as advantage over the 7D, but which only becomes useful in Sim in certain maps, but at the loss of the Mavericks.
However, afaik in RB base bombing is quite tricky atm, even for fast dedicated bombers like the F-111, as often the fighters beat them to targets.
I really strongly would encourage you to try out Sim EC: It’s the best mode for base bombing by far, and lets the attackers play out their strength without suffering unduly from fighters. For me it was really the switch from RB to SB EC where I “took off” on modern aircraft. I know a lot of players complain about the rewards system there, but really you get very consistent and decent rewards especially by base bombing. Bases are well spaced out, respawn quicky, so there’s usually enough for everyone, even the slow movers like the Corsair II…
Oh, the A-10 is of course the best for attacking ground targets (tanks, artillery, AA,…), but due to its speed less so for base bombing.
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A-10s are too slow to be very effective as the game is usually over before you can make it to any targets. F4s are a pretty solid and versatile platform (some variants more so than others) that can be used to hit some ground targets or a base before engaging the enemy team, or mopping up ground targets if you have a few people that either AF camp or just run on the enemy team.
I think the F-5 is still decent if you like gunfighting.
A-7s and F-8s where struggling when I last played them, but that was a LONG time ago (like attackers still air spawned long ago) I know the F-8 has been buffed a lot since then and it’s wings stay on now.
I cant speak for the Pig as I have only gotten to the F-105 in that line.
I would go do with the F4S cuz the corsairs are not fast enough and only get 2 missiles.
Dedicated strike aircraft are dead in the water in ARB. In ASB you’ll get some use out of them.
Multirole you’ll get something out of, but I really don’t recommend trying to base zomb in an F-4 as it’s a waste of its potential and once anything slots behind you - You’re dead because you can’t outrun or out-maneuver it.
I’ll definitely look into Sim EC when its not heli only. I’ve been comparing the stats of F4E, A7D, and F105 for a bit now and yes, they have their own pros and cons but mainly I’ve been looking into the F4C because I feel like it would be a decent multipurpose plane, especially since it gets radar missles at 10.0 (although they might be trash) or 4 BLU 27/B incendiary bombs which could destroy 2 bases (Could you possibly add missles with 2 BLU 27/B with custom loadout?). Yes, I see the appeal of the A7D but I feel like its just a little slow for jets at its BR, mostly with those MIGs everyone uses in the german and USSR TT being mostly above 1.3k MPH (2092 KPH)
Absolutely!
Here my personal (Sim EC relevant, focusing especially on base bombing) experiences on their advantages and disadvantages:
F-4C:
- Multirole, good against ground as well as air targets, but struggles more against air than other aircraft at that BR, I’d say.
- Large and diverse air/ground load, capable of easily killing two bases and have full Air/Air load still
- Only CCIP, not CCRP bomb mode, so less easy to use against bases.
- No stand-off weapons, so little use against ground battle events with SPAA
- Poor visibility, bad reflections of windshield and HUD in certain light conditions, making it hard to see anything
- No countermeasures
F-105:
- Fast
- Ok but not diverse A/G load, capable of killing 2 bases, but then no AAM’s
- Only Chaff as countermeasures, but sacrificing bombs, allowing only one base kill
- Not agile
- Missing any indication of CCRP in sight, so in Sim practically only CCIP possible, which limits its use
- Very low amount of fuel, allowing little mistakes
A-7D:
- One of the first/earliest aircraft with a very good HUD, and perfectly working CCRP mode
- Roomy, comfortable cockpit with quite ok visibility, well suited for A/G work
- Large and very diverse Air/Ground weapons options. Can kill2-3 bases depending on bomb mix, very good against ground battles with SPAA thanks to AGM-65
- Very limited use against aircraft, strictly only for self defense.
- Good amount of countermeasures
- Can be challenging to fly at first (beware negative-G situations!)
- Slower than the other two, but not in a very limiting way, but on the other hand much more agile than the other two.
As mentioned before, I’d recommend the Corsair II most for grinding via base bombing in Sim: Always enough targets, good options to do also other work (against tanks, ships, can even kill a Carrier with one attack with 6 Mk.84’s…), fun to fly, and not plagued by the disadvantages of the other two mentioned types (CCRP, visibility, agility,…).
As Sim battles are much more spaced out, one can really take advantage of terrain and map size to avoid having to battle it out all the time with enemy aircraft, or race friendly aircraft to the targets…
There are some things one has to adjust to (cockpit only view, more challenging to prevent TK, high importance of communication between players), but I can’t stress enough that Sim EC is the optimal game mode for any mud mover afficionado, while also offering a lot of fun and challenge for “top guns”…