With no HMD and seemingly a bugged radar (atleast with TWS HDN) it does not deserve to be 14.0, especially since its upgraded variant with HMD is the exact same rating yet clearly excels in comparison. No HMD basically makes you DOA in every match you play, I dont think I’ve seen a single other jet at the 14.0 range without HMD. The only thing it’s really good at is dogfighting with guns, and that opportunity is likely to never come considering everyone can fully avoid me and launch missiles without pointing themselves in my direction. The literal only chance I have with it is getting lucky with oblivious players which dont come often enough against AIM120b’s.
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No /A, they removed all ground capabilities, also Smin has answered this, it has too many Fox 3 to go down
HMD without HOBS is somewhat irrelevant. Its QoL upgrade only and I wouldnt factor it into balance.
The more obvious difference is the lack of C5s, and whilst there is a debate to be had about whether that means anything at all. I do think it does have a little.
What I think they should do is remove the double rack AMRAAMs from the first Finnish F-18 and drop it down to 13.7.
Makes it a bit unique and gives a reason to use it over the second F-18 with all the upgrades
Or drop it down to 12.3 with Aim-7Ms
Ngl I’m not gonna play a gimped hornet against my Su-27SM with dual racks and HMS lmao, yes nerf the already bad vehicle more lol.
No, the game is too far compressed, and the F-18C simply needs to become the MLU 1
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Yeah it is, but my thinking is that if they ever actually decompress properly, then the F-18C might end up in a unique and kinda strong position.
or that
Never gonna happen, the F-18C in its current implementation will never be stronger than the current 13.7 because gaijin is so against decompressing the game, additionally Sweden air has received nothing but nerf after nerf for years even this patch the E got a massive nerf making it one of the worst fighters for agility at its tier.
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Truth be told i’d rather just see it removed from the tree entirely, it’s just plainly irrelevant there. Tech tree still has an awkward gap in br no matter if that filler hornet is there or not. It adds quite literally nothing to the tree but a painful experience.
Agreed
As you said, the jet is indeed irrelevant since you get the best 14.0 F-18 in-game right after it (although it still sucks)
But I always wondered how well the FM did in a dogfight compared to the normal F/A-18C late FM, which is around 600kg heavier. I know it doesn’t make a difference in your average match, but I wonder how better it would fair against the other best duel FM’s
I like to test every FM (mainly jets), that F-18 and the gripen E are the only things I’m missing out of curiosity, but I don’t intend to grind sweden just for that.
it has like 10 AIM-120 doesnt it
Literally it flies 2% better than the F/A-18A which is the 2nd most agile Hornet in turns, it’s basically not noticeable
They all do at 14.0. But unlike the others, it has AIm-120Bs not Aim-120C5s, lacks HMD, Any A2G, etc etc. Its straight up a downgrade to any other F-18 at 14.0, including the other 14.0 F-18 Sweden already has. Its just a stepping stone to that later and far better F-18.
If it was deleted, nothing would be lost.
Its why im of the opinion it should be lowered in BR either by swapping the AMRAAM for Aim-7M or remove the double rack AMRAAMs. At least make it different to the later Finnish F-18
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Worse RWR lacks K band so it can’t detect certain SPAA
Also it can’t get AIM-7 it has to have historical loadouts
Damn, makes those gun runs much harder then :P
When has that ever actually stopped Gaijin
Like Finnish hornets and all Finnish air are the only nation stuck with historical loadouts. They are not available for anything other than what they use. Its why gaijin doesn’t give them full BRU-55 access.
Literally because it’s Finnish it won’t happen
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600kg will be noticeable. Maybe around 1deg/s or more for sustained turn rate
Just use statshark to see then, they have a FM viewer. By all means if it warrants the vehicle being 14.0 because it turns 1° more than we are truly lost as a species when it comes to rational thought
You are misunderstanding me. I just said I was curious about how it handled, didn’t say it justified being 14.0, quite the opposite if you read my comment.
Statshark I don’t trust for such things anyway
Nah, didn’t mean for it to be aimed at you, more so frustrated with gaijin for even adding it and ignoring my suggestion when it was first added.
Enjoy a not very accurate clip of my stock one back when the hornets came out, I’ll say this it gets weirdly floaty when running min fuel with a clean load out.
Against other hornets it normally wins in gunfights but it lacks in HMS so most of the time you die because you simply can’t fight and defend