How to play Hunters

Machinery of War Discussion Aircraft
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1

Decited to play AirRB with a friend, from Spitfire mk Vb (BR 3.7) to top tier (Currently at Hunter FGA.9 BR 9.3)
Playd mainly Spitfires, really good aircraft exceptionally Mk.22, I really love that one. However jets were disappointing.
But after I started playing Hunter F.1 It’s not really good, but I don’t have that much time on it
However; Hunter FGA.9
It dosn’t have speed at it’s BR, lots of supersonics, So you can’t fight them with speed
And If you find a subsonic plane you are not really that much faster than other planes
It It flies like a brick at low and high speeds, can fly at it’s best at around 850km/h, So you can’t really dogfight
Heard that it’s good at boom and zoom, Just fake
So you drop on enemy and hope that the enemy won’t turn (won’t happed 8/10 times), remember can’t turn at high speeds, so you will overshoot. Won’t be a problem for other aircraft.
But Hunter won’t turn on those speeds and has no flares, so if enemy shoots Fox2 - You are dead
If he is supersonic then he will catch up to you and shoot you with cannons, can’t do evasive maneuvers and force an overshoot will not help since now you are below best speed to turn so - You are dead
If someone is on your six 7/10 times You will die, the other 3 are subsonics that you are Barely outrunning
Only time when I got kills was if:

  1. Enemy had ULTRA Tunnel vision (Not joking All they have to do was to Turn to any direction)
  2. Did not know I was behind him
  3. Dude went "I am gonna slowly turn and hope he will miss this Eazy kill
  4. Yea there is Hunter on my six and I am slow…CLIMB (edit; This can be a counter since you can’t turn at low and high speeds)
  5. Head on (Hope that jet infront doen’t have SARH missiles)
  6. EF-111 moment

Only the ADENs are good and the Aim-9E is somewhat usefull.
I have K/D of 2 and it feels awful to even have kills with this.
For a fighter with those nice big wings I would guess It has really good maneuverability but no, I got shot down by Yak-28 and 38, same for F4, F-104/106
How am I supposed to play this, can’t dogfight, can’t boom and zoom (mostly), am I gonna have to bomb bases and hope that any supersonic will not follow me?

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2

The hunter is good for dogfights. It doesn’t have the best turn rate, but it has a lot of energy retention.
For the most part it’s a victim of compression. The F6 is decent because of the SRAAMS, and the FGA9 has decent range with the 9E.
With both you can use the rockets for flares, and because of the non afterburning engine this can work quite often. And most radar missiles at this BR are fairly easy to dodge because of their poor range or pull.

But definitely don’t go base bombing in a hunter. They are too slow, and have very limited ground ordinance, which will only make your air to air performance worse.

3

GB props - great
GB jets- bypass the lot until TT. Sry but its just that bad

4

Compression makes the F1, FGA9 and F6 quite a chore to play.

I dont play them much these days for that exact reason, but the only advice I can give is this.

Run your AAMs with as many RP-3s as you can alongside them. They are your flares.

Retain your energy, you accelerate slowly but are actually quite capable at higher speed.

Aim-9Es ive never clicked with, but look for something distracted or slow, and they’ll work fine.

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5

Thats not entirely fair, there are some really fun diamonds in the rough, The biggest issue imo for most of them is just compression.

But the only Rank 6 that I actually consider “bad” is the Javelin. Because its really over BRed.

At Rank 7 the Phantoms are outclased because of their weapons fit, and the Buc S2B, Jag and Hawks are just victims of ARB being bad for ground attackers. The rest are fine, bar some issues with compression

Rank 8, most are fine, again though, just compression or the long overdue harrier buff and/or BOL buffs.

6

Theres nothing competative.
Everything and i mean the lot is over BR’d
Others are broken like the swift
Best version of GB jet is always in another tree.

Maybe i was a little harsh. Tornado 12.0 is fun. The rest though- no bueno

7

I have quite a lot of fun with aircraft like the Jaguar GR1, Lightning F6, All the Tonkas and the most of the Harriers in ARB. In ASB ground attackers like the Buc S2, S2B, GR1A, etc are good fun.

I think the vehicles themselves are mostly fine.

Its just either compression or the fact that ARB is just poor gamemode for mud movers, and we have a LOT of mud movers

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8

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I have done my share of Rhoedisa larp with the hunter, and I can with some certainty say this plane is wonderful. It is a plane that needs patience. It’s like a venomous snake, because most of your game is waiting for the right opportunity to strike and then delivering a swift strike. The plane can feel like a brick, but the thing is that it turns good enough and maintains the speed while in turns. This lets you feign most planes into a DF and then run away after they follow you into a vertical turn.

The thing can outrun planes, even after burning ones, and it’s usually achieved by what I described above. Those (barely super-sonic) trans-sonic airframes often have terrible turn, and the purely supersonic ones like a MiG-21 will bleed all of it’s speed trying to follow you in maneuvers. Sub-sonic planes you can run away from no matter what. Which is why the thing is 9.3 – because in a downtier this thing is basically untouchable if you don’t make mistakes.

And the thing can turn, even at high speeds. Which is it’s main gimmick, that being it really doesn’t compress at all. It rolls good too.

The real trick is to play it an active boom-and-zoom. You need good gunnery, so I recommend learning how convergences can help you lead on targets. I run 100m with vertical targeting on that thing. In down-tiers you can be more aggressive, but most of your kills are gonna be on people distracted. I don’t use makeshift flares myself. Save your AIM-9Es for targets that you know can outrun you/catch you, or other priority targets that are going slow like pesky Arietes. In general, you need target prioritization with this plane. You also need to help your team, because you become increasingly ineffective as your team loses players – you can’t really do much when the entire enemy team is on your six.

This plane also is one where you need to learn soft pulling of the elevator, you need wide turns in dogfights to make most of your retention, so learn elevator tapping.

Also run only about 9m of fuel, that what I do and it’s more than enough. The flight performance degrades heavily the heavier you are. Also, remember that you have a very powerful airbreak, this combined with the good rolling makes forcing scissor overshoots a potent tactic. Along with making sure you don’t overshoot once you’re on someone’s six.

Ultimately, this is one of those planes that requires lot of knowledge about what you’re facing, positioning, good gunnery, understanding of your own airframe’s intricacies and general energy management context.

The TLDR really just is position yourself well, don’t get into prolonged DFs unless it’s late game, and remember that speed is your friend. Learn target prioritization, and don’t stick in furballs, only make that one or two passes. Headons also work once youre confident with the ADENs. They hit very hard. It’s honestly similar to the Fw190 in many ways, because the plane relies on that sort of energy fighting for most of it’s gameplay.

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9

I started WT , went against all advice and played with GB- quit ground after days of bounced shells… made it to 10.7 jaguar and actually said to my friend im done.

Think the conversation went if not in a mig you are getting slapped. He is rated 98 or something on SS and had nothing in the GB tree he could.recomend me to use lol. He talked me into buying the J7D and went from 0.5 KD to well over 1.0

Thats how bad/ full of cope GB really is. Im sure it will of ended plenty of peoples war thinder careers

10

The lightning is good

11

Everyones gangsta till the mig.15, 19, 21, 23 turns up

Every single early jet GB have = smoked by mig. Deffo not bias… balance XD

12

The MiG-23 that the lightning… Cannot face?

13

Not bias lol just incorrect playstyle. The lightning is pretty untouchable for the BR and the red tops are pretty decent

14

Not lightning just British jets (plural).

Aircraft like the Tornado GR1, Hawk 200 RDA, SHar, etc etc cant do much when it faces a Mig-23, and they always face Mig-23s in something like ASB.

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15

Sea Harrier is amazing in sim lol 9Ls at 11.3 means you can comfortably get into a MiG 23 blind spot and fire one off but I can’t speak for the others since I honestly haven’t played them

16

The Sea Harrier at 11.3 is DOA.

It should be 11.0.

Sure, if the Mig-23 doesnt see it, then you’ll kill. But if the Mig-23 does see it, or the giant plume of black smoke that is you. You will not. There is NOTHING you can do vs a Mig-23 actively fighting you in a SHar.

and thats just ignroing the elephant in the room of the Harrier T10, at the same BR…

Sea Harrier should be 11.0 and the Mig-23s (at a bare minimum the MLD) should be 11.7.

and thats even if the SHars werent half finished aircraft missing loads of features, actualy had a half decent FM and wasnt bug ridden.

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17

Fair point, would be nice if I wasn’t restricted to 80% throttle as well.

18

That is actually one of the few semi-accurate things about the Harrier.

Its a game issue, not necessarily an aircraft issue

80% should equal 100% throttle.

With 80-100% being 100-120%.

With WEP (being water injection) after that.

If you think of it like that, the 80% throttle makes sense. Im of the opinion that water injection should be moved to a toggle button instead of being tied to WEP.

Though the engine does actually get too hot. But the report got nuked because the source is contested about being usable or not. So it shouldnt overheat as quickly as it does currently.

19

You probably want to always be preemptively facing the nearest person to you that could be a problem you since you hold speed better than other planes and starting the fight from the headon will mitigate your worse turn speed. Like if someone gets behind you the plane is large and not great at how fast it can turn so you’re usually dead if they hit their shots. Go upward while turning after the initial turn to get them stalled/slow as fast as possible kind of, not that it always works

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20

For the F.6 specifically, run with SRAAMS and climb slightly to the side while maintaining speed & energy. Those two are your lifeline in the Hunter F.6. Fortunately it does have good energy retention. Once at an advantageous position, strike your enemy and use those SRAAMS at close range (under 2.5km) since it’s a high pulling DF IR Missile. You could use rockets as a makeshift CM however i don’t recommend them since it only works on IR missiles and even then it’s nor even that reliable outside of the starter IR AAM’s.

For the Swiss Hunters, base bombing is a possibility unlike their British counterparts due to having Napalm though should be advised against it unless most of the enemy team is cleared out. The Squadron Swiss Hunter in particular you can play a little bit more aggressively since it has proper CM though it doesn’t have SRAAMS so it’s DF capabilities are nerfed in that regards. Also allowing to be more aggressive is no excuse to be braindead either. Keep your energy & speed up. The Squadron Hunter gets a AIM-9P instead which is a more generalist IR Missiles (though I prefer the AIM-9G’s due to their combination of long range and short smoke time at the cost of short range reaction time) in contrast to the SRAAM’s more specialist role.

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