Yeah, I know it.
AIM-54A and AIM-54C are easily dodgeable with notching and throwing chaffs.
I also know getting killed by them is somewhat of a serious skill issue too.
But in current 11.X BR meta, in which Gaijin sells many higher-rank premium planes, and many base bombers remain with low skill levels… Those F-14 with AIM-54 became one of the nastiest and most serious game-changers.
Those F-14 shows up on the American side only(of course they should. because it is an American jet. right?) and they climb up to high alt, raining AIM-54 fury to low alt ground lickers on our side.
As a result, usually, 20~30% of teammates got wiped out by those missiles. and sometimes even half of the team goes down by those salvos.
Then? rest of the teams having serious outgunned and outnumbered problems, and the match ends up with a single-sided slaughter-show.
Half-jokingly, ‘getting killed by AIM-54 while trying nothing to evade them and taking quick fast death’ provides a better play experience than ‘evading it and being heavily outgunned, having slow painful death’.
The problems of F-14 nowadays seem two.
Firstly, AIM-54 is the one and only ARH missile that shows up on the 11BR range while the rest of the planes shoot some SARH missiles which include pulse-seeking-easy-to-defeat-by-chaffs R-3R/Super 530F.
Secondly, Thanks to Gaijin which sold lots of premium planes, on 11.0-11.7 BR brackets some players are not ready to evade AIM-54 without those safety blankets(well, I saw a sim player talk about former multipath like that on the forum).
Seems we need to give every jet on rank 7 or higher a free chaff modification as stock and [Air Combat 101 by Gaijin: How to Notch] video. or just give F-14s better-infrared missiles and send them into slightly higher BR and some BR decompression would fit perfectly.
Because there are not many counterparts of F-14 in minor nations. Also, giving Iranian Alicat to the Soviets is not a solution but makes the problem even worse.
I’m thinking this is the appropriate solution. AIM-9L for the F-14A (and just get rid of the “early” designation too) and AIM-9M for the F-14B, respectively putting them at 12.0 and 12.3
While your correct, do not forget that most aircraft in this br range have an rwr that does not detect the fox-3 of the f14. it is not always a skill issue, sometimes u simply don’t know it was fired at you.
That’s the real problem. New players with premium 10.3 tanks don’t have spaa then raise all air vehicles, is that your solution ?
If new player don’t give a f… about how the game works raising or lowering brs wont change anything. Players flight straight to a10 and su25 being the lower all aspect missile, increase br then ?
Things are slightly more complicated than just ‘selling premium is all of the problem.’
F-14’s AIM-54 isn’t an unavoidable death beam kind of thing, but there is not much of a counterpart against them because there are no other ARH missiles on that BR bracket.
and mixed it with ‘no information for newbies’…
then things are gone all furbar now.
Gaijin needs to make some more proper tutorial things about radar-guided missiles and BVR or notching… all things that need to be known for surviving against top-rank threats.
These newbies with high-rank jets, also known as ‘flying pinata’ can’t flare the AIM-9M, shoot the AIM-7F with radar lock, or notch the AIM-54.
I think Gaijin made this furball and F-14 enjoyers are cherry-picking the situation now.
If Gaijin marks equipment BR with their ‘Efficiency’ theory, for now… Tomcats are scoring way more effectively than the rest of the 11.7BR jets now thanks to only ARH on the 11BR they have.
We need to deal with both problems at once.
Also, if F-14 became way much underperforming after nerfing the BR. Then we can buff them back.