For a nation that get allegedly handheld, it really doesn’t have potent grinder for Air. MiG-23 has been nerfed to hell especially with the FM nerf some time ago.
All the while SU-39 is a GRB premium in air tree. is there nothing planned for USSR? even france got NF-5. nothing at all for Soviet?
Anyways Russia will likely recieve it’s rank 8 premium alongside france and china, and i’d gamble on it being an early flanker or semi modernised Mig-29
If anyone’s handheld it’s the premium players.
Screw that, and you want another 12.7 to ruin that BR range?
It’s already bad enough for every tech tree 11.7/12.0 out there.
Mig-23ML is still the strongest base bomber at that BR.
Most dedicated ground attackers struggling to compete for a single base in a lobby full of them. (Ive been playing a lot of the GR4 recently and its rare for me to get a base in a full downtier, I gave up even trying to play the GR1)
Sure, they are overdue a 12.3/12.7, but the Mig-23ML probably should be 12.0 if it wasnt for SPO-10 (and even then, F-104S ASA is still 12.0 and is notably weaker than the Mig-23ML)
and where most ground attackers usually need to head back to base and stay out of the fight. The Mig-23ML actually has half decent air power
its still a great plane. The nerf was deserved, the plane was overperforming on a stupid level and will win against any plane if they just hold down the S key.
The passive gain (base bombing) is fair, but the active gain if I can call it that doesn’t pay up when compared to other vehicles available in other tech trees. The airplane may be great but it’s not more competitive when compared to others people may buy instead, Su-39 was to be a more reliable vehicle to research however Gaijin is gatekeeping its thermal pod and R-77 air-to-air missiles, making it even more unreliable for air battles.