I recently got the A-10C thunderbolt II not for ground (god knows BMPTs would eat this thing like candy), but for the fact that i figured 4 AIM-9Ms against 12.0 aircraft would be really funny. however during the stock grind with 2 AIM-9Ls, im realizing this is one of the most abysmal aircraft i think ive ever used, and can see that outside of the AIM-9Ls, it has zero good weapons.
is it worth continuing to grind or try to play it with 9Ms or should i just give up now
No… Its damn terrible at 11.7, but you can do some funny ground pound with the glide bombs at a decent range from the battlefield.
Best strat is to sneak at medium altitudes and avoid being spotted at all costs, drop your gnss glide bombs into each individual target with the help of the pod, and sometimes you get to shoot 9M’s into unsuspecting targets.
Sometimes your team will be gone when you reach the battlefield, also theres a chance you get killed before any of your bombs even land because they take some time to reach the targets and you often can’t run away from the battlefield before being spotted if you have no team left.
I really liked the A-10C (probably due to my bias towards it) in air sim/rb (Don’t even bother playing it in ground rb/sim).
A-10C biggest strength is gonna be AIM-9M be ability to carry 24 GBU-39 at 11.7 br. While the stock grind is not the most enjoyable since it is literally a A-10A until you get AIM-9M or any A2G weapons
For stock grind, I recommend getting GBU-39 modification then sniper pod. Only target ground/air AI and don’t engage with other enemy jets unless they engage you (Destroying 30+ ground target should at least give you 3k rp without any prem or booster).
For an easier method try Air sim after getting GBU-39 and sniper pod. For this method you would require SA servers though since players in these server usually only bomb and huge stationary AI groups appear on the front line (I have not seen this happen in EU servers for quite a while now). So what you need to do is, Climb high, at around 8km start dropping gbu-39 on AI and that’s it. You get 15+ AI kills and enough score to for full reward. Do this method for an hour with booster and get more then 30k+ rp.
Though keep in mind that A-10C is a very slow plane with 9M and A2G being the only good thing about it. It is slow enough that sometimes matches end before you even reach the battlefield. Everything is going to be faster then you and hence can reach ground targets faster then you (If they decide to ground pound). Since you are also slow, firing 9M on target which is at a distance of 2km+ will not do anything since missile will run out of energy before it hits the target, so you have a very small engagement area.
Before you stock grind it, ask yourself,
Are you ready to spend alot of time flying slowly to the battlefield (Only for it to end as soon as you reach there)? If you answer is no to that, then I won’t t recommend you to stock grind it
Only if there was any indication of this happening, like the aircraft being A-10C at 11.7.