Yes, you could abuse multipath even before then, but it wasnt as prominent as it was after the addition of R-27ER.
I spaded MiG-23MLA and MiG-29A immidiately after that in may 2023.
90% of my kills were done by R-27ER, R-60MKs were just useless.
The biggest shift towards the lawnmover meta that i noticed was around august-september 2023, at that time i stopped playing MiG-29A because almost NO ONE was above multipath.
Why exactly then, I dont know, my bet is that people either learned to abuse the multipath or stopped caring and trying to BVR against R-27ER.
Should’ve put a note there, since the only exception to this is the R-27ER.
In terms of SARH missiles, the USSR lacks range until they get the R-27ER (which is like top tier, when SARH missiles are even in 9.3)
The first SARH missile the USSR gets is an AIM-9B with a radar seeker,worse in some occasions than the AIM-7C.
Then the AIM-7D appears,that’s where the difference starts. At the BR of the F-4C, the best SARH the USSR gets is still the R-3R
The AIM-7E-2 (i’ve skipped the normal E because it’s ALMOST the same) outperforms the SARH version of the R-23 by every metric (they’re both in 11.3)
AIM-7F is a 0.3 difference between the R-24R, but still means they meet each other frequently. The R-24R is now at the same level as the AIM-7E-2, but the AIM-7F by this point also outperforms both.
Then the R-27ER appears, which outperforms the AIM-7M at its BR due to the speed, range and tech differences.
Thanks, to be honest, I would have liked to, but on the one hand I was lazy and didn’t want to type more, on the other hand, I always wanted to be as accurate as possible when I wrote about the addition of certain vehicles or ammo to the game, so as not to get caught in the subsequent debate with others. Thank you again for your supplement
R-24R only lacks range. Besides that it has insane acceleration paired with great maneuverability (which make it better at close range missile jousting than the 7F) and it has a CW seeker making it chaff resistant. It’s definitely better than the E2 but also not on the 7F’s level.
I’m pretty sure flares existed when SRAAMs were added and way later than the R-60. SRAAMs were still really good back then because it only fought Sabres and such without flares.
They did, but the first Harrier introduced with SRAAMs (a premium) was heavily under br’ed. I think it went up two steps for it’s first adjustment and ended up a full 1.0 above it’s introduction if I remember right. So it was going against planes with no flares, which was the problem. Very broken on release but once it had a more fitting BR SRAMMs pretty much got shifted to “gimmick weapon”.
I remember grinding the German tech tree at the time and was at the CL-13B. The Harriers were a nightmare to fight especially since they had airspawn back then.
Irrc the r60 was added heavely nerfed before of flares were introduced and pulled just 18g, and then update right after that they added the f4e with flares and aim 9j, the ussr got flares 3 updates later, when the mig 21bis was added, which btw only got flares after a bug report, as they first stated that it didnt had flares
The F-4E didn’t come with flares. I believe it was when the Mirage III was introduced when they added countermeasures which were still only chaff and not flares.
