The Sea Harrier FRS.1E is at a nearly unplayable as a base bomber because of its current battle rating of 10.7. It struggles to race to bases against faster planes that also carry heavier payloads (MIG 21, MIG 23, SU 17, Phantoms, Tornadoes). Even in full downtiers (9.7) this is still noticeable.
The biggest issue with the Sea Harrier FRS.1E is its lack of speed, making it easy prey for supersonic jets at its current BR. This makes it difficult to reach objectives or escape from engagements, putting it at a severe disadvantage. While aircraft like the A-10 (10.7) and SU 25 (10.0, 11.3) also suffer from this, they make up for their weakness with a lot of countermeasures and missiles, which the harrier doesn’t have, while being at around the same BR
As a strike aircraft, the Sea Harrier lacks the necessary countermeasures and firepower to compete effectively in 10.7-11.7 battles (since downtiers are so rare anyway). While it carries 2 AIM-9L missiles, its limited defensive capabilities and maneuverability mean it is often overwhelmed by faster, better-equipped opponents.
Lowering the Sea Harrier’s BR to 10.3 or 10.0 would place it at a much more competitive BR, allowing it to perform better in its intended strike role without being constantly outmatched.
It needs massive buffs first and foremost. It is impossible to balance in it’s current state. It should be much lower but cannot move down.
Buffs
Removal of sooty exhaust
add radar gunsight
add correct cockpit HUD (massive QoL buff for SIM)
fix temperature of the exhaust (it’s currently one of the hottest aircraft in the game and it is nearly impossible to flare anything. Code added for the F-117 could be easily applied here to address this)
overhaul IR signatures to potentially model the fact it can deny missile locks through the use of VIFF (helicopters got code that starts to model this)
Buff Aim-9Ls to IRL performance
All Harriers are likely underperforming significantly withwise to turn performance and maybe even engine performance
Even small things like drop tanks would be a useful addition.
It’s pretty clear they are massively underpowered and a poor representation of the aircraft. 10.3 might be needed if Gaijin continues to fail to address it’s issues
Also. It should be changed to a naval fighter designation. Wasn’t ever really intended for ground attack as the primary role, but could do it as a secondary role. Intercepting soviet shadowers was it’s main task and then providing an additional layer of defence to a naval task force was its other. It’s main and only deployment, it saw it deployed mostly on CAP
This is my department completely.
The first shars (1975 ish) didn’t even have countermeasures or the AIM9L same as the Gr.3. They countermeasures only came later and where flown in during corporate.
The Harriers are also heavily nerfed in thrust and therefore acceleration. They Have a 51% drop of in thrust by .7 Mach. Yet simple jet physics would determine that jets don’t start losing thrust until the incoming air velocity matches the jets exhaust velocity. (the rear nozzles of the Pegasus engine are 525 m/s a whole Mach 1.5) The limiting factor of the Harrier was its intakes they just made too much transonic drag, they also made lift much like the F15s body lift.
An A-4 pilot who flew the Shar later in his career said this much about its acceleration. In game the Harrier is only fast to like 200 knots yet here it beats f15s to 400. In fact the AV-8A can climb to 30,000 feet faster than a clean F4 phantom.
I don’t fully agree with this because then anything with Aim-9Ls would go up in BR.
It also wouldn’t be fair to only have 1 not easily flareable non IRCCM missile.
It would also mean that all other missiles need to be redone, since I doubt the 9L is the only one missing capabilities.
Imo, the issue is less on the missile and more on how Gaijin models heat sigs. Fix heat sigs. Fixes everything else, including 9Ls. But they should not be 1 tap flare defeat, especially when fighting F5s sat on AB all the time. The main change I want for them, is the requirement to drop out of reheat when defending. You should not be immune to them when sat on full reheat.
In general CM interactions could use a decent amount of tweaking, especially in reference to BOL, Rafale “Smart” flares and LCMs. I’d ask for those changes to come alongside increased AIM-9L seeker performance.
I’m not gonna go that far, but there are significant changes that are needed. Hopefully we get IR signature rework soon, then CM rework and finally seeker improvements.
Honestly this would be such a giga improvement for the SHAR I really dont think it can be understated. Guns are still extremely important at that BR and the ADEN is a great gun… when it isnt slapped so low that its a pain to try and aim accurately especially when other jets go mach and can out turn you, meaning you only have a second or 2 for aiming.
I would bet hard that if they got the radar gunsight, their capability would go up very nicely.
Yeah, it is one of the fundemental features that put the SHar above the other Harrier 1s and would be such an asset to have.
What makes it even worse, is that the FA2 has radar gunsight modeled, and even a bodged solution for the Harrier Gr3 HUD that they both have. Should be simple enough to C&P over
This jet locks you into a very specific playstyle, sneaky aim9L launches and that’s about it. Lowering the BR is not fair for some other jets.
In a downtier it is already unfair for lots of jets. It’s one of the fastest platforms with all-aspect missiles early on. Considerably faster than A-10s and su-25s.
Only with BR decompression we can find a suitable place for it.
Whilst decompression will certainly help, given every single buff and made truly historically accurate, the FRS1e could be under-BRed slightly, even in the current compression. The FRS1 which could be even higher still as its technically missing Aim-9Ms (not that I would advocate for that loadout/BR increase at this time)
They are impossible to balance correctly because they are a shadow of what they should be like.
In this exact moment in time. Then yes, in terms of performance, it should be 10.0/10.3 but is locked to 10.7 due to its high-sub-sonic speed and 2x 9Ls.
A decompression is possible if 1.0-10.0 get decompress it could then move down 0.3 without too much harm, but I will doubt we will see another 10.0-14.0 decompression this decade.
