And there are WW2 era jets at higher BR that are slower as I pointed out. I don’t see why the 262 is a particularly special case amongst WW2 era jets that would warrant a down tier.
1 Like
Because the 262, unlike the jets you listed, is not capable of turning well or accelerating well or any other characteristic to save it.
Right, but again the 262 isn’t alone in being outclassed by certain jets at this BR. Why is the 262 a special case? If anything the argument would be to push up other jets and decompress the BRs. Otherwise you’re just pushing the problem to mid-tier props :D
1 Like
Nothing, this is just how the game is, it’s incredibly difficult for vehicles to get downtiered because they just die, people stop playing them and they’re ignored, or a few people play them that keep the stats high enough.
It’s an issue with the game Gaijin refuses to acknowledge, low player count vehicles perform better on average and get overtiered, this happened in 2014 and it happened in 2024.
The A-2a Sturmvogel flies the exact same as the A-1a and Jabo, but it sits at a much friendlier BR of 6.7. Two additional potato launchers make no difference. The A-1a/U1 is much heavier than the other A model 262s, and the supposed main selling point of it was shafted yet again when MK103 HVAP saw its pen drop from the upper estimate to the lower estimate.
All 262A models should be 6.7. If we ever see the A-1b (a C-2b without rocket boosters), that could be 6.3 or even 6.0.
The C models are also horrendously overtiered. Better engines do not change that the airframe itself isn’t suited to Sabre-level speeds.
1 Like
Because there were just 4 jets active until VE & V-J day:
- Me 262 & He 162
- Meteor F. 3 and YP-80A
An era ends when the milestone is reached.
From an older thread regarding 262s…:
Summary
1 Like
This summary doesn’t help at all.
to quote from it…“The 262 A-1s was far superior compared with the Meteor F.3 and the YP-80 - as the main decisive factor “critical mach number” was higher - what makes a slower aircraft inferior by default.”
The YP-80/P-80 A-1 isn’t in the game as far as i’m aware, and the stats for the Meteor F.3 are known and place it at 7.3, above the 262 A-1.
The only one that stands out is the C-2b which arguably should be down with the rest of the 262’s at 7.0/7.3
This was mainly a topic regarding “WW 2 era”.
The OP and the debate circles around the correct BR of 262s. So it is technically not correct to call post WW 2 stuff as “WW 2 era”.
So your question / statement:
I don’t see why the 262 is a particularly special case amongst WW2 era jets that would warrant a down tier.
is not considering that the 262 solely flew vs props and outperformed the only 2 existing allied jets.
My “summary” was aimed to display the level of hand-holding gaijin provides to non-262 users as either the BR of the 262s are too high - or Cold War era jets (=>09.1945) are too low; that’s all.
The pure fact that the Meteor F.3 (as actual WW 2 plane with a few V-1 kills) was uptiered to 7.3 just shows two factors:
- British pilots have more experience
- The wt meta favors non-irl combat scenarios
There is no need to turnfight a more nimble but slower plane, but in wt players somehow have other opinions - just ask dedicated A6M players…
Arado was active aswell and the me163 if you want to count rocket planes aswell. The Arado was used as bomber and as reconnaissance aircraft
@Uncle_J_Wick @OIiman
looking at real life stats doesn’t help in deciding the br. There are many factors which are more important in reality which aren’t in warthunder for example range, maintancence (the reason the me262 had the engines under the wings), reliability. Turn rate wasn’t that important especially for early jets without g-suits.
Additionally some stats are buffed in warthunder like the max g-limit for the wings is always higher in wt iirc
Once you get to aim better with the me 262 A-1/U4 it is a monster in GRB and 3 rounds are good enough to get a kill
Same with the Me 163, it’s either 8.0 or 8.7 because it gets different gun, just old vehicles that get neglected as there is no good system to prevent this.
Any vehicle that doesn’t get played a lot should just get a modifier to account for it, or a system that automatically lowers such vehicles in BR over time.
Because the 262 is FAR more outclassed than the rest? I don’t want to downtier the 262 either but decompression needs to happen and gaijin will never do it
2 Likes
Honestly, I have no idea where those and the Ki-200 really belong, due to the weird way that snail opted to implement the Komets.
From my understanding, the engine could not throttle like it does ingame. The A & B models of the engine could either be “on” or “off.” The C model of the engine had a low-power “cruise” engine chamber and a full-power chamber equivalent to the A/B model’s “on” setting.
Perhaps with engines implemented as they actually were, the thing could see its BR drop? Throttle controls would turn the engine either fully on or fully off, with no in between. Going over 100% activates the main chamber as an “afterburner” of sorts.
The “feature” of the plane that always bugged me was how its rudder locks up at the supposedly “insane” speeds it can reach, making it near-impossible to aim the potato launchers on the B-1 and really hard to aim the slightly better guns on the B-0. But then when you have just 2 min fuel left, the mysterious locking up vanishes and it flies like a cracked Spitfire.
1 Like
They don’t turn like a brick at all, they’re similar to the P-80. The issue is not that the 262 is bad at 7.0, it’s that so many other allied aircraft have been compressed down over time. There is no reason for the 84B to be 7.0, the F2H be 7.3, Su-11 7.3, and so on. The A1a is obsoleted by the Jabo which gets an airspawn and carries less fuel on min load. Overall the 262s are quite nice to fly, they’re just competing about highly compressed (mostly)US jets. They can’t go down because they’d be completely untouchable to props, if played right which becomes boring for both parties.
3 Likes
The 163 had a 4 step throttle. None of which really affected fuel consumption. It’s not just on and off.
Without the fuel control it’s useless, a 6 minute tank is basically unplayable, but at 8.7 it’s also unplayable, and a different pair of guns is not worth a 0.7 BR increase at a compressed BR range.
Now that the F86A’s and the MiG-15’s see 7.0BR now, playing early germany has been nothing but pain. I want to add that the Vampire F.B.5 (which is slower than the 262 in my observation) is still at 8.0. A BR in which it’s only pro’s are its dogfighting capabilities and armament.
This whole BR feels like a crapfest. I have been TEAM KILLED by an F86F in my Vampire, because I told them in chat that the F86F/F86A doesn’t deserve to get its BR lowered.
Don’t even have anything to say about the Ho-229. You need to have actual masochistic tendencies to be enjoying that thing.
2 Likes
Which version of the HWK109-509 engine are we talking about here, FYI? IIRC the A/B models of engine were either “open fuel valves” or “closed fuel valves” with no in between, and the C model had two separate sets of plumbing leading to cruise and main combustion chambers.
A 6 min fuel tank would be playable at a vastly lower BR. People would take off, rocket up to high alt, shut off the engine, glide around looking for targets, and reignite to engage before gliding back to base.
As for where to put such a plane, though, I frankly have no idea. People would whine “bias” no matter what is chosen.
With the Komets being what they are currently, I would seriously place them both at 7.3-7.7. Same with the Japanese version that has even less fuel. And I’d un-brick the rudder controllability while I’m at it, because it can’t aim the potato guns at the high speeds it can technically reach due to the instructor constantly trying to auto-level it with the horizon.
1 Like