I disagree. Personally, it’s a change I’ve been waiting for for a long time, it sucks to play that thing against Fox3s. However, I think the fact they’re putting it down while keeping it’s 9Ms is stupid. All the 80s era (12.0-12.7) US fighters should have 9L/7M loadouts IMO. Both to line up with IRL and game balance.
F-15A is probably one of the worst victims of BR compression… I would be OK leaving it at 13.0 if there was a BR lock, (if you recall the one between 9.7/10.0 that was around in 2020, something like that between 13.0/13.3).
Ideally they’d raise the ceiling a bit, have the Fox3 aircraft start at 14.0, with a maximum BR of 15.7 or 16.0 (with what we have right now), along with a BR lock between 13.7/14.0. SARH from a gameplay perspective in my opinion has no business mixing with ARH, the capability disparity is just so great. Only exception being the Phoenix, because it’s a pretty crude ARH. The only SARH that is even worth using against ARH stuff is the R-27ER, and side point,
this quote is just wrong. R-27ER/ET is still viable to use even at TOP TIER.
So, once Fox1 and Fox3 are seperate, the arrangement of the new 13.0-13.7 (all the early 4th gens) should look something like this.
F-15A - 13.7, with AIM9L and AIM-7M, operates best at range with sparrows
Su-27 - 13.7 with R-73 and R-27R/T (NOT ER, ER will still find use as a long range missile on Su-27SM at 14.3), has trouble at range, but dominates WVR with the R-73. As it likely would have in a real cold war gone hot scenario. Give the Su-33 the same treatment.
M4K - 13.7 with Magic 2 and S530D
F-14B - 13.7? With 54C, 7P, and 9L, I struggle a bit where to put the F-14B, and my thinking is split roughly two ways. 1. The AIM-54C could be given a much better seeker head (on par with the 120A), and the aircraft could be put at 14.0 with the 9M as well. 2. The other school of thought says 13.7 in its current state, with the .3 difference over the F-14A coming down to the extra engine power/BOL pods it has. I lean more to the side of 14.0 with the previously mentioned changes.
F/A-18A/C Early - 13.3 with 9L and 7P, the A IMO needs to go up, it’s dominant at 12.3 with a full SARH loadout on a good, albeit slow, platform. Give the A the 7P to settle it nicely into 12.7.
MiG-29A (all nations) - 13.3 with R-73 and R-27R, essentially an Su-27 Lite, smaller missile count but still has SARH and dominant dogfight missiles
M2K CS5 - 13.3 with Magic 2 and S530D, essentially an M4K lite, good dogfighter, good missiles both SARH and IR, much like the MiG-29, but the SARH missiles are slightly better and the IRs are slightly worse.
F-16A OCU - 13.3 with 9L or Magic 2, the Magic 2s are such a good missile, it warrants the F16A OCU to be higher than the other F16As, also take away the 9M.
F-14A - 13.3 with 9L, 7M, and 54A, I think it’s clear Gaijin has no intention of adding an F-14A “Late”, so the F-14A early should just be called the F-14A, and Gaijin should give it the 80s treatment with the 9L and 7M.
F-16A - 13.0 with 9L, only having AIM-9Ls to work with warrants the lowest BR out of all, even though it’s a good dogfighter it just does not have the ability to reach out beyond about 2 miles, which is a pretty big disadvantage when everyone else does.
Place your aircraft of choice wherever you think it should be based on these rankings. Details of BRs are up for debate but this is the rough power gradient I think should exist at the top of the Fox-1 BRs.
