Given that the Philipines is a close US ally, and primarily operate American weapons anyways, wouldnt be surprised if they went to the US or more practically the nation which designed the vehicles.
I think also the number of fox 3 missiles internally is limited on non block 4 models. Also for nations who only have the B variant its even worse its heavier and no internal gun.
We still don’t have Brimstone, Meteor functionality or SPEAR despite being assured it would be completed by 2025 now it’s extended to 2027-2030.
Lockheed are at it and if Britain has any balls they would haul them over the coals for it.
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The internal gun on the A model isn’t much of an addition. It only holds 180 for a GAU.
TBF if given the choice, I imagine most people are going to run max weapons on all 5th gens anyways, killing the stealth entirely, I’ve seen the J-20 with what looked like 8 externally mounted missiles, I think the F-22 can carry 4 external AMRAAMs, and I’m sure the SU-57 has a few external hardpoints as well, so stealth is likely going to be a small factor anyways in War Thunder.
I do love the F-35 though, far and away my favorite 5th gen, you just can’t beat that multirole charm
Yeah gen 5 era is gonna be very weird not sure how they will balance it when youll have F-22s/j-20s/su-57s running around. F-35a stealth is nice and all but tbh its limited in air to air weapons load so far.
Weapon integration is a joint venture MBDA has to work with lockheed as much as vice-versa for weapons capabilities. Raytheon had to do a lot of work aswell to get their weapons capable with the 35.
Lockheed knew Britain would want to arm the F-35 with Meteor. As would other European partners not having Meteor functionality is a purely financial one. The UK have had to buy Aim120C/D for the F-35 when they have stockpiles of Meteors. As will other F-35 partners Lockheeds reluctance to release source code has lead many partners to become frustrated and why we are seeing GCAP programmes to not have the restrictions imposed by the US.
Limiting payload options via a source code is a con.
Same as they do currently throw them all to the same BR. I mean look at the current 13.7 vehicles, most have between 8-6 Fox 3’s yet 3 have only 4. So why would the snail think any differently here?
You would hope the Gen 4.5 get superior ECM, But seeing what Gaijin have done with top tier tank battles.
likely give Gen 5 the best Radars the best missiles the best ECM and the best of everything and still expect Gen 4.5 to compete. I forsee a miserable experience for anyone not in an F-22 or Su-57
J-20 is great but it’s a bus
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It’s simple, stealth will be a gimmick just like on the F-117 and not be modeled in anyway that matters. Especially since our engagement ranges are so close anyway.
On the opposite end, there’s also ECM to make long range missile shots pointless anyway, thereby making stealth more of a sneaking up on people kind of thing as opposed to a weapon range jousting kind of thing.
You can’t just throw missiles into a weapons bay and then program them to work. The missiles do need to be adjusted to clear the bay before ignition. The AMRAAM had the luxury of the F-22 to get a lot of the issues out of the way for intergration.
I am not aware of the meteor being loaded into an internal bay. Prior 35.
One thing I am looking forward to it the new camos we’re going to see for all the stealth aircraft, every F-35 has the same grey paint job, obviously important for stealth, but in WT that won’t matter, so colourful F-35s will hopefully be commonplace, I know Israel needs a desert tricolour for one, I’d love to see what can be done for the RAF and Royal Navy
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And Britain was a tier 1 partner they were involved from the beginning. The needs of the US superseded all partners which is why they are a bad partner to have. I bet they already have Peregrine trialled for the weapon bays while ignoring the needs of tier 1 partners.
It is only going to worse with the new administration
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I’m not going to get into politics. The UK was the first to receive the 35B.
J-20 should be better than the SU-57 just on account of the missiles, Russia lacks the true long-range missiles that China has, I mean the PL-15 is the reason the US got back into the long-range missile game.
And I know there is the R-37 but that thing is huge, more like the AIM-54 or AIM-174B than the PL-15, Meteor, and AIM-260
After the USMC
PL-15 will be terrifying if modelled correctly. Su-57 is more manoeuvrable the J-20 will struggle to dodge missiles.
R-37M is also being integrated on the Su-57 and R-77M
It was suppose to be intergrated by the end of 2024, but is now by the end of the decade. The US probably could do the integration code in about 10 minutes if they really wanted but are dragging their heels to get Aim-120D sales.
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Hardly, it’s maneuverability is comparable to the J-10, it may not be on the same level as the SU-57 and F-22 in that regard, but it is still plenty to defend itself, and with missiles like those, you’ll likely not get in range enough for it to matter, reaction time is less important at 100km
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