The Premium F-18’s need to be upgraded. They are carrying AIM-9L’s, AIM-7P’s, and do not have HMD. They are placed at 12.7 an facing Fox 3’s, IRCCM, and HMD. Gaijin has released several premium vehicles carrying at least IRCCM missiles, Fox 3’s, or HMD if not all of the above ( I am looking at you Su-30MK2)
This is a plane that was designed to carry AIM 9M’s, AIM-120A’s, and have HMD support. The plane is the slowest plane of the 12.7 BR bracket. Giving it access to at least part of it’s proper armament will balance the plane out providing a form of solace for the players who currently own and increase the sales of the premium F-18’s across all nations.
An alternate move would be to leave it’s armament the same and lower it to 12.3 alongside the tech tree F-18A’s. Premium vehicles are known for being unique and having something different than the tech tree variants which would allow the reduction in BR if improvements are not going to be made.
As a community, I am confident the upgrades would be preferred since that would be more accurate to what the F-18C’s were designed for including the F-18C Early variants which also happen to premium F-18’s.
the CF188 we have in game is a mid 1990s version, from before the AMRAAM upgrade and well before a HMD addition. The american and swiss ones will be in a similar boat
The F-18C early’s are the best 12.7 planes, and they probably should be 13.0 with Aim-9Ms. 12.3 for them is ludicrous when compared to any 12.0 or 12.3 plane.
The C models were designed for these upgrades especially the late which is what the Swiss is. I forgot the CF-188A existed which is an F-18A so it should not benefit from the upgrades.
It definitely would not be 14.0 with all of that. It would be 13.3 alongside the Su-30MK2 they just released which has IRCCM, Fox 3, and HMD. Apply all of that to the the F-18C’s and that would put it there.
you would then lose parity across premiums. Gaijin likes nations to have as similar of premiums as possible, so the F/A-18Cs are set up more like A models before AMRAAM.
Good example is the AV8B NA and harrrier T10 being near identical (idealistically they should get almost identical loadouts) or all the 10.7 premium MBTs.
the 12.7 hornets (especially the swiss one as it has the best engines) are too good to be 12.7, i strongly thing they should move to 13.0 and get aim 9M.
if they were to get aim 120 they would all get thrown to 14.0 which would ruin them
The new Su-30s are 13.7 planes, and the F/A-18C Late has all of those features at 14.0. The Early would be at minimum 13.7 assuming it gets 6 Aim-120s.
I agree.
It would be 13.0 with them, alongside the F-15A, F-2A, and other SARH carriers.
Even giving it just the AIM-9M’s would drastically improve the plane. It is constantly facing IRCCM and Fox 3’s at 13.3. We have the JA37DI with both at 13.0, Su-30MK2 at 13.3 with all 3, Mirage F1C at 12.0 with Magic 2’s, MiG-21 Bison at 12.7 with R73’s and R27R1’s.
Giving the F-18C’s AIM-9M’s will definitely not break the plane or game in any manner
I know that, and they should be 13.7. It’s just that the F-18s will be better planes assuming their loadout is identical to the 14.0 ones with 10 Aim-120s.
With AIM-120A’s they would be placed alongside the Su-30 premium at 13.3. A lot of the community has asked for the F-18C’s to at least have AIM-9M’s since that is their historically accurate IR missile that they carried.
I realized that comment sounded rude as all get out. Apologies on that. It would carry 6 Fox 3’s maximum with 2 IR missiles. Same loadout as the current model. It would just be given the option to carry the AIM-120A