Adding to what I said the other day I also think they could get away with giving it base AIM-7E, PAVE SPIKE and early PAVEWAY and leave it at 10.3 or bump it to 10.7 if need be.
Regardless, the F-4C can’t go down in BR and if they aren’t going to give it CMs for the sake of Balance even if it is ahistorical I think the best solution is to again just rename it to the F-4D give it better armaments and CMs move it up in BR and call it a day.
Nah, if it gets AIM-7E (even the first variant of it) its going to be 10.7 100%
PAVE SPIKE and Paveways haven’t even made their way to the F-4E (or any kind of laser-guided munitions) which would also force it up for ground RB.
I’d rather see it be a proper early Phantom with AIM-4 falcons (All fitted variants), early sidewinders, and AIM-7D.
(All of which the F-4D fit IRL iirc including CMs)
AIM-4s would be a good idea. At least they can be a BVR fighter then
Not really, since F-4’s only ever equipt the AIM-4D which is an IR variant and subsequently has questionable All-Aspect capabilities. Even the AIM-7C, let alone the -7D / -7E should be superior to the AIM-4F /-4G anyway which would only be carried by the F-106, and subsequently sit at a slightly lower BR.
oh. It aleast it would get a somewhat all aspect IR missile
As per PDF page #5 of the AIM-4D’s SMC it should have All-Aspect capability, about 5~10kft [1.5~3km] in a head on against a subsonic target and 15kft[4.5km] abeam (side on), and 23kft[7km] in a Rear Aspect shot at 30,00ft.
Since the AIM-4A’s SMC (Also on PDF page #5) under similar conditions has a cuttoff at 80 degrees.
They should be far better than the equivalent contemporary Sidewinder (AIm-9B/ -9E /-9J), though so it should be an upgrade as long as Gaijin can make the missile guidance actually work.
Then it should be a good missile for 10.0
My vote would be to simply rename the F-4C to F-4D, give it countermeasures and move it to 10.3 BR. Voila.
The battlerating maybe isn’t the best, but as of right now, none are. We need decompression aswell, of course.
why cant we have both? They can folder them together
Thing is this whole situation is kinda fubar tbh, like… It needs CMs, but it can’t stay at 10.0 if it gets them and if it moves up in BR it’s going to need better armaments.
So honestly I am all for just ripping off the band aid and just redesignating into an F-4D, giving it it countermeasures, AIM-9J, ect, and just move it up.
It will still fight largely the same common foes it always has but at least it will be better equipped for them.
I don’t think it will be that bad off there. It won’t be meta sure, but nobody should be expecting it to. It will just be decent but actually worth grinding for and using and not just an annoyance that people skip over.
Bottom line is that if it were to ever get countermeasures it probably isn’t going to be staying at 10.0, it sure as hell isn’t (and shouldn’t) go down in BR either and in its current state it’s just a bad experience.
I just don’t believe it’s possible to balance a 10.0 aircraft without countermeasures, and still have it be somewhat fun to play.
I’m talking about this one F-4F Early (Germany) - War Thunder Wiki
Not talking about this one F-4F (Germany) - War Thunder Wiki
Basically she is the same as the F-4c
Weak or worse
Cons:
AFAIK, all production AIM-4s contact fused, rather than proxy fused. This made them very poorly suited for shooting down maneuvering fighters, and led to their rather anemic kills score of 5 total during the Vietnam war. I can’t imagine they’d perform much better in War Thunder, considering how they treat missile guidance.
The only two AIM-4 derivatives I know of to get proxy fusing was the experimental XAIM-4H, which never reached protoyping AFAIK, and the Japanese AAM-2, which similarly never reached deployment.
There was a lot more going on, to prepare to launch a Falcon from an F-4 (the only aircraft that carried them to launch one during the war; F-106’s were deployed, but were only ever shot down by MiGs) in comparison to a Sidewinder, it also had very limited limited supply of coolant and so as a result many were not fired, or otherwise not from an optimal position / properly prepared as practically all of the automation that is present on the USAF interceptors was removed due to size and weight constraints, also the radar being pulse only and lacking an IRST definitely caused issues.
Additionally the Falcon was only used by a small fraction of total F-4s and a small contingent of F-106s in the skies, in comparison to the number of airframes that were equipt with Sidewinders and for a comparatively short period and as such their performance aren’t really a good yardstick to use for their true potential.
But yeah, just like the StarStreak it will heavily depend on how well the seeker is implemented(though at least it has a respectable warhead so should almost certainly kill should it hit), but it is very much better than a Contemporary USAF Sidewinder (AIM-9B / -9E), especially at higher altitudes and in All-Aspect scenarios, where early / USAF Sidewinders are lacking.
I think this is the telling part of it. Gaijin explicitly avoided adding it to the game, despite the fact that it was historically fielded by several different nations in game. The only reason I can think of as to why was because they didn’t think they could make a contact fuze missile work in the current gamestate. Considering the number of times I’ve watched Starstreak projectiles merrily phase through their intended target, I have to assume the AIM-4 would be in a similar boat.
If nothing else, it would be drastically easier to dodge. The margin of error on the seeker is much much lower than that of a proxy missile, which just has to get somewhat near the target. So it should be much eaiser to avoid it by maneuvers.
The only US aircraft that are in game that could carry the AIM-4 is the ?F-4E? (it probably isn’t chronologically accurate to a DMAS equipt airframe ). the F-101, F-102 and F-106 were mention alongside the F-105 in a dev Q&A back in 2021, the supersonic update that introduced the F-4C was released in September 2019, the F-100; December 2018. so they should still be somewhere on the cards.
and unlike the F-89 & F-101B, the F-102 and F-106 have access to the AIM-26B which has a proximity fuse (and a conventional warhead) so even without the Falcon, wouldn’t be completely unarmed(and even then have access to a rocket tray and M61, AIM-97 & AGM-76 respectively), also we don’t know what documentation they have on the Falcon so who knows if their projections would have been accurate.
Depending on the scenario it can almost pull as hard as the AIM-9L(26~28G), and at worst is about 15G peak (still twice that of the AIM-9B & -9E), considering that it was designed for higher altitudes, maneuvering isn’t going to save an aircraft, even a fighter unless its on the deck, also at any given distance the Falcon will be faster than a Sidewinder and so have more energy for a given intercept, on top of a better seeker and more general access to a SARH variant so it can be used to avoid a merge.
It’s also worth remembering that gaijin doesn’t model historical reliability issues of weapons and vehicles and treats everything as if it functions perfectly in a vacuum. Plus alot of missiles direct impact their targets in game, morso than irl so with that considered and what you said Falcons (and other early AAMs for that matter) are perfectly viable for the game.
And frankly gaijin has really skipped a lot of vehicles from the 50s-60s that deserve a place imo. Particularly interceptors
Century Series my beloved
You forget the Saab produced Swedish version that was used on both the later Drakens (None of which we have in game) and the Viggens. They also used the AIM-26 as the Rb 27 on their later Drakens, as AFAIK the Finnish XSs also had these supplied.