All planes have certain areas where their performance can be considered better than another aircraft type. For example the F-18 (IRL at least) enjoys a huge advantage over the F-16 in any close in low speed fight. The F-18 has superior handling and a design optimizing high AOA control capabilities.
The F-16 does not and is hard limited to 25 degrees AOA.
Yet in game planes like the Rafale - F-16 - EFT - Gripen can all pull well in excess of 30-40 degrees AOA and utilize “pointing” tactics that are completely fictional.
This changes the BFM arenas significantly meaning some aircraft have no areas of advantage over these types that they would enjoy IRL.
War Thunder has never been a realistic game in any way, shape or form other than looks and detailed damage models.
Everything from humans, to loadouts and mechanics is a mix between what it can do irl and what is good for the purposes of gameplay.
Same applies to the manouverability of planes. Gaijin doesn’t base it off what a trained human could realistically do or physically take before turning into mush but rather what the airframe itself could in theory handle.
We used to have G limited F16s and people didn’t like it very much, especially nowadays with high G ARH missiles which are mostly fired well within their NEZ.
It would make planes like the flankers even more OP than they already are… though stuff like the fa18 might actually become usable.
I would like it but only if it actually applies to all planes. Not a selective few planes (like how only the f-16 had a soft g limiter in arb until like mid 2023 while the mig-29 didn’t).
Either all planes should have the limitations or all shouldn’t. It shouldn’t be gaijin pick and choose.
Flankers on paper are better than natos older 4th gen’s. That’s just the reality of it. However they overperform in controllability at very low speed and high AOA in the non thrust vector flankers you maintain full control at like 100 knots 45 degrees AOA.
While I don’t see the point in placing FCS-imposed G limits when we’ve been so long without them, i would like to see the removal of the button, as i feel the addition of the maneuver mode has utterly killed casual dogfighting.
Not only has it smidged the lines between fun matchups, allowing some planes to utterly dominate with nigh infinite nose-pointing ability if the opponent lacks the button, or a good one (F-16 being the main case study) and also allowing eurocanards and flankers to win essentially with RNG of who can do the most outlandish spin and land a lucky hit against an opponent trying to keep their positioning & energy state.
At least sim toggling required some understanding of how to use, the button doesn’t and removes a large chunk of the skill ceiling that was present in 1v1s up until summer 2025
They tried the whole realistic G limiter thing but to be fair it was only on 1 jet so it made its matchups pretty bad. maybe they could try again and apply it to every jet but i doubt that would be received all that well by the community. another issue could be that pilots in warthunder mite be a little too strong in terms of the forces they can take and pull on the regular
Yes coupled with the over simplification of flight models where stalling isn’t a thing and neither is accelerated high Mach stalls.
Things like the F-18 could experience wing drop and uncommanded roll when pulling too much AOA at high Mach numbers. Meaning you have to fly the jet correctly.
In game any of the new flight model jets can pull as much AOA as they want at any speed and have no such stall.
Flankers are basically baby planes now, kind of like grippy on release (though still not as bad, and rafale and eurofighter are definitely still better). It’s probably around 3rd best dogfighter in the game while having a massive payload which imo makes it quite OP
Why was rafale and EFT made, NATO and more directly Europe realized that the USSR had caught up to and in some categories marginally surpassed even the American jets. So they needed to answer that issue with a jet that beat the flanker. (I don’t see a Tornado F.3 doing diddly squat against the SU-27 lmao)
Eurofighter typhoon and Rafale are products of the same requirement however evolved differently due to the needs of their respective nations. Their ability to outmatch the Flanker however still remains.
it’s kind of hilarious how well Gaijin implemented helicopter mechanics into the game. From vortex ring to retreating blade stall. I’d say its better than MSFS.
What makes me laugh is how much more “Realistic” older jets feel IE the Hawker hunter when you pull past critical AOA you get a nice snappy wing stall.
