Or keep the Iran f14 at the current br and remove the farkour
The 15A stomps on any flanker currently in a guns only dogfight and it’s not even close.
And even with R73s, you can just preflare it.
The only thing the flanker has going against the 15A are the missiles, though both the 9M and 7M are not bad missiles by any means (especially the 9M in sim).
considering also that the 15A has much better avionics.
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When you really think about it, it’s a fun fight. We were doing 2v2 bvr fights. we always ended up making it to the merge Or within 5 miles.
If they were moved down, they wouldn’t wipe the floor with anything. At best, they’d be on par with the F-18. The fact that the R-27ER is slightly faster makes almost no difference in actual gameplay. If that were the case, the MiG-29 and Yak-141 should be—if not dominating—at least feared in the current meta. Yet they’re not, because hitting with an R-27 is much harder than it seems. The only viable MiG-29 is the G variant, and that’s because of the R-73, not the R-27ER.
Second, in NO world can a Fox-3 be compared to a Fox-1. PERIOD. The reason is simple: a plane with Fox-3 can spam and run, while a plane with Fox-1—even with datalink—cannot do the same. A smart person flying a Kfir or F-14 should never die to an Su-27 at range. If that happens, the Fox-3 plane has made a mistake. A Fox-3 allows you to fire and forget, then run back to base. This has only two outcomes:
- The opponent notches or uses MP and avoids the missile, but after wasting so much time trying not to die, they can no longer chase the Fox-3 launcher.
- The opponent dies to the missile.
In both scenarios, the Fox-3 carrier survives and remains the aggressor, while the Fox-1 plane is always on the defensive. The only time this doesn’t work is on very flat maps like Denmark, where MP is super easy—but in that case, the R-27ER is equally useless, for the same exact reason: MP.
So even if you lower the Su-27/33 to 13.0, they’ll still be worse than any Fox-3 slinger.
Also, before the R-27ER was introduced, NATO planes always had the range advantage, and no one was complaining. Missile speed only suddenly became a “problem” when the fastest Fox-1 wasn’t on a U.S. plane.
While better kinematics are obviously a plus, in real gameplay what makes the biggest difference is who sees who first, and positioning. Those two elements matter more than missile speed—especially because while the R-27 is faster, that doesn’t mean the others are slow. They’re just slightly less fast.
Additionally, the Su-27 is a very hard plane to fly compared to the F-16 or F-18, because it bleeds energy much faster and struggles to recover it. Using it to its full potential requires a good amount of skill. To me, it feels very similar to delta-wing aircraft in the way it handles in War Thunder. In the hands of the average player, the F-18 will still win the engagement, because most players rate fight—and the F-18 is the better rate fighter.
Another point: because the F-18 with datalink is a premium, we see a lot of them. War Thunder has always seen a massive spam of premium vehicles, especially at high tiers, because it’s much easier to buy one than to grind the entire tech tree from scratch.
Also, the U.S. team usually has a significant advantage in player count, so any Su-27/33 is likely to face 2 to 4 enemies for every member of the red team. Even if the Su-27 were the best fighter ever—which it clearly isn’t—this discrepancy would only make the match more balanced. If. And again, it’s absolutely not the case.
It reached mach 4.12 while sparrow reached mach 2.95. At no point the ER was slower than the sparrow. It was at mach 2.71 on impact, while the sparrow was at mach 2.62.
R-27ER is the only reason these jets are playable. It carries them hard.
It can if the fox 1 has sufficient kinematic advantage. The ER can reach the target first with a margin big enough, that the carrier aircraft has time to notch the incoming fox 3, especially if it’s already cranking and especially if you launch first.
It usually forces both planes to notch or forces the opponent to go cold, because of how hard it is to notch fox 1s with DL + IOG, while you can just notch and gain the initiative.
You can also theoretically launch late on purpose (if you’re against aim120s for example), notch the incoming missile and relock the enemy, but it’s hard to execute and a trick, rather than a tactic.
All of this doesn’t work at close range though, because of how small the margin get, but at what range the fox 1 becomes ineffective depends on how big the difference in kinematics is.
Multipathing isn’t meta anymore, notching and maintaining altitude advantage is better. If you launch from a steep enough angle you can bypass multipathing. Denmark is the only map where multipathing is somewhat relevant, but not foolproof either.
F-18 isn’t a better rate fighter, it’s better in 1 circle and stall fights, pulls more aoa.
Also consider that R-73 is a very powerful missile for dogfights. Slave it, launch it at 500m and the enemy is gone.
Plane popularity is not a balancing factor.
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Why are you taking it personally?
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Phantoms are bricks, while F-14 lacks a Russian counterpart, so it can only ever be op or very mid.
MiG-29s and Su-27s were not supposed to be bricks with godlike missiles.
I didn’t say Su-27 is the best plane ever. I said it would be dominant in BVR, even with inferior avionics, due to 6 insane fox 1s.
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Wasnt this exactly what the R-27E series was designed to do IRL? As a short term bodge counter to the AMRAAM whilst the R-77 was developed?
Make a missile with enough speed to basically force the target onto the defensive before the AMRAAM could go active
Eh… If we were talking about a 13.7 AMRAAM slinger, maybe. But something like the Sea Harrier FA2 or Viggen DI? Sure, you may be forced onto the defensive, but the moment you’ve defeated all the incoming missiels you can turn back and go get a free kill. Not exactly like a FA2 that was running 4x AMRAAM is going to do much against an Su-27 in WVR combat.
With the exception of the ICE, which the SU-27 will rarely if ever face. None of the Fox-3 slingers are actually very good and are all carried by the fact they have Fox-3s. They all have weaknesses and defecits that can be easily exploited. The main thing you will be fighting is F-18s, F-15s and Gripen As. I dabble at that BR a bit, and I never see many fox-3 slingers. Even myself, I cant be bothered to play the FA2 because you are so outclassed at the moment (its also a buggy mess)
If the Su-27 moves down, then you might as well move all 13.3s down, so that is aircraft like the Tornado F3 Late and Mig-29SMT as well, because there isnt much point leaving them be.
No? Its not just range and speed that R-27ER beat the Aim-7M and Skyflash SuperTEMP on. It also had IOG and DL. Those were and are 2 insanely powerful assets. Just look at the F-18s. Those with Aim-7M at 12.3 those with Aim-7P are 12.7. Same missile, just one as IOG the other doesnt. IOG and DL used right was and is an insane combo that cant be dismissed. The only thing that kept R-27ER in check for that entire year, was that the Mig-29 was limited to only 2 and had a poor radar.
That year sucked for me, trying to fight Mig-29s in the F3 as it was impossible for me to either BVR against them and obviously couldnt dogfight against them. Didnt get much better with the Gripen C.
So no… R-27ER wasnt hated because it wasnt on an american aircraft. It was hated because it was and still is the best SARH in game and by no small margin. There is still a place for them at 14.0 if used right
Prior to this ,you had the Mig-23MLD with R-24Rs that did and still do clown on basically anything they can find at 11.3 or 11.7. Only the FGR2 can even come close to fighting the Mig-23MLD and its not easy. R-24R will win below 8km and Skyflash DF isnt great past about 10km unless up high, so thats a tiny window of advantage for the FGR2. Its not until the 12.0 stuff like the F3 and F-4S that the Mig-23MLD can actually be countered. R-24R is definetly the best SARH below 12.0
As previously stated though, just moving 13.3s down to 13.0 just makes 13.0 even more unplayable than it already is for many aircraft. Instead. Add a 12.3 to 13.3 bracket and move several up to 13.3. Like the F4F ICE and maybe the F-15A, Gripen A and F-18C Earlys?
Also add a 11.3 to 12.3 bracket and then move a few 12.3s up to 12.7 or maybe even 13.0. and that entire BR range just becomes so much more playable. Because moving all 13.3s to 13.0 is just not an answer, jsut like how moving all 12.3s to 12.0 wouldnt be an answer either.
MiG-29SMT at 13.0? Absolutely not. Buff its flight model, give it upgraded engines and move it to 13.7, where it belongs.
Tornado on the other hand is like a gen 3.5. It should stay at 13.3 as a missile bus with a good radar, just with 13.3 and 13.7 brackets. 13.3 should be here, while 13.7 bracket we won’t get until we see 14.3s.
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Yeah, probably the better option. Either that or just add a 13.3 bracket and leave it alone for now.
But if you move the Su-27 down, you might as well move everything at 13.3 down and then 13.0 just becomes a 13.3 bracket.
Yes, I also aknoledge that it’s faster, but I also said that awareness and position are more important than how quick your missile is.
You don’t have anything else to fire, and it doesn’t “carry” them—those planes are still bad. I’d say it’s their only chance to compete. The only good MiG-29 is the G variant, and that’s because of the R-73. I’ve used it quite a lot recently, and the vast majority of kills come at close range with the R-73. Long-range kills with the R-27 are incredibly rare, also because you forget that red planes have terrible RWRs. That means you often don’t even know who’s locking you or what’s coming your way, so you can’t tell whether the incoming missile is a Fox-1 or a Fox-3.
This is not what happens usually—you go into the notch, lose lock, waste the missile. Try it. Even with DL, it’s very likely that by the time you notch, your opponent has already moved somewhere else, and unless you reacquire them immediately, the missile is still wasted.
Also, what did I say earlier a Fox-3 launcher should do? Lock, launch, flee. A Fox-3 user who fires and then keeps flying straight is making a mistake. And the premise of this encounter is already super specific: you’d need to be cranking, you’d need to know that the person looking at you has Fox-3 (which you don’t), and your opponent would have to go straight the entire time. Not realistic.
You’re missing the point. A Fox-3 plane can fly at almost Mach 2, launch at that speed, then go cold and rearm—leaving the missiles to do all the work. And the Fox-1 plane can’t do anything about this tactic. Nothing. Either it dies because it fails to notch properly, or it survives, but at that point the Fox-3 plane is already too far away to retaliate.
That means it’s only a matter of time before the Fox-1 plane makes a mistake and dies, while the Fox-3 plane can keep repeating this tactic with complete impunity. I do this with the Italian Harrier (which isn’t even supersonic) and the Chinese J-8, and I very rarely die—unless I get ambushed by someone using terrain smartly, or unless I’m dumb enough to go into a dogfight. In the first case, the enemy deserved the kill. In the second, I deserved the loss.
Let me go on a little rant here: more than taking it personally, I’m just frustrated that Gaijin keeps making it easier for the team that brings more players and more money. Some of their choices are deliberately unbalanced and ruin the game—and those choices always go against the red team.
People complain that it’s hard to find a match, but it’s only going to get worse if the red team doesn’t get something competitive. No one wants to join a match where you’re doomed to lose every time. For example, I don’t even play top tier 12.7 anymore. It’s not worth it—it’s unbalanced and feels almost disrespectful.
Red team only has the MiG-29, and somehow that plane is supposed to fight the F-18 with datalink, F-18 without datalink, F-14 with Fox-3, and the F-16. Of course nobody wants to join that lobby just to become target practice.
And the reverse is true too. Many times I want to play an American plane, but I simply can’t because no lobbies are available. Earlier I mentioned the Harrier and F-16—now I only play the Italian variants, because it’s the only way to actually find lobbies, since they can appear on either team.
Speaking of the F-16, that’s another plane being ruined by BR compression. It’s higher in BR than the F-14 and F-18, despite those being way more competitive. It’s at the same BR as planes like the Kfir and Viggen, and that just makes zero sense.
Let me break down what the gameplay loop looks like for me:
Want to play War Thunder
Check available lobbies
Only red team lobbies are available, on decent maps (I don’t play 12.7+ on Tunisia, for example)
Forced to play red team → lose every single match
Sometimes I wish I could play the F-14. Sometimes I wish I could play the Su-27. Sometimes I wish I could play the F-16 ADF at the correct BR. But unfortunately, none of that is possible right now.
Just to give you some context: currently my MiG-29 at 12.7 has a 21% win rate, and my MiG-29G has 0% in 8 games. I don’t know how much worse it needs to get before Gaijin finally decides to address the imbalance. If one team is consistently getting slaughtered, then clearly there’s a balance issue.
It wouldn’t matter, because at that BR there are already Fox-3s. That statement would only be true if it were moved to an environment where only Fox-1s were present.
I would do the opposite. I’d still make a 13.3 bracket, but instead of moving the Su-27 down I would move every fox3 plane up, maybe saved the F14A (USA). After all Kfir and Viggen are on the same level of a Mig29 SMT, so there is really no reason for them to have a different br, for example.
Brother, the gap between aim7m and r27er is a s big as the gap between aim7e and aim7m. theyre not eveb slightly comparable
this is the best idea, su27 is too strong for 13.0 but 13.3 would just best fox 3 hell, so just put every fox 3 carrier at 13.7 in sim.
and ideally make a 14.3/7 bracket.
aint ever happening cause gaijin dont care but its a good idea
You said that its speed barely makes a difference, which is simply false. It makes a huge difference.
This is what I just said.
Reading comprehension?
You kill your target first and then notch the fox 3, provided he doesn’t go cold. If he does go cold, you just notch, stay on the offensive and gain airspace. If he tries to notch, there’s a high chance he will fail due to DL + IOG.
Super specific? You should always crank when guiding a missile. It’s absolute basics of BVR.
It’s a low risk, low reward strategy. I don’t see what’s wrong with that. It’s not low risk, high reward or even low risk, medium reward.
Medium range fox 3 carriers should be at 13.3 (everything except AIM-54s).
You argued that fox 1 can’t ever be compared to a fox 3 and that F-14A and B should be 13.3 as well. This is simply false and R-27ER is a much better missile than AIM-54. It’s also much better than AIM-7F/M.
Su-27 would be dominant in BVR against F-16 ADF, F-15A and F-14B. I still think Su-27 deserves to be 13.0 (not Su-33), but let’s not pretend it wouldn’t tip the scale in the other direction at least slightly.
Then those fox 3 planes would be DOA most of them are weaker than most fox 1 planes. Unless you really think a FA2 or viggen di can dogfight an su27
Eveyone keeps saying this, Su27 is too strong statement. Most of you dont put any of this stuff into practice anyway. I have ran 2v2 F15A vs Su27.
I notice that the Su27 radar can be notched like any other rader. I noticed that the Et is easy to evade but very fast. I learned that there times when you truly have to turn cold and use your wingman. I noticed that the r27 er can be evaded just as you would a sparrow. I noticed that when my wing man and I both shot at one su27 that they had a hard time deciphering who shot due to the rwr. I learned very quickly to collapse turn space at the merge to prevent r73 shots. I learned to preflare alot. Its a fun fight I recommend everyone try it. It will overall make you a better pilot and will help you prepare evading things like the Mica.
It would be a plane that would force blue side to I don’t know… actually get good.
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I have played MiG-29 in a 12.7 bracket and it’s very easy to pick up kills with ERs. The problem is that you only have 2 ERs. You also don’t have enough fuel to fly high and give them good launch parameters. Once you run out of ERs your flight model is bad and R-60Ms aren’t exactly competitive at 12.7.
Su-27 fixes those issues, it has 3 times as many ERs, much better fuel economy, a good flight model and 4 R-73s on top of 6 ERs. The only weaknesses it has are avionics and worse, but still good flight model. However, it has HMD, which coupled with R-73 offsets the flight model being worse.
I have Su-27SM and still use ERs at 14.0. I never even think about using AIM-7Ms at 14.0.
I never said that Su-27’s radar can’t be notched. R-27 is hard to notch because it’s a fox 1 and because it has DL + IOG.
You can’t outpull an ER, just as you can’t outpull an AIM-120, R-77 or a MICA. You can bleed them of speed, but you can’t outpull them at close range like you can a sparrow. Sparrow pulls only 25 Gs.
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More important than awareness and positioning? There are definitely cases where missile speed makes a difference, sure—but knowing exactly where your opponent is, and where you are, is far more important than how fast your missile travels.
Take Spain, for example: on that map, most long-range missiles get wasted due to terrain interference. So yes, if both players are going hot and shooting at each other, missile speed becomes a factor. But in most real scenarios, it’s not the deciding one.
I’ve had a lot of success with Matra missiles, for example, even though they’re generally slower than others.
Oops—I misinterpreted what you said earlier. Let me respond properly this time.
If you try that tactic, you’ll usually end up dead. The reason is simple: it’s very hard to judge exactly how much time your missile needs to hit the target versus how long the enemy’s Fox-3 needs to reach you.
First of all, you don’t even know if you’ve been fired on with a Fox-3. Second, you don’t know which Fox-3 it is—Phoenix, Fakour, Derby, AIM-120—they all behave differently. So how can you judge if your missile will get there first and if you’ll still have time to notch? Most of the time, you can’t—and that’ll cost you your life.
You might manage a trade if you’re lucky though. I’ve traded several times with F-14s because they often fly straight even after launching a Fox-3.
The reward isn’t actually that low—quite the opposite! It’s a very low-effort tactic, but generally it pays off extremely well. That’s exactly why I dislike Fox-3s so much when they’re introduced into what was previously a Fox-1 environment. Once Fox-3s are in play, the entire meta shifts.
I agree with your first point.
I don’t agree with your second, though. You can still employ the shoot-and-run tactic with basically any Fox-3, and do it with little to no risk. But—even taking that into account—if the proposed changes went through, I’d still take them. They would move everything else up except for the first two F-14s, which would be a very positive change in my view.
I also agree that the Su-27/33 would dominate in BVR against the planes you mentioned. But BVR is just one part of the game, as long as we’re not talking about Fox-3s.
In a dogfight, the F-16 would still come out on top, and so would planes like the Gripen, the F-18 (still competitve at range as well if it has DL), and the Mirage. The Su-27/33 would have the advantage at range, but a disadvantage up close. That sounds pretty balanced to me.
Again, I really believe you’re overestimating how useful or effective the R-27s actually are. In real gameplay, there isn’t much difference between firing those or a Sparrow. What really matters—in order—are:
Awareness
Positioning
Number of missiles you have
Missile speed (last)
I’d encourage you to think about the Gripen in particular: despite having no BVR capability, it’s still one of the strongest planes at 13.0. As long as you don’t have to deal with Fox-3s, BVR isn’t even a required part of combat.
R-27ER being that strong outweighs the Su-27’s bad avionics. Su-27’s aren’t bad enough for the missile to be this good. It would need to have MiG-23ML’s avionics with SPO-10 or something.
No matter who you are shooting at, you crank and maneuver just as hard every time and notch only if the enemy goes cold.
The only platform that carries AIM-120s which Su-27 can meet are Harriers, which are subsonic bricks, and Tornado F3 Late, which you meet like never and it’s also a brick. Derbys on Kfir C10 are already much worse than the ER, so you don’t have to worry.
Shows how bad an average player is, if he can’t deal with a single missile coming towards him without any additional pressure (the enemy literally flees). They probably try to multipath when the missile is coming top down and are greatly surprised that multipathing doesn’t work against this particular missile…
It would have a significant advantage at range and a moderate disadvantage up close.
Su-27 also simply has a lot of missiles, a lot of combat endurance.
The first 2 are largely dependent on player skill, while the last 2 are almost purely determined by the plane.
Rafale is the best plane in the game, yet Su-30SM is a better plane for air superiority.
Su-27 would be great in BVR, have a lot of combat endurance, while still being competitive in dogfights, just like Su-30SM. These are the features that make a plane which can dominate the lobby, while theoretically not being the best plane. It’s a great all rounder, with being more specialized in BVR, which is the majority of your fights.
That’s why before 14.0s were added, the meta plane was F-15C and not F-16C. F-16C was better in dogfights, but F-15C wasn’t a brick either and it had more missiles.
Again, I still think Su-27 deserves to be 13.0, but let’s not downplay how good it would be just because redfor suffers or something.
I was talking about awareness and positioning in general—not just in relation to avionics. What I meant is that if you’re aware of your enemy and position yourself correctly, missile speed becomes secondary.
About the graph you posted below—it still doesn’t answer what I said. You have no information about how close the missile is, or what kind of missile it is. So if you try to fight back and it turns out the missile was already too close, you’re going to eat it long before your R-27 gets to target.
Whenever your RWR beeps, the only truly safe move is to notch and forget about any previously launched Fox-1—unless you were aware of the enemy beforehand and know for a fact that your missile will get there first.
The graph you posted might apply if you’re 100% sure you’re going head-on with an American F-14, but most of the time, you simply don’t know. Look at the same graph with a Fakour, and you’ll see that the time you’d have to kill the F-14 first shortens a lot. And again—you have no way of knowing which F-14 you’re facing.
Not knowing what plane is in front of you, or what kind of missile was launched, means you cannot reliably calculate how much time you have to fight back. In your example, maybe the high-flying plane coming toward you wasn’t an F-14—it was actually a Viggen with AMRAAMs. You go head-on thinking you’ll get him first and have time to notch—boom, you die to the AMRAAM.
So we come full circle to the original point: awareness and positioning are more important than missile speed, which only becomes relevant if you have perfect information about where your opponent is and what weapon he’s using. And in most cases, you don’t—so the only consistent choice is to notch or hide.
Also, I think you’re underestimating how hard it is to notch a Fox-3. Maybe you’re really good at it—but as I showed you, most players aren’t. I’d include myself in that group too.
And if you choose to play the “fire R-27 back” game, that means you’ll need to notch the Fox-3 with much less time than if you had notched immediately. That makes the timing harder and the risk much higher.
To summarize: you can fire an R-27 back, but doing so requires information you probably don’t have, and a very high level of confidence and skill in notching incoming Fox-3s with very little margin for error.
Notching is hard, and you don’t get any immediate feedback that confirms whether you succeeded or not. Your RWR will keep beeping even if the missile has already been defeated. But you can’t be sure, so you’re forced to stay in the notch just in case.
Most players still struggle with notching (including me—I’ll admit it!), and that’s a big part of why Fox-3s are so effective.
I honestly think it would be on par with the premium F-18 and F-15. Those two planes, while different, are equally strong opponents in my opinion.
It would be amazing at 13.0—just like the F-18 is. I don’t think it would be stronger than that, and in a fight between it and the F-18, I believe the only real deciding factor would be player skill.
Keep in mind: the F-18 still carries six Fox-1s, and realistically, you’re never going to use that many before you end up in a merge during a 1v1, and that’s why I would also lower the Su-33. Carrying more missiles helps combat endurance, but you will never need more than 4 in a 1v1.