What sucks about sparrows are that once you lose radar lock, which can be done very easily, the sparrow is dead in the air. Mig-29 and su30 at similar br get missiles with datalink so they can just relock the target.
I feel like a lot more jets could get 7P which would be super nice.
I agree, I’m not sure why Aim-7M is still at 12.7-13.0 br. People were complaining about F15J/A got moved down to 12.7 without realizing how unreliable the radar+aim-7M is. Meanwhile Su30 at 13.0 gets 8 Datalink missiles. At a br where you face “sparrow” DL and fox3, being stuck with a 7M limits you extremely. I’m going to try the german Mig29 at 12.7. Guarantee I will be able to get more kills in that than the F15J.
My experience with the Sparrows has been very aircraft dependent. I usually do good with the 7Fs on the F-14A and F-4S. 7Ms have been decent on things like the F-15A and the F-14B. Worst has been 7Ps on the F-18s for me.
Its mainly about the airframe and the 9Ms
This is just an issue of decompression. F-15A should have not gone down but rather other vehicles should have gone up+increased max br.
True, but how does one explain why the F15JM gets the 7M and not the 7P?
Opposite for me
It doesn’t. I’m just pointing out why moving the F-15A/J down is bad and overall decompression is the better option. It should get 7Ps regardless if it is 12.7 or 13.0 however.
I was talking about the 13.7 jet. 7m at 13.7 is joke. This goes for alot of jets when grinding stock.
Yep 100% agree.
The best theory I’ve heard is that they will lock onto a target, separate from what your radar is actually locked on to, if that separate target has a higher closing speed.
Ideally, unless you’re flying high, you should save your sparrows for rear locks as I find most of the time the sparrow can hit from the rear or force the enemy to turn and lose speed. If you don’t treat sparrows as AMRAAMs you can do fine. Just means you have to fight more in close range so make sure your airframe can handle it.
not compatible, tough luck!
US Navy missile, not airforce + isnt there an issue of the F-15A radar not being datalink capable?
Weird, because id say IOG+DL fixes most of the 7M guidance issues.
Yeah i have much better luck with all the Russian fox 1’s in game than any sparrow variant. I feel like the higher up in BR you go, the worse the sparrows feel. once your above a BR of 12, they are so unreliable and frustrating to use even on jets like the F-18A and F-15A
It would be nice to see the F-14B get access to the 7Ps- that may make it a much more 13.0 worthy aircraft. It would certainly be nice at least.
Sparrows (f and m) are great for what they are against average player in ARB, sure they are worse than r27er but still great around 12.0 - 12.3, i have not played f15a ever since it came at 12.7 so i wont comment on that.
Their stats are fine, but in practice they are completely unreliable. Even in a near perfect launch scenario they will sometimes just fail to track

Gaijin every time I fire a sparrow
for real haha
Those missles lacks in acceleration, rest are okish. I had +30km range kills with the 7P