Try doing that in a subsonic attacker that encounters a faster plane. There are many attackers that only have missile armament when stock, so they’re clearly intended to be playing as fighters, but don’t have the tools for proper identification of targets.
There are also many planes with similar shapes. Being forced to be overly cautious over ID concerns has gotten me killed before. “Is that straight wing attacker flying nearby who isn’t answering calls an enemy or… Never mind, I got AIM-9Ld in the face”.
And let’s not forget the copy-paste issue. You have to get extremely close to an enemy to see its camo pattern and roundels. Makes identification tricky when you have the same plane on four or five tech trees and there’s no consistency in which team they play.
A-10 an Su-25? They excel in their BR ranged because of how identifiable planes are from that era, because of how vastly different the designs are.
Yes, there are 5 million F-5’s, and a decent amount of F-4’s, but they should almost always be on teams opposite of each other aside from a few ‘Chinese’ planes.
I play Sim several battles every day, making 2-3 TKS every day, randomly, of course. However, every TK is my fault because I sent the missile. Of course, RWR/radar errors happen, but I still consider every TK to be my fault. It usually results from a lack of situational awareness at the time. Accept it or don’t play Sim.
Mk. 1 eyes never failed me, so I don’t know about all that — coming from someone who plays a lot of late transsonics/early supersonics.
Plus, you can always check the leaderboard to see what planes are on your team. See an F-5, but don’t have one on your team? Congrats, it’s an enemy.
99% of the time you can use deductive reasoning or logic to figure out whether it’s an enemy even if you can’t make out the silhouette. Chase base bombers. Go to caps. Check killfeed to see who’s attacking AI. All these tools are readily available, you just have to use them.
That is a very important method to help knowing what one can expect on what side. Careful though as one best does this often, as the composition of the teams and the aircraft they fly can change, and change quickly…
Also very important and useful, especially together with having a look at the kill list: One can easily estimate how active enemy and friendly A/A players are, and thanks to the kill feed we know what they fly, and from knowing position of friendlies through frequent “Follow me”, guesstimate where those dangerous players are when they kill a blue.
I love pulling out my F-4E the jap one, and flying with a flock of USA F-4s, I throw some decals on and stay just far enough so they can see what I am / decals and they never shoot me down, because they think I’m one of them
TKing is your fault 9 times out of 10. It’s only not your fault if they either fly into your weapons (guns, missiles) after they’ve already been fires (and there’s an argument to be had whether or not that was a safe/smart launch in the first place) or if a weapon decides to home in on a target you didn’t have locked, again as long as it’s not user error. Your original TKs could have been avoided entirely with just a touch more awareness.
I hate to say it but that’s a very closed minded stance.
What if you fire an R-60M? Notorious for going after the first flare / other heat signature. Nobody on your team is in sight, you fire at an unaware enemy, then right as the missile is about to touch, a BLAZING hot harrier or something similar comes up into the flight path out of no where, suddenly you get a tk, how is that your fault? It’s not.
That situation occurs often (not by me) but I see it aplenty in sim, then there’s the situation where you fire a radar aam at a plane, and at the last moment your friendly flys into the flight path and the radar missile, before you can react changes target, another tk.
Guns? Gun kills sure, I can agree for the most part that, that is on the plane user.
But at the core there is always situations in which the offending (team killer) is not at fault.
But then there is situations where they are entirely at fault.
TKing someone no matter how accidental, will always be YOUR fault in Air battles, like everyone else has said, you have IFF, quick chat markers, even the chat itself. You’re responsible for every missile you fire and every shell you fire out of your cannon.
Read what I said, not to mention Rules of Engagement are a thing, if you don’t know someone is an enemy for sure and they’re not engaging you, don’t shoot at them?