Strike Tornados buff

Machinery of War Discussion Aircraft
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it’s completely IMPOSSIBLE to notch missiles in Tornado at close range, the fuselage is very bad for turning and the engines consume too much fuel to use afterburner for too long in a match (i need to carry almost 75% fuel to use full afterburner and reach 1 single base).

Tornado IDS should go 11.0 or even 10.7 since it doesn’t have guided ordnance (like Su-17s, Su-25s, F-111s… cmon dude, even A-7D has guided weapons at 10.3), bad FM (almost impossible to use in dogfights).
or at least get better stats for its battlerating 11.3

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All Tornados are overtiered for no good reason, having AIM-9L doesn’t really justify its battle rating at all. 11.7 uptiers are brutal in the Tornado IDS, PD radars and IRCCM missiles vs a slow, unmanurable brick. It needs to go down to 11.0 or 10.7. The J-7D with PL-7 is just a monster and criminally low BR for what it can do.

Or it can stay at 11.7 with AIM-9M or L/I, it’s truly BS.

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This is rather extreme hyperbole. Yes, its not the strongest dogfighter and yes the FM is underperforming quite a bit. But Impossible? No, its fine, you have enough chaff to hide a battleship and very good RWR that gives you plenty of warning. Just dont get into a situation where you need to be notching pointblank R-27ERs and you’ll be fine.

They dont, in fact, iirc, they are actually one of the few aircraft in game that probably actually have accurate fuel consumption levels, many other aircraft are probably a little too low.

But ive not had any issue in the Tornado GR4 at 12.3 as a result of required fuel loads the only time ive struggled was when I ran max bomb load for some testing I did, but when you run enough bombs for just a single base, it handles just fine.

Personally, im wanting them to add the 495 Gal Hindenburg ferry tanks, those would be a lot of fun to have and be very very useful in ASB. But in ARB? Never really had much of any issue with 50 ish minutes of fuel for a full sortie including some A2A after a base kill. Just know when to sit on AB and when to throttle down into dry thrust.

No.

First off, what does guided ordanance have to do with anything? The only thing I ever run on the GR4 at the moment is 5x Mk13 unguided bombs. I dont see the point with Brimstones, PGMs, PW4s, etc etc because they arent worth it. As for the WTD61, IDS and MFG (ignoring the AS-34s for now) , they dont have guided weapons because they can be 10.0 in GRB which im personally quite jealous about, I rather want a Tornado GR1 (early) for Britain, that sounds like it would be a lot of fun.

But… as for the rest:

ASSTA1, GR1 and IDS(1995) should be at 11.3

GR1 needs Mk103 engines

IDS SLE and GR4 could potentially do with being 12.0

But otherwise I think they are fine. Maybe 11.0, but that might be pushing it.

What is needed instead in addition to some decent decompression:

  • Continued development of the FM
  • Combat thrust (could be overtuned slightly to bring their max speed up to IRL levels)
  • CBUs (BL755 could act as a Napalm equivalent and speciality weapons like MW-1 and JP233 would be a lot of fun)
  • ARMs (More for GRB than ARB/ASB but would still be a very interesting gameplay element to have)
  • Continued radar development (we are finally getting the SEA mode for all of them, but there is additional modes of operation the radar is missing)
  • ECM (Sky Shadow would be a decent buff for the Tonkas)
  • Heat Signature overhauls / Aim-9L buffs
  • (GR4 specific: BOL overhauls, Proper Brimstones, Aim-9M buffs)

Imo, at the moment, the Tonkas biggest problem isnt necessarily direct performance, but rather the gameplay is a bit… reptitive and stale, some new weapons and equipment would make the aircraft more fun and inturn make it feel a lot better. Id rather see that than a BR drop and continue to drop unguided bombs onto the same bases over and over again

Though, with that being said, the biggest problem right now is ARB. Pick a ground attacker any ground attacker and the gameplay is lackluster, they do okay… but rarely they do well. ASB though? Very good, very effective ground attack aircraft can hold their own even in pretty major uptiers. So fixing ARB would go a very very long way to fixing the Tornado IDSs and many other aircraft

P.S Dont dogfight in a Tornado unless you know what you are doing.

2 Likes
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Yeah i only dogfight when i have no more options or there’s an ally nearby.

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I used to do it in sim, but at a certain point the FM has been changed I guess and now it’s impossible to dogfight anything, once your speed drops you lose control and plane becomes unflyable lol.

Totally agree with the rest of your reply

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Except u want me to use Tornado IDS WTD61 as a fighters with 2 “OP” IR missiles, i want to say that i already tried it and it was horrible.
Tornados were made to bomb bases, if u’re saying that it has good flight performance without bomb, them how tf am i going to play it like a bomber if it was made to be a bomber?

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It got somewaht fixed with the introduction of leading edge wing slats summer last year. We lost a chunk of STR but gained a load of ITR (if I have that the right way round). You can now actually deploy combat flaps

The issue is that they didnt completely fix the FM, they got so far and then called it a day, the result is that its underperforming in STR, ITR and top speed and they wont be trying to fix it anymore

https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/G0hNRVTt9FPG
https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/9OpdpbD16gvm

Tornado F3 but would translate reasonably well over to the IDS

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Please state anywhere where I said you have to dogfight in the WTD61?

I actually explicitly said not to do that.

Loadout recommendation for the WTD61:

  • 6x Mk83s on the belly
  • 2x Aim-9Ls
  • 2x BOZ

Run around 85% fuel. You should get to a base reasonably well, stick low and fast, flank slightly,

Alternatively, running combat tanks and proportionately less internal fuel can work also work. Does come at the cost of the extra drag and a little extra weight, but in an emergency, you can instantly ditch a large amount of weight, and whilst the Tornado is bus like at max weight, its actually half decent at lower fuel levels

Also:

I did also cover this too. ARB sucks for them all, not just the IDS. If you really want half decent gameplay, play Air Sim, otherwise you’ll have to accept that ARB is designed to be bad for any and all ground attack aircraft.

1 Like
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Meeeh, some attackers can be actually better than fighters depending BR. Things like the AJ37 with 4xAIM-9Ls at 11.0 + good FM makes it even better than some fighters.
But whatever i just suck in SB and i don’t wanna touch it again, i still remember when i teamkilled 2 of my teammates by mistake while flying the Su-27 and got killed by a F/A-18C Late in my Su-7B while tryinf to find a single base to bomb xd

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With the cost of having no CMs or Guns if im not mistaken. (if you run 4x Aim-9Ls)

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Oh i see. That’s a shame. I have small model of IDS 1995 at home in desert camo. Always loved the Tornado.
Spaded the italian IDS in sim playing hide and seek with Floggers lol

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haha nice. Im picking my way down the Italian tree as having either A) 11.3 Tornado IDS with Mk103s or B) 11.7 Tornado IDS with Mk103s and Boz-ECs looks like quite good fun. Definetly both in better overall state than the GR1 at the moment.

and Yeah, SB is usually where i’d play them

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U have no guns if u use 4 missiles, CM are already integranted in the plane.

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My bad on that, thoguht you needed to run a BOZ pod for CMs on the AJS37.

But still. There is further limitations to it, especially if you want to run any ground attack weapons.

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Yeah but whatever the AJ37 is just too good for 11.0, it has great FM, engine, OP 30mm that aren’t sooo hard to aim and 2 RB 74s in case u need it.

I just need some planes more to reach rank 6 with that amazing J29F with afterburner and AIM-9Bs at 9.0 if i’m right.

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Tbh I don’t know, I just flew the first IDS, never touched the other ones, but I saw they have guided weapons and I don’t know how to use those in sim yet

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Its fairly easy, the Tornado has quite a decent HUD for it, just operate a lot like you would with dropping bombs with CCRP

1 Like
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If you don’t like the Tornado IDS at 11.3, get ready for surprise.

Anyway, I really think the 11.3 Tornado is actually pretty decent.

Take the countermeasure pods, the 9Ls, and the fuel tanks. Under the fueselage use 5 bombs, it will still kill a base and you’ll be a little lighter.

For fuel I actually run 65% and just manage my fuel well, you don’t have to go full afterburner the whole time and shouldn’t do that.

Strategy:

  1. Fly up to around 3000m meter to get a situation of the battlefield, if you don’t get any locks and feel comfortable you can climb. If not, go low towards a base. Either way you have 1200 chaff so literally spam the countermeasure button as much as possible

  2. After bombing turn around and head towards general direction of your airfield. If you still have your 9Ls try and surprise kill someone unsuspecting.

  3. You should at this point be at like 30% fuel, and you can dogfight semi well with flaps so if you want you can try and intercept something like a MiG-21

  4. Return to base and repeat

2 Likes
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Well, the Tornados never managed to achieve their proper top speed ingame, ever. The Bundeswehr states that it’ll do Mach 1.3 asl, Ian Black (former RAF Fast Jet pilot) has said that he’d done in excess of 850kts asl in it, (though he is much more conservative in his Haynes Book, giving a speed of Mach 1.2 for all makes down low) and Bernd and Frank Vetter also say the same thing in their book on the Tonka.

I never quite understood how Gaijin has managed to screw up the one thing the Tornado is really well known for

20

Those speeds were likely achieved using the Combat thrust setting which currently is only modeled on the Mig-21BIS.

So:

Would be quite a notable buff for the Tonka, though would likely be a similar buff to a lot of other aircraft too. I dont see them being selective with the buff, though maybe they should.