It’s not really inferior up close… R-77s and R-73s still kick ass.
Sukhoi Su-27/30/33/35/37 Flanker series & Su-34 Fullback - History, Design, Performance & Dissection
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It’s still chaffing up against problems with the plane. The flanker really doesn’t want to get into a dogfight against anybody. Being able to do a HMD assisted HOBs shot at a wonky angle, that perhaps requires throwing all of your energy away with something as desperate as a cobra just to get that angle, is the one thing keeping it from just automatically losing in a knife fight. Try to use R-77’s at pitbull range and you run into the awkward problem of having half the ACM range of your opponents if you try to lock via HMD ACM. Using BVR targeting to acquire that pitbull lock fights you because you by far have the slowest scanning radar. If you want to be more creative then you can try locking with IRST and transferring the lock to your radar. But that’s more button presses. It doesn’t always work. It also just doesn’t work if it’s raining, or it’s foggy, or there are clouds.
Like I said. You can fight. But it’s uphill. In the snow. Both ways.
Yep. It’s definitely not on the level of an AMRAAM platform but IMO its the best of the worst, meaning the best non AMRAAM platform.
It’s missile set can somewhat make up for its shortcomings like, I use the R-27ER for BVR to get a kill or potentially force the enemy defensive. I usually launch these 60km+ to make sure I have enough distance to guide the ER all the way and still have time to defend against AMRAAMs.
The R-27ET is also a great missile, though I mainly use it against unaware targets, especially ones at high altitude side/rear aspect (as far as 29km cold!).
Close range/dogfighting it does well despite having the flight model of an oversized Phantom because of the R-73 and R-77, its rare but dogfights do happen and I’ve won a few of them with the R-73/R-77.
It’s always an uphill battle but I guess that’s what makes it attracting to play to me.
You did it because you wanted to, doesn’t make it the right move. He could have just killed you and moved on with his day but he messed up… badly. You’re not going to be able to back your point here.
I don’t think that is the issue at all, I think that the aircraft does well because it isn’t really bad. It just isn’t top of the pack like the Gripen.
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I mean fair point, but that will be the literal definition of a sitting duck, right? :D
if all that the enemy has is AIM-120 it might actually work, but yes
aaaand the IRST is now only scanning in a fixed zone. I guess this is another temporary fix for the new bug that caused it to look directly up/down.
Yes, its the best among TORNADO F3 and F-4F LKSW. They are all in the garbage tier, SU-27 is just the best of this tier
The Su-27SM is better than the M2K, R-Darter Gripen, Tornado, F-4F ICE, Baz, J-11A, and Derby slingers. IMO at least.
Its not Garbage tier. If all the good airframe AMRAAM slingers like the F-15C, F-16C, and Gripen are at S tier, the Su-27SM would be A tier. Its not as bad as you all make it seem to be like “garbage tier”, it has a lot of options and that’s what makes the Su-27SM a good aircraft.
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It’s a lot worse in SB than it is in RB because the radar is the primary method for finding targets and maintaining situational awareness and engaging with missiles.
Planes like the Mirage 2000 and Bripen perform better than the Su-27 because their radars will acquire and populate targets faster and more reliably. They are also visually smaller and have more countermeasures. Even the Israeli planes with Derbys still have good radar sets which makes a huge difference in target acquisition time.
If there was a tier list for general gameplay, the F-15C and F-15J are S-tier for most players because you can simply fly high and sling AMRAAMs with a predictable outcome. F-16C and Swipen also found out S tier because they have better missiles, radar, and flight performance than basically anything they can face.
A-tier would basically be all of the NATO planes that don’t have AMRAAM. So basically Bripen, Mirage 2000, and Derby F-16s and probably in that order. They still have some combination of flight performance, radar, and countermeasures.
B-Tier is basically everything else that still has an RWR and acceptable flight performance or some kind of gimmick. So basically MiG-29SMT and Su-27.
C-Tier is going to be planes like the J-11A, F4F ICE, and Tornado F.3. The J-11A is just a straight worse Su-27SM because of the RWR. The Tornado F.3 and F4F ICE are planes that are carried by the fact they have AMRAAM and good radars.
Now if you pay attention to national presets in sim…pretty much the bulk of a red side team will be made up of planes that are below average and they are mostly fighting at a huge numerical disadvantage as well.
I have my own sim community and I know a lot of players who’s were basically brand new to top tier and were able to post positive kill to death ratios in planes like the F-15C or F-16C almost immediately. I have played a lot of USA and RUS planes myself and the difference in difficulty in how hard you have to play in one vs the other is a night and day difference.
USA only players completely lack this perspective which is a huge issue when it comes to discussing it. For instance there is another thread where a USA player was complaining about the MiG-29 being in the same BR as the F-16A because it has the R-27ER…and the R-27ER is OP and the MiG-29 does everything better than planes like the F-14A/B…including dogfighting. I challenged him to a duel and I won 3-0 in F-14A against MiG-29…he didn’t even want to go to the BVR portion at that point.
And I’ve played the F-16A recently in order to spade it. I don’t even have the full load of Aim-9L unlocked and I’m sitting at 60-6 KD…with only 3 of those deaths in the new bracket…and 1 of those was friendly fire. And I also have a 100 percent win rate in it. It really is the biggest possible hand holding experience imaginable.
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Yeah I can’t really form an opinion for SB since I don’t play sim but for RB my stance remains unchanged.
Maybe that’s true in simulation, but in realistic mode, anything that isn’t an F-15 or F-16C is mid-tier
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Lol no. Gripen has endless countermeasures with better radar and busted FM.
Mirage has MAWS with a good flight model that’s better than SU-27 FM and a better radar as well.
If you seriously think that SU-27 is better than Gripen C or Mirage 2000F I seriously don’t know what to tell you.
When everyone complains about Su-27, this includes J-11A. They are both flankers Sharing same garbage radar and flight model and the same missiles. Talking about it as if it’s a different aircraft is wrong. If Su-27 gets radar/FM changes, J-11A will too. J-11A just has old RWR, and radar with a little less range but has MAWS. The radars are exactly the same except range.
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What really separates the Flanker from the others is its missile set. It’s versatile, it can do BVR and it can do close range missile jousts. It also has the ET which are amazing.
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Useless dead meta. This isn’t 1300s England. Missiles jousts don’t matter.
And you are wrong, it can’t do close range “missile jousts”. The FM doesn’t allow the use of the capabilities of R-73 in 9/10 cases.
And it isn’t “versatile” any more than other top tier planes.
You want versatile? Get Mirage 2000F. TVC FOX3 along with magic 2s, better radar, better FM, MAWS.
F-16C is more versatile than the SU-27 will ever be.
It can dogfight great. 2nd best rater in the game.
1 circle? ✅
2 circle? ✅
Better radar? ✅
Better FM? ✅
Better Fox-3? ✅
“But Su-27 has R-73 amazing Dogfight missiles!!”
Bruh
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Missile jousts as in, close range Fox 3 exchanges. They happen every match as the game naturally progresses closer and closer.
Versatile as in, it can BVR with the ER, it can flank with the ET, it can chase long range targets with the ET, it can dogfight with the R-73, and the R-77 isn’t a terrible missile. All of which I’ve done.
Also when I say the Su-27 can dogfight, I don’t mean that its the greatest at it as you make it seem. Obviously the Gripen and F-16 are leagues above it but it can compete with the others with the R-73.
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The ancient radar doesn’t allow good enough usage of R-77.
Horrible TWS, horrible chaff/notch resistance, absolutely garbage scan rate that’s worse than planes at 10.0 (Vautour 2N has better scan rate at 8.3)
The FM doesn’t allow using the capabilities of R-73 9/10 times.
The speed retention (or the lack of it I should say) doesn’t allow FOX-3 exchanges with a competent opponent. Because after notching a few times, you’ll fall out of the sky.
Look, I wanna love it and play it instead of complaining here, but it is utterly horrible.
And the planes we both agree it’s better when compared, are 13.3 (F-4F and Tornado 3) , think about that for a moment.
Hell, in a strictly BVR scenario, I think the F-4F is better if it is given enough time to accelerate and climb with it’s better radar and Aim-120
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Obviously, the Gripen and F-16 and F-15C and Mirage 2000
Fixed it for you
Are we playing the same aircraft? The radar is bad but its not that bad. The TWS works fine, I regularly use it and I can acquire targets easily. Its notch/chaff resistance is also fine I haven’t had much problems with it. They will always notch the missile first before the radar. Its like you only use TWS HDN. And yeah the scan rate is pretty bad but its not game ending.
But it does, the FM is shit but the Flanker has enough pull to get launch an R-73 offbore. You won’t be winning 100% of the dogfights you enter but at least you’ll have a chance.
How are you falling out of the sky after a few notches? Do you enter a missile joust with 700kmh of speed? The energy retention is bad but its not bad enough where you’re falling out of the sky after a few notches. As long as you maintain 1000kmh the Flanker doesn’t lose enough speed to be “falling out of the sky”.
“IF” given time.
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How do you play the Su-27SM anyway. What do you do in an RB match?