At its current battle rating its completely struggles at everything comparative to every other strike fighter at its BR range.
At Bombing: For bombing bases your only option is taking 2 incendiary bombs which slows you down to the speed of a A-10. Taking 4 is pointless since the bases will be gone before you get there, entire team will be dead and or someone will intercept you beforehand… Along with the bombs having a terrible drop range and speed. Normal bombs wont be enough to destroy a base.
At Defending: Slow, no rwr, mediocre maneuverability and only 60 countermeasures which isnt bad but compared to the a-10 or su-25 its only 1/8th and 1/4th the amount . Essentially the same issues as the a-10 however the a-10 has a better one circle. Both can make targets overshoot you and get guns on for a second. But people can simply fly away.
At Attacking: Its only positive is the 2-4 aim-9P-4 which act as aim-9L missiles. However almost everyone has flares and with your speed and turn rate you will never get behind them. The main gun isnt too bad but it doesnt have enough ammo to stay relevant all game. No smart munitions too.
At the very least this plane should be bumped down to 10.3. It shares the same issues as the a-10 but can carry 2 extra missiles to become a capable threat. A more offensive strike jet against air targets but less offensive against ground targets and less defenses. At 10.0 I feel like the missiles become more of a problem for 9.0 targets but okay against 11.0 threats.
Slow sure, at 10.7 being subsonic kinda sucks. 60 Countermeasures is more than enough if you know what you are doing. Comparing countermeasure count to the A-10 and Su-25 isn’t the brightest of ideas as you can actually maneuver and have speed to some degree. A-10 has better 1 circle due to the fact its going at prop speeds. However, just go into vertical spiral, flare its AIM-9Ls and you will be set (Or just run circles around the thing and beam it) The TH has the BK27 if I recall correctly, which doesn’t do the most damage, but has very good ballistics so repeated hits isn’t that difficult. Smart munitions isn’t required, its 10.7 brother.
This is what is glaringly annoying to me about your post. All aspect missiles at 10.3 is exclusive to A-10 and Su-25 platforms which aren’t nearly as capable of a fighter. If you want to see an actually overtiered strike aircraft, I suggest you look at the Jaguar GR.1A. 9.3s against AIM-9P-4s is a massive issue and you wanting it moved down is adding to the problem of undodgeable all aspect missiles fighting flareless planes.
The only problem that makes the Alpha Jet TH such high battle rating you just noted as its positive point (Aim-9P-4). It’s the kind of overpowered plane for its own good. Since in War Thunder we don’t have proper tasks for slow attackers like the Alpha Jet TH at the same time to play together with super sonic machines like a F-4 Phantom, you’ll have to cope with it.
I may be talking nonsense, but, using an example, Yak-130 is a super well equipped and modern strike aircraft introduced in the late 2000s, in War Thunder this plane will suffer from a high battle rating due to its own weapons like R-73E and so on late models like the Yak-130M with capabilities to carry radar missiles.
In my opinion your best bet is using this on simulator battles that you’ll at least have some room to play this airplane and not getting instantly kicked in the butt.
the issue is thats its pretty much a su25 with better manuverability and 4 missiles instead of 2. Whilst they are worse then the Aim9L, they have the same seaker and are decently flare resistant rear aspect.
Your flight performance is immaculate for 10.7 in a 1 v 1 dogfight on equal (or even slightly disadvantaged) energy levels because you capitalise on that 8.7 area of low speed manuverablity AND countermesures, something a mig15 or sabre couldn’t do. This makes it VERY interesting to play as it CLAPS everything silly enough to dogfight, especially the 11.0/3/7 fighters (MiG23 im looking at you).
The lack of RWR leaves something to be desired and ofc you rely alot on the team to leave you to the 1 v 1s. Check my stats, its fine at 10.7.
Vertical and flares , can rate you with speed… Only MiG 23M/MF need management with flares. F-5E will just destroy you…
M4 …everyone who know he knows.
11,3 …J-7E !!
Even if you look at the same BR or lower … Everyone with flares can manage against it.
Also , the lack of RWR in 11,7 guarantees you an R24R in the face… They see you from distance, Sahara -Hensonn starts to play on its own in the house , pushes the button, smile because it’s the smart thing to do , see the cash popping to your screen.
Well, all fun and games, but we need decompression… That you may win against an asshat that would horizontal turnfight a Zero in a BF 109 tell nothing about the planes capabilities. Dogfight doesn’t mean horizontal turnfight…
Don’t think moving it down would be a good option, it has 4 all aspect missiles and would wipe those subsonics’ shit out. A further br decompression would be a better solution.
Imo, it is at a horrible place in air RB.
You can never catch any other planes and everybody got flares, so your 2 or 4 good missles mean nothing, cause the enemy simply turn away from you and flies by.
And maneuverability ? It rolls nicely, that’s about it, you loose a hilarious amount of speed in turns and if you go vertical then good night.
Probably didn’t help it any, i got 1,0 BR up-tiered 6 times in a row being stock either.
The alpha jet will easily clown on F-5Es in dogfights for example, but about everything can just decide to ditch the dogfight and you won’t catch anything except a-10s.
It’s not a bad 10.7 though, but its not noob friendly, and the lack of RWR is a BIG downside in any uptier
No alpha jet belongs at the BR it should be. The Alpha Jet A and similar ones should be 8.3 at best, and the thai version with aim9l’s should be 10.0. They have the worst gun for jets one can find, which also happens to never line up with the crosshair, paired with a flight model that is not that different fron the A4E in roll and turn rates other than occasionally pulling 15g’s in a split milisecond.
HighRiskNoReward Aug 20, '25
The alpha jet will easily clown on F-5Es in dogfights for example, but about everything can just decide to ditch the dogfight and you won’t catch anything except a-10s.
It’s not a bad 10.7 though, but its not noob friendly, and the lack of RWR is a BIG downside in any uptier
Anything can clown the f-5s if one is smart enough. I one circled f-5e’s at slow speed in empty wing f-4e and won, i’ve outrated them in mig21smt, and energy trapped them on su25.
Experiment with vertical convergence. I leave mine at 400m for just about everything.
The FM is A LOT better than the A4E, very good sustained turn rates. It’s the best 10.7 dogfighter, but it’s still a slow jet and even su-25 can run from you in a shallow climb
That’s more a case of if the F-5E pilot is dumb enough. Any of those jets are easy win for the F-5E in a dogfight. Maybe you were fighting someone who decided to bring a full tank or just did dumb manouvers
Experiment with vertical convergence. I leave mine at 400m for just about everything.
Thanks for the tip, already have the convergence to 500m, does it solve the 10 rounds for a hit issue?
The FM is A LOT better than the A4E, very good sustained turn rates. It’s the best 10.7 dogfighter, but it’s still a slow jet and even su-25 can run from you in a shallow climb
I don’t think the alpha jet can sustain a turn, it has a serious AOA limitation that doesn’t let it rate enough.
I’ll still give the edge to the MiG19 as best dogfighter, as MiG19 enters rank 7 realm in terms of dogfight performance.
Alpha Jet and LiM5P are very opposite aircraft and as such none of them are air RB compliant. If anything the Alpha Jet at least can reverse people which is much more meta compliant than being unable to shake off an il28 off your tail because you are only good at rate fighting at 800 IAS.
That’s more a case of if the F-5E pilot is dumb enough. Any of those jets are easy win for the F-5E in a dogfight. Maybe you were fighting someone who decided to bring a full tank or just did dumb manouvers
Not really, the f-5e’s were carrying the match and had to face me in a 1v1, if I force it slow i will win. I dodge and avoid following their energy traps, even if that takes me 5 minutes. They will have to eventually play my game, cause the su25 will always have better control auth than an f-5 below mach.
We already have a bunch of alpha jets at lower tiers without missiles.
If you get a hit for every 10 rounds you fire it isn’t bad at all, 1 or 2 hits will often kill an enemy. That is actually a very good hit rate so conrats on your amazing aim.
I don’t think you understand turn rate, but at 10.7, the alpha jet TH is the jet with the higher sustained turn rate.
The MiG19 can for sure beat it on energy, but not on a turn fight. Also its easy to abuse its slow roll rate. Also, we are talking about a 9.3 jet vs a 10.7
You can’t shake off an il28 with a LiM5P? That is actually very impressive, in a negative way.
Nope, there is no way the su-25 can force a slow fight against an F-5E, or even an F-5A. The su-25 will just get BnZ’d to death. The F-5 can always dictate the fight, and since its controllability at speed is amazing, and the Su-25 being a slow jet, it will be very hard to dodge the guns in each pass. You just fought dumb and impatient players.