The F4J UK is at 12.0 in air rb, which I suppose it is way higher than where it should be.
12.0 is now a quiet chaos arena where you will meet Flankers, Hornets and Falcons while getting uptiered, and F4J have a extremly bad performance while facing these 13.0 or 12.7 jets. Skyflashes just make a flash and give a critical hit or even a hit that won’t cause a kill, and 60 rounds of countermeasures sometimes can’t even save you from those IR missles that don’t even have IRCCM.
Whats more, lets see whats around F4J UK. We got Mirage 2kc, F16s, F4EJ-Kai and Hornets at 12.3, they should be there since they got decent IR missles and SARH missles. We got F4S, F4J and Mirage F1 at 12.0, the EXACT same br with F4J UK, while American phantoms shoot Sparrow F and have a HMD, while F1s shoot the magic stick that can kill everyone and ignore flares in 2km range, and having tons of countermeasures.
How come they are at the same BR?
I disagree. It’s given me plenty of opportunity to lead my Aim-9s when I otherwise couldn’t have, and helped me gain radar locks much faster than normal. It’s an advantage, and a good one at that.
Issue i have with this statement is that F-4J/S missiles are rear aspect only + relatively low peak G pull.
In any realistical scenario pilot wants to lead them as much as possible, which can be done comfortably even without HMS. Thus HMS is not important to F-4J/S IR missiles gameplay.
there are few fringe use cases where HMS does present an advantage, but these represent only small number of launches any F-4J/S pilot will realistically do.
Not to mention that if pilot absolutely has to use HMS on Phantom to launch an IR that he wouldnt otherwise be able to, hes probably in situation where he shouldnt be while flying Phantom.
At ranges where pilots want to ideally operate F-4J/S, they can achieve the same result with standard ACM mode. Thus the HMS is not important to Sparrow gameplay.
Again i will admit HMS has some case use like picking concrete target from a blob of several planes, but thats more like quality of life upgrade than being a significant combat advantage.
Maybe situation would be different with all-aspect IRs, but as it is currently, i dont find it as decisive as people portray it when trying to justify BRs of any plane when they compare it to F-4J/S.
Let’s see here. We could:
A) move up the aircraft that bully the F-4J(UK) as well as other 12.0s and 11.7s
Or
B) move down the F-4J(UK) and have it bully 10.7-11.3
Wowee I sure wonder which option people are going to be asking for
There is advantage if you can fake ignorance to someone 30 degree away from you and they are flying away. fake your direction. lock them with HMD, and sling the missile.
I would need to see the relative positions in this scenario but rule of thumb, unless the target finds itself in the 90° cone in front of F-4S at the time of the launch, the missile simply will not connect.
Weaker SARH and no Napalm alone should mean it’s 11.7 and whilst the lack of HMS is minor, it’s not nothing either and it certainly shouldn’t be the same BR as the F-4S with agile eagle. Even the FGR2/FG1 hold some advantage in the form of more powerful engines and extra CMs.
It’s hard to justify the F4JUK to be 12.0 when the Mig23MLD outclasses it so completely at 11.7 and is weaker than all other 12.0 Phantoms
Especially baffling is SB where the F4JUK is 12 0 Vs the FGR2 being 11.3
The Aim-9G/H has more than enough pull for me personally, and although it isn’t something like a top of the line missile or an Aim-9L, it’s materiality isn’t all too lacking for me personally. It being rear aspect only is a detriment to the addition of HMS, yes.
However, I’ve found myself in multiple scenarios where having the HMD let me gain, or more specially regain locks on targets preflaring, while also being able to pull enormous amounts of lead for the missile without needing to worry to much about losing lock while leading it. That’s an advantage for me personally, even if it doesn’t happen much, it’s net me quite a few kills over the years.
As for me being in that situation in the first place, I’m a really aggressive F-4S flyer when I do use it. I preemptively slot in behind targets to use that trick, and force an overshoot to get the shot off. I don’t lose too much speed and found it to be quite effective in catching people off guard as they try and fail to take a gun kill, only to be perfectly lined up. (Ignore my player stats on it, I played it a lot back in the day to grind out the tree and wasn’t exactly very good to begin with. I’ve vastly improved since then lol)
For me personally, it’s really important when it comes to gaining a radar lock in a situation like turning into a target and gaining the lock just that much quicker to get the missile warmed up and fired off. It can also be helpful for getting a gun solution in a dogfight. For gaining a lock on a target out of a blob, not too helpful due to the fact the size of the HMD and ACM acquisition is quite large compared to other aircraft, but if you use it right you can indeed gain a lock better than you might have without HMD. To some it may not be a worthy enough reason to justify a higher BR than an identical aircraft without it, but for me personally it changes a lot and allows me to adopt a different, and more aggressive/effective playstyle in the aircraft. Perhaps it’s just me, but I find its addition a really handy tool/feature for the phantoms with it, and I find it to be something I really missed when playing the F-4EJ Kai (not for its IR AAMs, but rather the SARH AAMs).
being able to just pull your nose around a long better and have better rates are just good things to have in general, you dont have to be fighting for your life. It’s also nice for F-4S because it gives it a top FM for a gen3 platform (as in, its one of the best gen3 FM) and it can be competitive if you isolate ppl