The F-15’s Current Performance in War Thunder Feels Incorrect and Unfair

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wait a minute…THIS MEANS BMPT MAINS THAT DIE ON IT HAVE A RUSSIAN SKILL ISSUE, CUZ BMPT IS SUPERIOR TO ANYTHING IN THE BATTLEFIELD!

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If it can be 12.7, it should lose its 9Ms. If it remains with its 9Ms, the Mirage 4K should be 12.7. If those are 12.7, the F-4EJ Kai should be 12.0. This then leads to the F-4S being 11.7, the F-4E being 11.0, and every 11.0 BR plane and lower needing to go down as well in order to keep some balance.

THIS IS RECOMPRESSION AND YOU ARE DEFENDING IT. Please I just want decompression without being insulted because I think a 4th gen with IRCCM missiles and not abysmal SARHs is OP at 12.7.

Agreed, and I find it ridiculous how people are more willing to ask for a plane they play to move down, rather than actual decompression.

Also agreed, because you’re entire kill potential being reliant on 2 not 100% reliable missiles and a mediocre radar is just a terrible experience.

Yes the radar is subpar, but it doesn’t need to be the best 12.7. It’s bad for the game to ask for recompression like this, and it’s bad for future balance because players will use these warped BRs to justify more OP planes.

If you are struggling at 12.7 you are an abysmal player, genuinely.

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I could really agree with this three, it’s not a huge domino effect drama.

Three planes are able to get interesting spots, I always complain on the F-15A getting battered and often uptiered related to its capabilities, but a meta Mirage 4000 is something that has basically never existed.

I would like to see it at least for one or two updates, ngl.

Problem is, Gaijin has already not offered decompression to prove the decompression gang right neither on the January BR changes or this update, which throws concerns to be realistically read and applied up to may-june.

And you can do so if your arguments make reasonable sense;

Saying the F-15A is OP without even trying its radar or how it lands on an actual realistic game leaves a lot to be desired for someone so advocate for balance.

No one is debating about this point in particular, btw.

If you want actual balance it should, because there should be no objectively better vehicles at the same BR (within reason).

The Su-30SM2 is vastly better than the Rafale at long, medium and —under specific— at short distances, they both are at 14.7.

Logic says there should, reality is—and how Gaijin has been throwing stuff to the wall and hoping they stick—, it happens otherwise quite conclusively.

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Which is a massive shame and it makes the game objectively less enjoyable.

It’s less about the radar, and more about the fact that 9Ms are still great missiles, especially at 12.7, and it also has decent flight performance as well. For the record, I also think (and always have thought) that the F-16s of the same BR should be 13.0.

They are equivalent planes and both should be 15.0/15.3. And no, it is not better at close ranges, and it depends on how you define medium.

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I can’t argue with that, but I won’t ignore that Gaijin has given up on GAF either on screwing multiple nations again and again in the name of balance, only to compress with premium slops such as the C early hornets, the premium JA37 and the Su-30s as the latest examples. Tech tree vehicles shouldn’t be paying the price of compression, premium vehicles should as they’re already a progression bypass.

Above 3km and below 9km you can certainly call it medium ranges for ARH purposes, of course. A range where MICAs are complicated to notch, yes, but the iron dome meta can still work and deny/supress most of slings by loadout amount.

Rafales get a solid chance below 6km and with an Su-30 already on the defensive. Above that, it’s certainly a coin toss depending on each pilots’ skill, but the Su-30 holds the strategic advantage by sheer missile count.

The problem with this argument is that the current meta barely allows you to use those missiles effectively. To be effective, you need to be catching someone going side aspect at 3-4 km who is not preflaring.

This means closing to very close range, against planes that have ARHs which give them complete control over the engagement until said close range.

This used to mean climbing to medium altitude and raining AIM-9Ms down on your opponents, only you can’t do that without eating ARHs/ERs from across the map.

This means pushing with your team, as the odds of finding a single or even a few vulnerable targets seperated from the enemy deathball is extremely remote, and you need the support of your team to not immediately get mobbed.

In turn, that means somehow managing to find a target that isn’t already about to be killed by a missile from your team, or isn’t already actively defending (And preflaring) against several missiles fired by your team.

And at these closer ranges, the F-15’s flight performance is really only OK. You can’t pull off a Gripen style “Brawl with everything you see” playstyle, since several planes beat you in a sustained fight (F-16s, Gripens, etc), while many others beat you in the one/two circle (F-2s, Su-27s, most deltas, etc). And, of course, when’s the last time you actually got to do a sustained fight at this tier without someone being third partied, often from across the map?

To sum up, the F-15’s strengths are either negated by the meta (Strong IR missiles) or the rest of it’s kit (Strong high altitude performance, rendered moot by poor SARHs/RADAR). It results in a plane that’s far weaker than it’s kit would suggest. You have no early game impact, and your only effective weapons are only useful once the outcome of the game is already decided.

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I’m sure the 11.7-12.0s love facing it. As usual, decompression is the only answer and its the one thing the community cannot be asked to actually support apparently. This isn’t really directed towards you but decompression is NOT what most people want.

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I’ve taken the oppertunity of the downtiering of it to try and finish spading it, and I can count the number of downtiers I’ve gotten on one hand. The massive glut of popular 13.3s and 13.7s means you will be uptiered constantly. Not quite as bad as it once was, but still.

And even then, most 11.7s and 12.0s can actually fight back pretty well. The AIM-7Ms are, effectively, no better than the AIM-7Fs which start to become common around the tier. And there’s a case to be made that the R-24Rs are better at close ranges (Since they can’t be out rolled consistently), meaning even MiG-23 MLs have some teeth.

It’s only at the closer ranges that the F-15 has sizable advantages, and I won’t downplay them. But you would expect a plane a full BR higher to have such an advantage. There are several areas with far more compression, like 10.3 versus 9.3, or 13.7 versus 12.7.

The game needs decompression, and I’ll always argue for it. But, unless this decompression also results in a sizable meta shift, the F-15s are never going to be as good as they are on paper.

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Go play 11.7-12.0 and tell me how many F-15s you see. You not being downtiered does not mean there aren’t a lot of F-15s that are being downtiered or that 11.7-12.0 won’t see 12.7 constantly just because 12.7 also gets uptiered.

Ok, we are both good pilots. Please think about what would happen if you put me in a F-15A and you in a F-4S or MiG-23. Inverse the planes, same result regarding which plane wins. Yes, the R-24R technically is better than a AIM-7F/M. No, this does not make up for the laundry list of things the F-15 does better. The F-15 still has a much easier time winning this to the degree that its unfair for the MiG-23. Same for every 12.0 jet.

4x 9M or 4x AAM3 will always be extremely oppressive towards jets that often don’t even have IRCCM missiles at all let alone 4 on an F-15 platform.

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I think we can all agree all this is the result of deliberate, draconian compression issues.

Issues that Gaijin is already profiting with the premiums between 12.7 to 13.3, by the way. And they’re more than willing to erode the experience, as they didn’t moved anything substantially on either the dev server or announced any particular shifts at top tier to allow Su-30s to move to 13.7 and to begin to normalize Rank VIII at all, to mention some basic improvements to the BR zone.

You or anyone may think F-15s are oppressive at 12.7 and you may have points here and there, but such asymmetries are only the result of a major problem above, not just the plane being badly played or that the plane is particularly exceptional in the ARB environment.

Under that scorched-earth logic that Gaijin is implementing to make its premiums usable for +4 year olds, I’d say move the Mirage 4000 to 12.7 as well. recompression was never the answer, but Gaijin explicitly profiting on compression is basically telling their playerbase to be sodomized without opposition, and that is something I won’t subject to under any circumstances.

This is how we end up with Me-262s at 6.3 and P-51H at 5.3. It will quite literally go all the way down to 1.0 with consequences if you think compressing the game even further will solve anything.

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To which, I repeat:

We don’t deserve to be premium’s cattle under an already compressed BR zone with TT vehicles in a vacuum.

But you quite literally gain nothing from doing what you suggest. Recompression quite literally takes ALL of the anger and frustration that is at 12.7-13.3 currently and pushes it down to 12.0-12.7, then you will suggest pushing it down to 11.3s.

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And again, this makes sense in the realm where Gaijin adds premiums in healthy, decompressed BR zones.

But even before the first premium hornet at 12.7 back in March 2025, that area was already compressed. Not as heavily as today, but compressed still. I still remember the F-15J(M)s either facing EF/Rafale/F-15Es at uptiers, or basically facing SARH planes at 12.7 in a full downtier.

Pushing compression down BRs is also a problem, but it stops being a technological gap (SARH vs ARH, instead it is SARH vs SARH) and it becomes a matter of plane difference, which is far more balanceable in the bigger picture —or at least, when Gaijin has milked their premiums enough since they don’t care on the BRs system’s health anymore—.

This makes sense in every universe.

So let me get this straight, it goes from being a technology difference (because SARH can’t effectively fight ARH) and turns into… a TECHNOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE because a Me-262 CANNOT defeat (under any circumstances) a MiG-15. Just because both use guns only does not mean they are technologically near each other.

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Not in the universe where the spectrum of 11.7 to 13.7 is a compressed mess.

Listen, I’m not even in the mood to debate this for much longer lol, You’re right to some good extent, but we’re not changing the world here, the fact they’re not considering 15.0 for this update says everything you need to know. You can either seethe at what I’m telling you (which is what Gaijin is already doing by keeping everything stupidly compressed from 11.7 up to 13.7, which is totally nonsensical and wrong, to the point they knew this wave of premiums within 12.7 to 13.3 are goldmines), or you can spend your energy somewhere else on something useful, like grinding a tree or watching memes.

They will simply not move the F-15A/J/Baz at 13.0 until top tier is shifted at the very least (and I bet my dime it won’t be immediately) to 15.0. My bet is that they’ll decompress both Su-30s with 15.3 once both get their respective sales.

Yes… still makes sense for the reasons I said above.

None of what you’re saying in this specific paragraph has to do with our current conversation, which is you promoting recompression as a possible solution.

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Recompression is the answer for vehicles that were already compressed before the premium spam, to which is currently unsolvable without 15.0 (or even 15.3) as their stupid rule of their premium vehicles being unable to face top tier vehicles exist, simple as.

While that idiotic rule exists, move the damn Mirage 4000 down to 12.7 and make Gaijin accountable for their disastrous BR balancing that currently favors brainrot premiums.

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