This topic is a discussion about the Super étendard, about his BR and armament.
a bit of history first:
I’ve created this discussion to try to move things about the super étendard; it is an 11.0BR (in GRB) and 10.3BR (in air RB) naval and ground attack aircraft, with a k/d in march 2026 of .48 in ARB; a very bad one. It is considered by some to be one of the worst plane of the BR bracket.
The Super Étendard is a French carrier-based strike aircraft developed by Dassault Aviation in the 1970s as an evolution of the earlier Étendard IV. Designed for naval aviation, it served with the French Navy for decades and saw combat use in multiple conflicts, most notably during the Falklands War and later operations in the Middle East. In service, its lethality depended on mission profile: it proved effective in anti-ship strikes when equipped with guided munitions, while in ground-attack roles its impact varied based on target type, defenses, and available precision weaponry. It was used with Magic missiles for self defense against aerial menaces, with R550 Magic 1’s then 2’s.
In War Thunder, the Super Étendard is presented as a strike-oriented jet with a flexible loadout reflecting its real-world capabilities. It can be equipped with conventional unguided ordnance such as dumb bombs and rocket pods, as well as more advanced guided weaponry including up to four GBU laser-guided bombs or two AS-30L missiles. For self-defense, it may carry up to two Magic 1 air-to-air missiles. Additionally, it has access to countermeasure pods, enhancing its survivability in contested environments.
Statement of it's usability is ground RB.
In GRB, the Super Etendard sits at 11.0, 0.3 BR under the AV-8NA, Mirage 2000D-R1, Su-39/su-25T, Harrier T10.
All those are waybetter options, because thy have JDAMs, F&F, or very good anti tank missiles, all thoses in large quantity.
This shows that in terms of armament, it is just not the best option, the Mirage 2000D-R5 being just .3 over with the same 2 missiles, a thermal targeting pd, with all axpect and IRCCM missiles, an afterburner, and more A-G munitions.
The AS-30L are as well ewtremely bad in even the slightest uptier, facing FlaRakRad, OTOMATICs, Pantsir, ItO90’s, ADATS, and Tor-M1’s; all those can very easely intercept the incoming AS30, being slow, big, and with the white smoke trail buring for a couple seconds, very noticeable at the launch.
Once thoses intercepted, you can’t do anything; you only have GBU’s, clearly obsolete against those high-BR SPAA’s.
Even a smart 2S6 or Osa player, knowing that the radar can’t lock the AS30 but in IRST can, will intercept it. The good side of the AS-30L is the 11km range that let you shoot just outside the range of the same BR SPAA, if it is not an uptier; a slightly retard with the launch will make you enter the killzone of 2S6 that you see by 10 at the BR since it is freely given.
For the anti-air capability, the magic A are not useful against an enemy knowing your presence; and the rear aspect will take you all the time to get behind it, and very close ( less than 2km). As as the radar, that can not spots flying targets; not only useless, but if you don’t stop it, it will give your postion to any plane with an RWR.
Statement of it's usability is air RB.
In ARB, the Super Etendard is honeslty useless; the only good side is having 140 countermeasures if you use the pods and a good RWR. In turn rate, it get a bit competitive if you get in a low speed dogfight with it’s good flaps; but other than that, the low quantity of armament is bad; you can’t farm AI, the AS-30’s are very bad at taking out the boats with the damage models, the Magic 1’s are just useless since you can see missiles and enemies; it has to be shot from behind, on a plane that don’t get any flares or haven’t seen/heared you coming. And the guns are very obsoletes; DEFA’s are found on 8.3 jets. The radar is still useless, since it can’t lock anything, and naval tagets are shown on the map and visualy.
What should be done ?
At first, give it R550 magic 2; it was widely used on this aircraft since it got accpeted into services, at the end of the 80’s, and was equiped until the end of the Super Etendard, in 2015-2018. They weren’t added at first, probably because of the BR compression that is now solved.
We should give him GBU-49 as well; they were widely used in 2008 in the Héraclès operation and against the Islamic state in 2015. It would be fun to have a somewhat toptier L-JDAM on a “bad for it’s BR” jet.
If those aren’t added, I would consider it to be lowered to 10.7. AS-30L wouldn’t be overly OP since they are already present at both BR from the Jaguar E (10.3) and A (10.7). That would make the Super Etendard not suffer against the Pantsir-S1 that is 12.0.
For the Air-RB, not much can be done, since it wasn’t been thought to be a part of air-to-air combat, and fall in the same category of the Su-25 and A-10. But still worse, with worst weapons and way less air-to-ground and worst air-to-air weapons as the A-10 and Su-25 that still are very dangerous to approach.
Thanks for the long read session, I’m more than open for the comments, and I’m curious to hear your point of view on it.
