The Tornado GR4 and the state of new weapon types going forward

The State of New Weapons going forward (an insight on the Tornado GR4)

The latest Dev Server for the new update “Firebirds” has released and with it brings the opportunity to test things, now I am well aware things are subject to change but until change is confirmed I feel it is best to treat things as if they wont rather than assume they will.

Many new vehicles came this update, but the main point of contention has been the Tornado GR4 and more specifically the Brimstone Missile that it brings. I intend to break down this issue into multiple parts, to both get Gaijin’s concerns across and point out the player concerns, as well as my time using this weapon on Dev. Hopefully this leads to a good conclusion but, I am doubtful.

The Brimstone IRL
The Brimstone missile was an Air to Ground armament designed to provide a long range “fire and forget” weapon to use against groups of enemy vehicles in Afghanistan. This missile first came to the world with a Milimeteric Wave Active Radar Homing seeker. This seeker (much like Fox 3s in game although a bit different) allowed the Brimstone to find and lock a target with far greater precision than what was offered by traditional Infra Red or TV seekerheads used by missiles such as the AGM-65 Maverick’s. This seekerhead allowed the missile to Lock On After Launch (LOAL) meaining line of sight was not needed, and it worked through traditional countermeasures such as Smoke deployment. It quickly became apparent that a fully “automated” weapon would cause problems, thus the Laser Guided dual seeker was added in to maintain “man in the loop” for the missile in the event of more precise guidance was needed.

The Brimstone has evolved since then but we’re talking about the Dual Mode Brimstone.

The Brimstone in game
In game the Brimstone is a Semi-Active Laser guided missile only, not retaining its mmW seeker in any form. The missile for the sake of simplicity functions almost identically to the AGM-114K Hellfire II that many high tier players are familiar with. This missile realistically can strike out a target up to 20km away with extreme precision, in practice under the most ideal circumstances possible this missile will not break 16km of range in War Thunder as the 60 second guidance time will destroy the missile long before it breaks that distance. (At Mach 1.4 the missile will take 60 seconds to guide to a target 14km out)
The Brimstones damage once again is functionally identical to the Hellfire II which in this case is not a bad thing, it is a semi-consistent one hit kill on Soviet style MBTs while NATO style MBTs can be a bit more hit or miss.
Unfortunately this missile has several problems, the lofting means the missiles are borderline unusable at closer ranges. The slow speed and long guidance team means you need to remain exposed for frankly egregious amounts of time (by top tier standards) to ensure this missile does hit its target. Not to mention you’re on an 11.3 platform which is incapable of effectively defending against hostile CAP or hostile SPAA at its BR. This weapon unfortunately is too finnicky and too dangerous to warrant utilizing in the state that it exists in game.

Gaijin’s Reasoning for the Nerf
In Gaijin’s defense the reasons for the nerf make sense at surface level. LOAL is a feature they’ve not chosen to model for any weapon, as it allows the vehicle benefiting from it to engage a hostile target with ZERO possibility for retaliation. Furthermore the Brimstone can lock multiple targets simultaneously and fire upon all of them at once meaning it’d easily become the most devastating weapon in the game if modeled. The ability to see through smokes makes it so tanks cant defend from your launch by popping smoke the way they can other FNF munitions. Lastly the system is just as liable to result in friendly fire as it is effective neutralization of the hostile ground forces making this weapon overall problematic. I will not argue with most of these reasons, they’re very reasonable.

However… There currently exists a weapon, on a better platform, that does break a few of the points listed above. I’m talking about none other than the KH-38. Now to pre-emptively strike these down “but it doesn’t have LOAL” you’re correct. “But it has to be individually guided” semi-correct this is only true for the Laser guided version. But much like the Brimstone this is a weapon that for the last few updates has run around leaving no possible room for counterplay for SPAA or Ground Targets (the KH38 is too fast to reliably shoot down), the TV version gives no laser warning so tanks don’t see it coming, and the laser version even if its seen coming can be guided through smoke to the target.

The Solution I propose
Gaijin has stated that when faced with the arguments of “Make it an IR seeker” or “make it a TV seeker” they responded with “this would be an ahistorical and fake weapon” so I propose a new solution. Model the mmW seekerhead. However remove LOAL, the ability to lock multiple enemies (force us to hard lock each enemy), and if you want also remove the ability to track through smokes. This would be ahistorical but would preserve the FNF identity of the missile without making a new weapon. All you’re simply doing is removing features, something you’ve already done for multiple weapons in the game as is.

Future Weapons going Forward
While it is Gaijins responsibility to develop the game and maintain an atmosphere of “balance” as they see fit. I think it’s a bit out of touch for them to decide if something is too good or not for the game state if they were considering adding it. In the case of R73s we were allowed to test them once before deciding if they stayed or went. This should’ve been the case with Brimstones. The Dev server should’ve been an opportunity to test out mmW A2G munitions, then the players should’ve been the ones to decide if they’re fine with this weapon or not. If not they could be removed until they could come back in a more balanced state, if they were deemed fine then they could be introduced. This system is better because it allows you to avoid a situation such as the current Brimstone/Tornado situation, where the main unique trait of a vehicle has been effectively removed, and a weapon has been added in without its sole design purpose being modeled in.

I hope this post doesn’t fall on deaf ears and does gain traction because it’d avoid a lot of problems going forward if Gaijin actually communicated and worked with the community on these things, and overall I’d just like thoughts on this.

Should Gaijin allow us to Test mmW seekerheads and other new features going forward?

  • Yes
  • No
0 voters

Should Brimstones get a nerfed version of their FNF mmW seekerhead implemented

  • Yes
  • No
0 voters
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Probably will
Thanks for the post, guess I’ll just unlock the Harrier GR.7

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No it would not. The so called Multispectral smokes exist, and they work both in Visual, Infrared and mmV spectrum.

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The balancing reasons are blatant bad-faith arguments when the latest Russian CAS gets ground radar that ignores clouds and stands off beyond the range of all but an SPAA that cannot be named. That’s already two of the balancing arguments gone. I am just curious about what gunjob and smin are going to spit out at this point.

Accoding to Smin:

"It cannot

KH-38

  1. it needs line of sight to the target for each target
  2. manually queued for each target
  3. clear day as clouds block the seeker
  4. hope no one deploys smoke during flight"

With ground radar on Su-34 it disregards 3 of the 4 points entirely.

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@AgentZombie_6021 You forgot this:

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Lets just focus on the Brimstones for now. We cannot get too ahead of ourselves, especially when it comes to the snail.

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Is the Tornado GR.4’s HMD modelled correctly or is it just and HMCS rn?

not yet

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On the Topic of the Tornado GR4 I did notice something very interesting. The Brimstone module is independent of the Targeting Pod tree of upgrades. But the Targeting pod is MANDATORY to use them… This at least tells me the SAL change was rather recent and originally they did intend to add them to some extent in their untouched state.

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This is incorrect. Brimstones were from the outset always going to come in SAL mode. Studies were conducted for some time regarding other modes and SAL was the only mode possible to enable the weapon to be introduced in any capacity currently into the game.

Without SAL mode, they would not have been introduced altogether to the game at this time. Its thanks to Gunjob’s research on this mode that made even that possible.

Why is the Brimstone not getting its other modes and range? the Kh 38 can be fired at 30km and destroy the target reliably, what many people see is just Russian bias.

“Developer comment: We’d like to mention that Brimstone will only have semi-active laser homing (SAL) mode in the game. The fire and forget mode and the active radar homing seeker will not be available for a few reasons. The primary reason is that this seeker utilizes the “lock-on after launch (LOAL)” mode, this mode allows the weapon to be fired in the general area of a target without needing any actual precision from the operator, who can remain at long range in complete safety.
We feel weapons that can be used outside of the direct line of sight of the target without needing any preliminary reconnaissance or direct user targeting are not currently workable for the game. Weapons such as Brimstone, AGM-114L cause a particular problem and similarly to other ATGMs that have lock after launch modes like the Spike and AJ.168 will not have such abilities in the game.
These weapon types present several issues all at once, they require no challenge to use effectively and have no counterplay options for those being attacked. The attacker can operate outside of the range of any anti-air system in the game, Brimstone is also immune to smoke, so this won’t help either.
ARH modes for air-to-ground weapons won’t be workable until natural and artificial interference to these guidance systems can be implemented, as there are no electronic reconnaissance and electronic warfare systems in the game. Adding these weapons now would allow them to operate perfectly without any counter, which we don’t want to do. Additionally, at closer combat ranges ATGMs with ARH cannot distinguish between allied and enemy targets, and this would lead to a large amount of accidental teamkills as well.”

1 Like

The communities question is this.

If FnF modes on the brimstones were determined to be too strong. What is it about the KH-38s that render them weak enough to be added with an IR+IOG seeker and not also limited to a laser+IOG variant?

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F&F Brimstones are fundamentally different to Kh-38 in multiple respects. Gunjob has already posted a comparison between the two here: Major Update "Firebirds" - Rumor Round-Up & Discussion (Part 2) - #9171 by Gunjob

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And the Kh-38 is still completely overpowered and nothing was done to artificially nerf them and bring them in line with existing contemporary ordnance

even the JH-7A was denied AKD-88s as it would outrange SPAA but the Kh-38s were given a pass

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Most People probably understand that we wont getting Brimstones in their final Form since like Gunjob stated that they would be comically overpowerd.
i have no problem with this decision.
But we arent asking for its final Form, but just for a Basic FnF mode so we dont have to guide them in all the way and retaining some of its original purpose, that being a FnF missile.
They can be countered by smoke like most IR/TV seekers and they are limited in range by their 60 sec guiding time wich gives them a max range of about 14km.
They also would need direct line of sight to be locked and fired and in the time where you enter their max range and finding Targets you are well within most AA firing ranges.
Weather will also play a huge roll in their effective range in the end wich means you have to fly closer to the Battelfield making yourself a easy target for AA missiles.
and beeing a Tornado you will not evade their missiles as easy like other potent Cas jets.
Also adjusting weapons, reload times etc for balancing reason is already a thing like the AJ 168 who got a TV seeker despite them being guided remotly in RL.

7 Likes

in the current state on the dev server (which I do not see changing) the Tornado GR4 underperforms both as a 12.3 ARB jet and a 12.3 GRB strike aircraft

The best weapons on the GR4 being the same PGMs that were already on the Tornado GR1 down at 11.3

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The point is, why wasn’t 30km range, FnF IR guided missiles also determined to be fundamentally OP. The Su-34 will be the absolute dominant power at top tier GRB and I hope it will have a ground BR of at minimum 13.3.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing will be able to fight back or do anything about it short of spending 600+ SP on a fox-3 armed fighter like a Gripen

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Fact and without AIM-132 (or a nerfed version of) it’s going to be completely pointless to fly in ARB over the GR.1’s. The Buccaneer being in the similar boat with the S2 & S2B, at least the S2B has better missiles at the cost of a massive 1.4 Br increase (totally unwarranted IMO).

dont forgett the build in CMs wich makes room for extra bombs or missiles