Hard to play in GRB. Tested the full Brimstone + 2 JDAM loadout. Even if you don’t get uptiered to max BR, you have a hard time to get close to the battlefield. Also no air to air radar, hard to spot enemy air vehicles. In air rb no issue, but markerless GRB … huh…pretty hard. ^^Find the heli^^
If you reach a point like 8000m above the battlefield (contrails are mostly gone, yay), you might persist long enough in the radar deadzone to line up Brimstone kills. Phased Brimstone volleys might hurt the enemy team. They go right downwards towards the lazed POI or target.
What didn’t work so far are these GNSS Jdams. I tried to loft them towards AA positions several times, but they always fall out of the sky. Any hints here (drop speed, alt?). They also lost accuracy, it seems. Remember them more precise as I played ASSTA3 some months back. The’re pretty small (500lb), without this accuracy basically useless. Guess russian GNSS KH abuse caused this global nerf? Now all have to suffer and a whole class of ordnance became useless.
While Brimstones work well as death from above weapon, they also fail a bit in level flight. When I fire from 20ish km away to stay out of AA range, they seem to autodestruct (?) before they connect. The target is locked, you’re at speed and high up, but you can’t get them reach the target. So, what speed, alt, range you should use for max range? How far is their max?
I don’t understand why the SLE is 12.3, when something like the A-10C is 11.7 in GRB. So it never sees the new SAMs. The A-10 gets 6 Mavericks and a load of GBU-39 (and HMD). Meanwhile the Tornado with only 3 FnF and 3 or 6 Brimstones is at 12.3. It needs to go down 12.0 or 11.7, it’s a Tornado after all, a total brick of a plane being forced to play against top planes and SAMs.
Yeah, SAL Brimstone 1s would not be the Tonkas weapon of choice for this situation IRL. I never bothered bringing the GR4 to GRB.
Im hardpressed to come up a reason why its 12.3. 11.7-12.0 would be more reasonable when compared to Gripen A, F-16A or A-10C at 12.0 and especially weaker than the new Su-30 at 12.3
They only reach 20km if you fire them fast enough and/or high enough. A Tonka is unable to achieve the speed needed at low alt. Its more than likely the battery time is wrong, but virtually impossible to prove at the moment.
So dont fire them at low alt much past 10km, at high alt, maybe 15km?
Ordnance-wise ist shouldn’t be 12.3… Also considering the FM and anti air loadout. Just four F&F bombs are not alot. I guess Gajin simply forgot to add a dedicated GRB BR. Looks like its just 12.3 for every mode.
A10C is 12.0, and even that is really bad for the A10C. Its much better suited for 11.7 since its so extremely slow. And even if the A10C were at 11.7 it would still see new SAMs as they are 12.7.
The SLE is simply just not good for the BR its at currently.
there isnt one, they just copied the Gr.4 BR placement over, except unlike Gr.4 the SLE lacks PGMs for some form of standoff “missile” (more bomb with booster stuck to it but potato potato) and also lacks the wing pylon Brimstones.
Right now the best loadout it has is 4 HOSBOs only, or alternatively 3 HOSBOs and 3 LJDAMs with TGP for using GNSS lobbing against some SPAAs at the cost of one HOSBO.
Brimstones are outside of some situations (LDIRCM heli killing entire team) not worth bringing.
Doubly so because they need a TGP which takes away one HOSBO and are also contesting the same pylons.
realistically it should be at 12.0, maybe 11.7 if it remains like this with just 4 HOSBOs. While the bombs are genuinely great and i love using them, the plane itself is not that incredible and takes a lot of work to make well… work. All it takes is one person that spawns a plane in and youre immediately in danger.
If you mess up merge or dont try to ambush the plane, 9/10 times you wont win, even if you do have 9L/i sideys. The flight model is just that bad, tho thats really no big news
I dont beleive there is a meaningful enough difference in their performance to say that the GR4 belongs at 12.3 but the SLE does not because of the “stand off weapons” especially as the HOSBOs by the sounds of it actually perform better than the current state of PGMs
Especially given the same weapons are already on an 11.3 Tonka.
well, they dont really perform that much different then from one another. The Gr4 does have more brimstones (hopefully just for now) and iirc you also do have HMS for the IR missiles, but yea, i agree that 12.3 for Gr4 nor SLE is a good BR placement
I could see it at 12.0 if it gets wing brimstones and possibly also HOSBOs (its literally just a mk82 with a kit, if you can have LJDAMs on the same pylons you can throw these things on it too) on the wings. In the current iteration it should genuinely be at 11.7, Especially since F111F or Kurnass 2K are at 11.7 with 6 D mavs plus 2 Paveways/GBU15s
Its finally done. This was one of the most painful things in warthunder ive ever decided to do. Playing this vehicle is genuinely pain inducing. Any other 12.3 or 12.0 plane (maybe apart from A10C) would have had much easier time getting to 1000 kills.
Words cannot describe how obnoxiously useless you feel when there is one of the new SPAA systems, a fox 3 capable plane or Pantsir intercepting every single drop of ordinance youve released (ive resorted to doing gunruns against Pantsirs that cosplay as Iron Dome). Additionally on top of having to fight against enemy planes and enemy air defense, you also have to fight against the plane itself. Once the wings are slewed back, trying to gain any AoA is like wrangling a crocodile. You have to both fight against the plane trying to make it stay in the air as well as fight against the plane to turn. Extending airbreaks partially helps but dumps your speed so its very easy to die.
This was definitely the worst plane experience ive decided to undertake.
The armaments are insufficient at 12.3, glide bombs are easy to intercept and brimstones sacrifice your only competent standoff ordinance. the FM is a brick with engines, only thing i can genuinely say was good is the MAW CM pods, letting me drop CMs to avoid missiles relatively well.
This thing needs to go down to 12.0, it should not under any circumstance be at the same BR as planes like Su30MK2
The hosbo loadout is not that good. Theoretically it looks good, but imho… Hosbos are too slow. They’re only good at closer ranges. From farther away (standoff) it takes too long for them to connect and in 3/4 cases it means the target gets out of sight or destroyed by someone lese. Also gets frequently intercepted.
Mind that Gajin toned down contrail appearance. So on most map there are no contrails up to 9000m. Its viable again to climb up and approach the ground map section at max alt. Just make sure there is no BUK or some of the others on your RWR. In this case better despawn.
4 JDAMs and full Brimstone loadout. Works reliable.
A2A performance almost never actually impacts GRB BRs, so having a pair of IRCCM missiles means very little imo. Perticularly when you consider far stronger aircraft are already at 12.0 in GRB, such as:
FA2/AV-8B+ with Aim-9M and AMRAAM
Tornado F3 Late with 4x Aim-9M and 4x AMRAAM
F-16As with 6x IRCCM
Gripen A with 6x Aim-9M
and below that you have aircraft like the Mirage 2000-CS5 at 11.7 and the Mirage 2000D-R1 at 11.3. Both waaaaaay stronger than the Tornado GR4/SLE in A2A combat.
So in the context of GRB, the pressence of 2x IRCCM is totally and completely irrelevant.
With regard to A2G performance… makes little sense… because its not any better than most 11.3/11.7 CAS aircraft already have. “The ability to launch a lot of bombs far away…” when neither really have long ranged standoff weapons doesnt really make much sense, especially with the RET8 with GBU-39s at 11.3. If you are referring to FnF weapons then I personally consider the PGMs a complete and utter waste of time to ever use at 11.3 on the GR1, let alone at 12.3 on the GR4. HOSBOs might be better, but I still find it hard to justify the placement given you have aircraft like F-16s with 6x AGM-65 at 12.0 too. That just leaves Brimstone 1s, which are a SAL only weapon currently and on a Tonka, have a max range of about 15km. They are only good as far as I am aware as a decoy or if youve got someone else to go deal with SEAD.
So to summarise, the GR4/SLE are weaker in A2A and A2G combat than aircraft already at or below 12.0 in GRB and I cant think of a single reason that currently justifies their BR. Even more so when you consider that Britain at least has 0 12.3 ground vehicles and uptiering the 11.7 lineup to even 12.0 is hardly worth it, let alone 12.3 and if im running 12.7 lineup then why would I ever use the Tornado GR4 over the Typhoon AESA.
I just think that the devs totally and completely forgot that the split BR mechanic exists for these aircraft and just left them at their air BRs for no good reason. (Which even then, Im hardpressed to justify their current 12.3 BR, even before The Great Compression)
Yes, if we had FnF Brimstones, Even Brimstone 1s , then the 12.3 BR would make sense. Especially if coupled with ALARM (at least for the GR4) but with no timeline of if/when that is ever going happen, to actually get FnF Brimstones, heck, we still havent even gotten SAL Brimstone 2s for the Tornado or Typhoon… Im inclined to push for a BR reduction for the Tornado GR4/SLE in GRB. I feel 11.7 would be ideal but 12.0 at a bare minimum
