If you fly at around 40m, then any SARH missiles fired from low alt should be defeated by Multipathing. (if you fly above 60m, then MP doesnt work, and flying too low can also be problematic, stay between 30-50m) Dumping a load of chaff can confuse the Mig-23s radar and R-24Rs as the radar is MTI, but the Viggens radar will only be affected if you enter a notch. Thankfully the Skyflash DFs the Viggen carries are quite short ranged and your RWR will warn if you one is tracking you, so you can defend early. Just keep an eye out for J37 pings.
But with basically infinite chaff, just keep dumping chaff always, because the worst it can do is nothing.
Whilst I find the Mig-23s very annoying. Never had that major of an issue defending against one in the GR1.
Both can be true at the same time. But then again, the GR1 is so far off from the WTD61 it’s not comparable. You have ARMs, you have guided bombs, at the same BR, too. Case in point as to why the WTD61 and I’d even go to say even the ASSTA1 and MFG - none of them belong at 11.3, NONE. 11.0 maximum, just because of AIM-9Ls. The SLE version could go to 11.3, considering it has nothing going for it either, it’s easy food for MiG-29s and F-16s at its current 12.3 BR, where it goes against Pantsirs.
That cannot be used in ARB because there is nothing to fire at.
That are totally pointless to ever run because I can take out 12 targets using CCIP and unguided bombs vs 5 using a tpod and SAL weapons. And there is nothing in ARB that needs GBUs over unguided weapons.
Even in ASB, I literally never use them, because its easier to take out everything with unguided bombs.
TLDR: Guided weapons are completely useless in ARB 99.99% of the time.
If the comparison is ground. then one is 9.7 and pretty good, the other is 11.3 and totally DOA most of the time.
They could go 11.0, but I think they need to do a proper decompression first. One is maybe in the works though.
No.
First things first. Stop bouncing between Air and Ground and treating them as being the same thing.
Air:
It does have 2x IRCCM, I would personally place the SLE and GR4 currently at 12.0 in ARB alongside aircraft like the Mirage F1C. This would also move them out of sight of the Su-30s which is more than enough for them. Then it just needs decompression
Ground:
Ground gets messy. Id probably say 12.0 again, largely because of what is at 12.3, such as the F-18s and F-16s with far more consistant A2G, whilst also having better self-defence, not just against aircraft, but defending against SAMs. But ground air is so badly compressed, that nothing makes sense anymore. So I gave up a long time ago trying to understand what BR they place things at .
Coupled with actually fixing the outstanding issues with the Airframe, removing diminishing returns and overall improving the PvE side of ARB (or making NE actually worthwhile for anything not carrying a nuke) and the Tonkas would be fine.
Before the great compression (moving the F-15s down and adding the Su-30s) I was routinely getting 2-3 kills + a base kill in the GR4.
Either way, the fundamental problem of all Tornado IDS is not their lack of weapons (even if, historically, they should have more than the scraps Gaijin gave the German ones specifically), but the massive discrepancy between their capabilities and their BR.
Look at the statistics: the WTD61’s win rate is sitting at around 28-41% on ThunderSkill. That’s not a “skill issue”, that’s a broken BR. At 11.3, it cannot realize its strengths (speed at low altitude, high bomb load) because everything else is faster, and it gets all the weaknesses (no decent radar, only 2 AIM-9Ls).
The GR.1 and GR.4 aren’t relevant to this discussion. You getting good performance out of them doesn’t cancel out the fact that the German Tornado platform has been systematically abused by Gaijin. The SLE at 12.3 is a “free kill” in ARB, and the WTD61 was fine at 10.7 but got uptiered into oblivion.
Until Gaijin actually decompresses the BRs or gives German Tornados the weapons they historically had, they will remain DOA.
IIRC it was stated that the variant represents an early stage of the Tornado used by the WTD 61, and has the more advanced weapons omitted to represent that development stage.
Dont use Thunderskill. Its useless, its a tiny sample size. Use Statshark.net. as it scrapes far more data.
Secondly, premiums usually always perform worse than direct TT equivalents. Now its a ground attacker, and so im not going to compare K/Ds, but SL/match and RP/match, The tonkas are actually performing rather well.
hu?
GR1 literally has weaker engines than the WTD61. So If I can do fine in the GR1, then I would do fine, if not better in the WTD61. I dont see how Gaijin has really been abusing the German ones any more than any other nation either. The ASSTA1 (actually the ASSTA3 technically) is one of the stronger Tonkas for that BR, only now just behind the RET8.
Heck, Germany at least gets the ARMs they actually used. The GR1 has been systematically denied ALARM.
SLE even gets stock IRCCM, GR4 does not.
They were at 10.7 before the decompression. So using that BR is highly misleading. I could say the Tornado F3 should be 11.3 like it was before, but the reality is that at 12.0, the decompression was a lot better for it and it performs better now its at 12.0 than it was at 11.3.
At the time of the decompression, they were 11.0 and are now 11.3.
So there is an argument to be made that they are basically at teh same BR as before. But 10.7 pre-decompression doesnt exist anymore. Its a radically different BR scape than we have now.
At the end of the day, please compare the Tornado WTD61 with the Jaguar GR1A, A or E all currently at 10.7.
Its ground pounder, its stats will always reflect that, it will never reach similiar KD and winrate comparable to dedicated A2A jets unless ARB fundamentally changes.
You’re using a strawman. I’m talking about a systemic BR problem, you’re talking about personal skill. Those are two different things.
The stats on Beeschurger’s screenshot say exactly the same thing as ThunderSkill did: 46.7% win rate, 0.32 kills per spawn (also please note SL and RP per game, that means they only get points for time alive, not even reaching the base). That’s not “a ground pounder being a ground pounder”, that’s a plane that can’t do its job. Compare it to the A-10A or Su-25 at lower BRs — they have K/Ds of 0.8-1.0. They’re ground pounders too, but they have the tools to defend themselves in case they get attacked. The WTD61 doesn’t.
The fact that the GR.1 has weaker engines and you do fine in it doesn’t cancel out the fact that the WTD61 was uptiered without getting any new weapons. The SLE at 12.3 is a free kill. The ASSTA1 is mediocre at best.
This isn’t about “skill issue”. This is about Gaijin systematically keeping German Tornados at ARB BRs where they can’t compete, ESPECIALLY at 12.3 uptiers, you just say your final prayers from the spawn. You can defend it all you want, but the numbers speak for themselves.
The A-10s and Su-25s exploit the fact they can see aircraft that cannot defend themselves against all-aspect missiles as they lack flares. That is literally the only reason they perform as “well” as they do currently.
But they still perform way worse than dedicated fighters do at the same BR
for example.
A-10A (premium) has a K/D of 0.64. The Su-25s are at 0.43. The best fighters at their BR are between 1.28 and 1.18. They are not performing “well”
Even the 10.7 versions are not doing anywhere near what you are suggesting.
A-10A late is at 0.68. With the best fighters at 1.50 region.
Ground attackers never perform well compared to the fighters at the same BR. At least in terms of K/D because well… That isnt there job.
Its like saying a Spitfire is a bad aircraft because it carries less bombs than a Lancaster.
So now lets look at the 11.3 BR range. K/Ds for the same month as the aircraft above>
Italian IDS 0.47, GR1 0.47, MFG, 0.47, ASSTA1 0.44, IDS (1995) 0.42, WTD61 0.39 (which is no surprise given its a premium)
This is with the Tornados consistantly performing better than the Su-39, Su-25T and Su-24M btw.
But if you swap to comparing SL/Match as that gives a better indicator of how a GROUND ATTACKER is actually fairing vs fighters who earn their SLs via PvP.
Then the GR1, MFG, IDS (1995) and ASSTA1 are all in the top 5 non-premimums, with the WTD61 as the second best premium.
Im not saying that compression isnt an issue, but an expectation that a ground attacker is going to be winning dogfights vs fighters is kinda dumb. For that to truly occur, then its going to have to be stupidly under BRed. Heck, in a full downtier, there isnt much a Tornado can do against a competetant F-5 or J-35XS pilot. So what BR do you want them at? 9.0?
Now the GR4 and SLE are performing poorly at 12.3, but that is an entirely different issue given just how badly compressed 12.3+ is right now. But that doesnt mean they need to be under BRed to an extreme degree
Every single other Tornado IDS also got moved up, and didnt get any new weapons either?
Hu?
ASSTA1 is the best 11.3 Tornado In-game right now. How are they “neglected”
WTD61 is a fricking SL printer, Id kill to have one like it, and then when you switch from ARB to GRB, I think they are under BRed and should be 10.0 Not 9.7. Id love to exploit the living hell of that BR if Britain had one that low in GRB
Dear GM, I have to disagree. Your argument about the “early stage” does not take into account the historical role of the WTD61 aircraft itself.
It was a flying lab. Its task was to test and integrate weapons, not to fight with whatever’s been given.
The integration of the AGM-88 HARM began in the 1980s, and the WTD 61 was a key participant in this process. Historical documents and declassified reports confirm that these aircraft carried HARM missiles for testing and SEAD missions.
The AGM-65 Maverick was evaluated and tested as part of NATO standardization programs, the very fact of compatibility and ergonomics suggests that it was considered and/or even used.
K/D or K/S is a very useless metric for an attacker. Not quite as useless as win rate is (which in my view says next to nothing about a specific type’s performance), but still pretty iffy…
I for example got 34 air kills in Sim in my Tornado MFG, with 101 deaths. Tells me really nothing as we can’t see what caused the death: air defense, enemy air, or just the ground and pilot error?!?
Win rate of 43%? So in 43% of the matches I played (with a total of 130 spawns) my team won. What does that say about my Tornado’s or my personal performance?
Your “historical significance” argument does not take into account gaijin actually does work with “early” and “late” configs - US F/A-18C, Tornado F.3 etc.
Again, you’re using a strawman. I never said 9.0. I said 11.0 in Air RB. I don’t care that much about Ground RB — keep it at 9.7 or even move it to 10.0 if that helps. But in Air RB , the WTD61, ASSTA1, and MFG are not 11.3 material . They were fine at 10.7, acceptable at 11.0, and are unplayable at 11.3.
The fact that A-10 and Su-25 have the tools for self-defense (all-aspect missiles, powerful guns, flares) at their BR is only proving my point.
SL/match being high doesn’t mean the plane is good. It means it’s a bomb truck that dies after dropping its load, if it’s even lucky to survive that long. I don’t want a “SL printer”. I want a plane that can survive. There’s a difference.
And yes, every Tornado got moved up. But the German ones lost their 10.7 BR where they were playable , and got nothing in return. The British GR.1 at least has ARMs and GBUs. The German ones have nothing.
So no, I don’t want them at 9.0. I want them at 10.7-11.0 in Air RB. That’s not extreme. That’s just fair. Take away AIM-9Ls if you have to, replace them with Gs or whatever if you absolutely need, whatever. Just make it at the very least acceptable to play again.
Except they are at the same BR. If anything they are at a better BR now.
They didnt move up from 11.0 to 11.3 like a normal BR change.
Every single aircraft at 10.0+ moved up between 0.3 and 0.7.
Its BR is essentially the same right here, right now, but the aircraft it faces in a full uptier aren’t as much of an issue.
For example, The F-14A was 11.7, the Mig-29s were 12.0, the F-16s were 12.0, the F-15s were 12.3.
If the Tonka moved down to 11.0 because “it was fine before” should all those also move down to their original BRs?
Tornado IDS has all-aspect missiles, a decent gun, and flares?
Then dont play ARB, play ASB. But the only way its surviving like you want is if it was around 10.0/10.3. If not lower.
This is the change needed ot get them down to 10.7, maybe, but they would still curb stomp basically any other ground attacker at 10.7 currently ,like the Jaaaaags. So its ultimately a compression issue.
And ive thought about this before, because Britain lacks a low BR GRB Tonka, and I thought about they could add a Tornado GR1 (early) and make it interesting/different to the 3x “early” Tonkas already in-game.
