Thankfully, speed alone is not the balancing factor.
The Sea-Vixen had no guns and 4x easily defeated AAMs that have limited situations they can be used effectively. Also the Sea-Vixen is fairly poor in a dogfight due to this and high energy bleed. It will loose in a dogfight Vs most. If sea vixen is 9.0 then those at 9.0 need to be 9.7
If speed alone is the balancing factor then Sea Harrier FA2 to 9.7 as it has the same speed as the Harrier Gr1
And kill you with what?
Keep turning and it literally cannot hurt you.
Sea vixen does not bleed speed that badly. On top of that, the missiles are far better than you seem to be implying. They are very fast and have much better range than even most of the missiles at 9.7, and statcard G-pull is a lie. They pull just fine, and the gimbal limit on them is huge, and their tracking is great, so they will track even in nearly side-aspect shots. They are not nearly as easily defeated as you are claiming unless you are taking the absolute worst possible shots.
They are not good for high aspect close range shots
Yeah, they aren’t R-73s. Guess what, almost NO missiles are good for high-aspect shots at point-blank range. Use the missiles where they’re good and they are far better than just about anything even a full BR higher than where it is right now.
In my experience it’s a great flight model with 4 very much usable missiles. I could see it going to 8.7, but not any higher than that as enemies with countermeasure are nearly impossible to kill.
The are not usable in a close dogfight, they no longer lock reliably in side aspect since the nerfs they got. The Sea-Vixen does bleed speed very fast and will loose to a mig-15 in a turn fight.
“It bleeds speed faster than a MiG-15” is a really bad comparison because the MiG-15 bleeds speed lower than basically everything else. So yeah, of course it will lose a simple rate turn against it. And after testing it, the Red Tops are plenty usable in a dogfight scenario as long as you aren’t trying to use them like guns. They have more than enough gimbal limit, g-pull, and acceleration to be effective between like 750 and 2500 meters.
Maybe just, but then I would hope to see more than a few 8.7 move to 9.0 as well. and probably a few other 8.3s to 8.7.
But given its RB BR of 9.0, then all-aspect red tops do need to be considered and with that, an increase to 9.0 would be fair for it in SB too, but without those. 8.7 is the absolute max and even then, would be DOA vs a few like teh G-91 R/1
It would perform just fine at 9.0 with no changes. All moving it up would do is relieve pressure on the 8.3s and 8.7s. And yeah, there are a few other planes that need to go up as well (Saggitario and Ariete being the biggest offenders in my opinion), but “there are other problem planes” doesn’t make the Sea Vixen less of a problem plane.
Then I would hope things like the G91 R/3/4 and Mig-17 move to 9.3/9.7. Because it cannot fight those.
heck, Alpha jet has CMs at 9.0
It can fight those just fine
There is nothing the F-86K can do there as it is woefully outclassed in flight performance. Sea Vixen can turn harder and keep more speed/gain more speed while doing it, and if at any time it feels disadvantaged, running away is equally easy and guaranteed to work.
To shoot someone you must get closer, that takes longer and the chances of you being spotted increase. Guns also require aiming instead of checking range and pointing your plane vaguely in the enemy’s direction - many times I have been alerted to an enemy right behind me because they missed and I saw their tracers flying past me. So yes, in a way you can dodge gunfire from someone you’ve never seen. By comparison a missile fired from too far away will lose speed behind you and self-destruct far away enough that you’ll never notice it.
If in a situation facing multiple enemies, you can quickly fire several missiles and easily get kills, by the time anyone realizes what is happening you’ll be long gone. This is also extremely effective against AI aircraft waves.
Need I repost the above chart? Sea Vixen sits a full BR lower, while being faster and having enough energy generation to be immune against other 8.3s.
Good thing this isn’t about the Javelin then.
At 8.3 Sim the only other aircraft with missiles are the much slower F9F-8 and SAAB 105G. I don’t think I need to provide graphs to show how much worse these two are, and its not like Red Tops are going to struggle when your opposition is mostly comprised of early 2nd gen jet fighters, many of which don’t have any rear visibility.
Not even the afterburning G.91Y and YS can catch up to a Sea Vixen at low altitude, those being 9.3 and 9.7. None of their missiles can be used in all-aspect as they only carry 9Bs.
F-86K is 9.3 sim and does perfectly fine with its flight performance. Hunter F.1 is on your team and is still slower than the Sea Vixen. The lowest Mig-21 is 9.7 which you can easily avoid even when playing 9.3 thanks to Sim’s bracket system. Yak-38 is 9.3, with half as many missiles and taking a gun means a heavy and draggy gunpod, which will make it about as fast as the Sea Vixen with far worse energy retention.
I propose it goes where it belongs - to 9.3. In Sim, missile buses do much better than in RB and the Sea Vixen is both 9.0 in RB and very easy to get kills in.
There is nothing about the Sea Vixen that makes it harder to play in Sim compared to RB, it is pretty much the ideal grinder - takeoff, be nigh uncatchable thanks to your top speed, find someone with radar, launch missiles that people won’t see coming, go RTB and do it again.
Care to name these 9.0s with RWR?
In the same way that it can do even less - fly in a straight line - and nothing anywhere near its BR can hurt it.
How? They are faster, better equipped and out turn fight it.
Your only hope would be to sneak up behind them and pray they dont see you. If they do, you are dead.
considering a kd of 2.7 in simulator, .3 increase in br wont ruin the aircraft (morvran’s stats)
The G.91s do not have the performance to beat or even catch a sea vixen. The afterburning MiG-17s can just barely catch it, and they are both limited to guns - which means they need to get very close - and have some of the worst visibility there is, on top of having no ability to roll. So yeah, the Sea Vixen can fight them fine.
It also has no gun and is limited to 4x Red Tops which are woefully underperforming. That is why it is lower. If it had guns, then it would be more like 9.0, akin to aircraft like the G.91, but without it has a MASSIVE weakness. Fixating on speed and speed alone is stupid, otherwise I vote for sub-sonics like the Sea Harrier, A-10, Su-25, etc to all move down to below 10.0 regarldess of speed.
Those have guns though, the Sea-Vixen is a missile truck at a BR where guns are the norm and gunfighting is the norm.
It has better missiles than most because it has the MASSIVE weakness of no guns and the Red Tops are not that good. If they were R-60s, SRAAMs or Aim-9Gs then it would be a different matter, but they can be defeated just as easily as Aim-9Bs can be. Scimitar is the same speed, with guns and 4x Aim-9Bs at 8.7 and no one complains about that.
Then all aspect Red Tops are defiently needed. If it does then the Yak-38 with 4x R-60s which have 3x the G pull needs to be 10.3.
It is faster than all 3, with only the 9Bs from the G91s (worse than Red Tops) maybe posing a threat. But of course, if a Red Top can be dodged, a 9B is even easier to do so. It is also the only one with a search radar.
based on morvnran’s stats, the sea vixen is performing above expectations compared to other aircraft he has played. all this arguing and whataboutism is because he does not want one of his top performers even slightly nerfed.
If you think the Red Tops are as easy to defeat as 9Bs, I can only assume you’ve never touched a 9B in your life.