What is wrong with F-5E recently?

Machinery of War Discussion Aircraft
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1

I played the Swiss F-5E in the German tech tree just after it released. It was not really an amazing plane, as it’s top Speed is pooringly low, Which only became worse after the MiG 25 came out.
However, it is still a fun plane to play, and I have almost got the free ace.

But when I returned to the game two days ago, and played the plane agAIn. The first thing I noticed is that It’s radar changed totally. Before it has a TWS radar with 74 kilometer range, which was quite astonishing for me. But now it only had a 19 kilometer radar with SRC only, no PD. To be exact, 19 km of lock range and 37 kilometer of search range. This alone ruined the gameplay, given the plane stayed at the same BR as before, As this means that the cannon computer is barely useful now. A single chaff could defeat it easily, And there’s no look down ability.

I went through some easy and quick internet search, and all materials told me even the very basic F-5E models have SRC PD. I understand they took away the TWS, and even the range nerf is acceptable, but without the PD, the radar, and more importantly, the cannon computer is basically useless now. This is a huge impact for a cannon focused fighter.

The second thing I noticed is the flight control.The F-5E is considered strong by some players mainly because its turning and aiming. capability. But I immediately noticed that the flight control and the flight model is extremely weird now. When I try to aim my plane to one point, it goes beyond that point before turning back to it. This basically ruined the aiming capability of the plane - A huge loss both for precise controlling and cannon aiming.

The drag and the response time of the plane is also questionable. If my memory wasn’t wrong, It is quite easy to lead shots for the 9J on the plane. By locking the missile first and dragging the circle outside of the aiming area. Before firing, let it could give me A big advantage of Missile angle and anti-flaring, As it is harder for the missile seeker to see the flare. But now it behaves somehow like a EF2K at 1.6 mach - you will find it very hard to make a dodge to coming missiles.

I posted this because I found just no players talking about these huge changes to the plane. Every related posts I found are just brain rot argues of whether the plane is strong at the BR or not.
I could say it is a good plane when I played it first time, as even its performance wasn’t that good, most of the people won’t know the correct way of fighting it. But now, yes, it is a 100% trash plane at 11.0 with the new changes.

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The radar was reverted to the regular F-5E radar

This isn’t even a plane with radar missiles, like why do you even care tbh?

It would be nice to have a source, cause I find that hard to believe.

This is just plain false, you can just relock or they’ll just non use CMs at all cause they now it’s an F-5 in a close fight, until they see a missile they won’t use CMs.

The flight model has not changed at all in like 3-4 years.

This is the stuff that new players be doin’ ngl.

What???

It has and will always be a broken plane with an ober buff FM.

4

If you lead the shot with a missile, then there is a chance that the flare will be outside the missile’s PoV and therefore not seen.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oqtQrd-JeG0

Using SEAM can make this easier, though not dramatically so

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As for the overall post. The F-5s are actually overperforming quite a bit. Their FM is actually too strong, with way too much STR for example and they have basically no heat signature making them stupidly annoying to deal with. (An Afterburning F-5 is actually colder in rear-aspect than an F-117)

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I care about a better radar, because I don’t use hack and I am happy to use my brain to plan to enemies’ locations accordingly.

Would find a better source later.

Would find a better source later, but my friend told me they change it like two versions ago, and Given my long time spent on this plane, I trust my own feeling for the time being.

“You could just lock your fox3 again when they somehow failed to lock after 2 seconds. as it always happens.”
Most players, especially at this br, bind their flare and chaff on the same button (as the default setting). And given F5E does have 2 IR missiles.

You clearly has 0 experience of using early IR missiles. Leading your shots outside of the aiming circle for half a second before shooting it gives you a dramatic advantage.

I won’t say it is a bad plane to play, but Given almost every plane at this BR could easily outrun it, and it has zero approach to kill those outrunning enemies, it is not really that game changing. Especially When your main enemies in game are MiG 23s.

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The Swiss Tiger II never had a better radar than the one now intergated in WT. Only the Ex-Swiss AF F-5E that were exported to the US and there modified into F-5N had the APG-69.

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And still no P4, but the real surprise awaits you in GSB. :D

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Yes, the turning performance was really admirable, but not now. I couldn’t give a credible source, but if you go into the game now and try one game, I think they nerfed it dramatically, and you basically have less than half of the aiming and responding performance than before.

About the heat signal, I didn’t know that actually, but I think that don’t matter that much. Every missile before 9L level Are just very easy to defeat with 1-2 flare.

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That is indeed a very much lamented shortcoming. AIM-9P-4 is a must for the aircraft in the version that is modelled in WT.

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As far as I am aware, the FM has not been touched and is still overperforming. (they have a soviet doc claiming what it can do, but actual US docs like the pilots handbook or something are actively rejected sources, its wierd)

I had a 9M be 1 flare defeated before by an F-5. (though that was a while ago, and I think its IRCCM is a bit more reliable now)

But 9Ls are always 1 flare defeats in my experience.

Makes fighting them in something like a SHar a pain in the butt.

But its not entirely the F-5s fault though, How Gaijin handles IR Signatures is really really bad, but some like the F-5s benefit from it a lot and can 1 flare defeat anything easily and others like the Harriers can barely flare anything at times

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What? 😂Why do you have to mention that?

What do fox 3s have to do with anything here?

So? I just lead appropriately even without EGGS, so I won’t rely on the missile unless they’re running away and not paying attention. Although I have used R-60Ms within 1.5km on afterburning planes with they were flaring and they still got, got.

I used them plenty especially on F-100, F-4s, F-14A, MiG-21/23 and even the F-5E and I know about leading your shots with missiles that much is obvious, don’t make dubious claims about me especially with attitude and bad grammar.

13

You can’t put lamentation in your pocket. ;)

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That would be quite confusing, maybe there could be something to do with my internet connection? I’m playing with a 1-3% PL these days.

As I know, the heat signature is and only is decided by the engine power. Which would benefit lighter But low power planes.

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True, ‘lamentations’ doen’t really properly describe the reactions I go through every time I remember not a single Swiss Aircraft got the 9P-4/5…

But I censor myself, of course.

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This is the data-mining communities interpretation of the code for flaring a missile, but there is an X-Factor in there somewhere that result in some aircraft being really hot and others being cold and I dont think anyone has properly figured it out yet.

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Flare dispensing location also plays a part in how easily missiles are flared. Planes like the Su-25, F-111s, and some Mirage 3s/Kfirs have poor flare locations that often end up dragging a rear aspect missile back towards the plane.

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Yeah, that is true too. Though I would consider those a seperate issue, something like the F-5 and Harrier have near identical flare patterns I think. (though F-5 is now single release and the Harrier is double despite being the same CM pod)

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Yes. It is much more important to let the IR seeker “see” the flare (to put the flare in the seeker FOV). Flares are still always hotter than engines I think. (But large caliber flares always work better when BOL ones performs poorly though)

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Not always.

A Harrier at lower air speeds (It gets more thrust as it slows down, inverse to most aircraft) can actually be near enough impossible to flare anything. Even “weak” IRs like R-60s in rear-aspect at “long range”. Needing way more flares than youd think.

Dont even get me started on BOL, though beyond their nerfed state, they also have an issue of releasing direct rear which create laddering which is another issue as well, as laddering is not actually a thing IRL.

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Every time someone mentions BOLs i get flashbacks of Gripen patch where squads of them would run periodic release all match to deny any missile launch and murder everyone else one by one…

Hey, at least BOL chaff still somewhat works…

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