Why is the F-16 ADF 13.0?

[UnknownDistance]

@Panter2005

I don’t have a MiG-29 yet, working on it with a MiG-21S. I’m currently researching MiG-17, I started from Yak-1s and LaGG-3s, because I was completely not interested in Russian props.

It’s hard to get motivation for grind, when I already have some top tier jets, but I’m getting sick of “you didn’t play these planes, so you can’t know”, so thank you everyone for the motivation I guess.

And a lot of us that have played on the Red side are sick and tired of American theory-crafting about planes that they have never ever touched.

@Panter2005

It would only showcase who is the better pilot (probably you) and wouldn’t really solve anything. It’s not scientific.

It’s a perfect opportunity for you to put your theory to the test as opposed to sitting here and rhetorically wargaming it on the forums.

But I have done this enough times to tell you that your experience has been extremely compromised by playing the game on what amounts to easy-mode for so long. I already went up against the OP of the thread and he lost every single dogfight decisively. He didn’t even want to add BvR to the mix.

@Panter2005

Real lobby plays out differently than 1v1s.

You’re right! Real lobbies play out much differently than a 1v1. In a real lobby you would be out-numbered 90% of the time and most likely by a 2:1 margin. A 1v1 is more fair than the match-up that you would ever have in an open lobby.

[Celestia]

The same tactic applies to sim as it does to RB, you just have less situational awareness.

[sartt]

that isnt how the phoenix works my guy.

[cercata]

@Celestia

The same tactic applies to sim as it does to RB, you just have less situational awareness.

Yes, playing war thunder with your eyes closed is posible too, the same tatic applies, you just have less situational awareness XD

[Panter2005]

@UnknownDistance

And a lot of us that have played on the Red side are sick and tired of American theory-crafting about planes that they have never ever touched.

Then you will be sick and tired all the time. Not a lot of people have time or desire to grind multiple tech trees. Do you want to exclude them all from balance discussions?

You establish authority, as someone who has experience with the discussed aircraft, and appeal to that authority, proving you’re right. At the same time you discredit opposing arguments, by saying that people stating them lack experience with the discussed aircraft, therefore they are wrong. Appeal to authority and ad personam, 2 logical fallacies in a single sentence.

@UnknownDistance

It’s a perfect opportunity for you to put your theory to the test as opposed to sitting here and rhetorically wargaming it on the forums.

Most likely it’s a perfect opportunity to get my ass whooped by a better player, without anyone proving anything.

Inability to apply the theory doesn’t disprove it. I could fly an F-16 and lose in a guns only dogfight to a MiG-29. It doesn’t disprove the fact that F-16 is a better dogfighter than MiG-29 in this game. It just proves that I have a skill issue.

It’s hard to set up a test that is worth something. It’s certainly not done with a “yo, prove it tough guy” attitude.

@UnknownDistance

But I have done this enough times to tell you that your experience has been extremely compromised by playing the game on what amounts to easy-mode for so long.

Profiling, ad personam.

@UnknownDistance

I already went up against the OP of the thread and he lost every single dogfight decisively. He didn’t even want to add BvR to the mix.

Again, I highly doubt the quality of this test. In practice it’s probably just an ad personam.

@UnknownDistance

You’re right! Real lobbies play out much differently than a 1v1. In a real lobby you would be out-numbered 90% of the time and most likely by a 2:1 margin. A 1v1 is more fair than the match-up that you would ever have in an open lobby.

What I meant is that in a real lobby people play more conservatively. You don’t spam missiles at 1 guy, you try to get the most kills with the missiles you have.

Also the ability to effectively 3rd party people or just fly around and shoot missiles, while keeping your speed is more important, than pure 1v1 performance from BVR to a dogfight. I would describe it as sewing the battlefield. That’s why AIM-120 is meta, not AIM-9M. R-27ER is better than AIM-7F/M at this, while AIM-54 is a low risk, low reward weapon.

1v1s from BVR to a dogfight are of course also important in sim, where player density is low, but they are not necessary to do well.

[UnknownDistance]

@Panter2005

Then you will be sick and tired all the time. Not a lot of people have time or desire to grind multiple tech trees. Do you want to exclude them all from balance discussions?

You establish authority, as someone who has experience with the discussed aircraft, and appeal to that authority, proving you’re right. At the same time you discredit opposing arguments, by saying that people stating them lack experience with the discussed aircraft, therefore they are wrong. Appeal to authority and ad personam, 2 logical fallacies in a single sentence.

You are practically a caricature of the average American main who posts long winded paragraphs on the forums while having absolutely no depth of experience. You are practically coming here and telling that they should believe you and not their own eyes.

I am not the only one in the thread that is telling you this either. And it is not even personal experience that backs this up either.

@Panter2005

Most likely it’s a perfect opportunity to get my ass whooped by a better player, without anyone proving anything.

Inability to apply the theory doesn’t disprove it. I could fly an F-16 and lose in a guns only dogfight to a MiG-29. It doesn’t disprove the fact that F-16 is a better dogfighter than MiG-29 in this game. It just proves that I have a skill issue.

It’s hard to set up a test that is worth something. It’s certainly not done with a “yo, prove it tough guy” attitude.

Yes. You will most likely lose…just like the OP who claimed that the MiG-29 could do everything better than the F-16A and F-14…and then proceeded to not land a single round on me in multiple dogfights.

Also there is value in being able to demonstrate your claims and the inability to do so significantly undermines the credibility of those claims. What you are doing is not even making a theory…you are basically making a hypothesis and then never actually attempting to prove it.

@Panter2005

What I meant is that in a real lobby people play more conservatively. You don’t spam missiles at 1 guy, you try to get the most kills with the missiles you have.

This is entirely dependent on the player. It is not uncommon for USA mains to spam all or most of their missiles at an individual target. F-14 players are pretty well known for this. Having the ability to freely launch multiple missiles is very useful forcing the enemy into an unwinnable position.

@Panter2005

Also the ability to effectively 3rd party people or just fly around and shoot missiles, while keeping your speed is more important, than pure 1v1 performance from BVR to a dogfight. I would describe it as sewing the battlefield. That’s why AIM-120 is meta, not AIM-9M. R-27ER is better than AIM-7F/M at this, while AIM-54 is a low risk, low reward weapon.

Being able to carry up to 4-6 SAR-H missiles while still having a strong flight model and a better sensor suite far outweighs the utility of carrying 2 R-27ERs.

Also the Aim-54 is not a low risk / low reward weapon. Its practically a 0 risk weapon with a pretty high reward where it either gets a kill or at least forces targets to react in a defensive manner. The threat of constant Aim-54 spam and having very poor radars is why you typically will not see MiG-29 players at high altitude. In an F-14, I can bring two Aim-54s and still have twice as many SAR-H missiles as the MiG-29 player.

The most productive way to play the MiG-29 is to turn the radar off and save the R-27ER until you can fire it at basically point blank on a target that is practically a guaranteed kill.

[cercata]

@Panter2005

Do you want to exclude them all from balance discussions?

Those people that only play USA and want to nerf eveything that rusian/german planes have to compete with USA planes ?

Of course I wanna exclude them, and listen to people that play both, those people know more, and they don’t have conflict of interest, since they play both planes.

@UnknownDistance

The most productive way to play the MiG-29 is to turn the radar off and save the R-27ER until you can fire it at basically point blank on a target that is practically a guaranteed kill.

Exact, people who fly Mig29 know that shooting at targets far away is too risky, you have to keep the lock while evading phoenixes, AIM-9L …

[Mantis_Chat_Ban]

since when are the aim7’s better than the r27’s? Let alone the r27er. Sure, they reach further, but their hit rate has considerably decreased short after the patch was released. It was a beautiful two weeks of “workability”. This is not 8.0 anymore, you can have an f-35 hovering over the airfield killing six people with six aim174 phoenix ii’s.

[Panter2005]

@UnknownDistance

You are practically a caricature of the average American main who posts long winded paragraphs on the forums while having absolutely no depth of experience. You are practically coming here and telling that they should believe you and not their own eyes.

I am not the only one in the thread that is telling you this either. And it is not even personal experience that backs this up either.

Now you’re name calling, couldn’t step any lower.

I don’t think the “skill issue lmao” style of arguing is productive in any way, but if you insist I can keep it short and simple for you.

@UnknownDistance

You are practically coming here and telling that they should believe you and not their own eyes.

I’m not trying to establish any kind of authority, I’m just stating my opinion.

@UnknownDistance

Also there is value in being able to demonstrate your claims and the inability to do so significantly undermines the credibility of those claims. What you are doing is not even making a theory…you are basically making a hypothesis and then never actually attempting to prove it.

That’s a valid point, it does back up your claim and improves your credibility. For you however that’s the only thing that matters and you don’t attribute any value to logical arguments.

@UnknownDistance

This is entirely dependent on the player. It is not uncommon for USA mains to spam all or most of their missiles at an individual target. F-14 players are pretty well known for this. Having the ability to freely launch multiple missiles is very useful forcing the enemy into an unwinnable position.

I made it sound like it’s a viable tactic, but what I meant is that you won’t have to work so much for your kill.

If he spams AIM-54s, you can go cold. Going cold for 1 AIM-54 isn’t worth losing the position, but if he launched like 4, you just took out the majority or all of his long range weapons, with a minor position loss.

Spamming them 1 by 1 is not possible, if you slightly turn out after notching the first AIM-54, he won’t be able to see you with only HDN modes. You can let him get closer and launch an R-27ER in his face.

@UnknownDistance

Being able to carry up to 4-6 SAR-H missiles while still having a strong flight model and a better sensor suite far outweighs the utility of carrying 2 R-27ERs.

Quantity matters with modern ARH missiles. With SARH missiles quality is more important.

Strong flight model and sensors are valid points, but weapons are more important.

U.S. radars at 12.7/13.0 aren’t perfect either. F-14 has only HDN modes and a very narrow scan, F-16’s and F-15’s radars lose lock easily and don’t have TWS. I’ve lost lock once in an F-16A ADF on a F-14B in air rb, when he was flying towards me at a 45 or 30 degree angle for seemingly no reason.

@UnknownDistance

Also the Aim-54 is not a low risk / low reward weapon. Its practically a 0 risk weapon with a pretty high reward where it either gets a kill or at least forces targets to react in a defensive manner. The threat of constant Aim-54 spam and having very poor radars is why you typically will not see MiG-29 players at high altitude. In an F-14, I can bring two Aim-54s and still have twice as many SAR-H missiles as the MiG-29 player.

You have to ignore or underestimate the AIM-54 to get killed by it. In theory it shouldn’t be able to get any kills, but in practice using it, people just kind of fly into them.

[cercata]

@Panter2005

. In theory it shouldn’t be able to get any kills, but in practice using it, people just kind of fly into them.

Maybe because they are fighting against 2 phoenix and an enemy plane ?

Just go and Fly the MIg29 in SB, and show us how easy the phoenix are to avoid …

[UnknownDistance]

@Panter2005

I made it sound like it’s a viable tactic, but what I meant is that you won’t have to work so much for your kill.

If he spams AIM-54s, you can go cold. Going cold for 1 AIM-54 isn’t worth losing the position, but if he launched like 4, you just took out the majority or all of his long range weapons, with a minor position loss.

Spamming them 1 by 1 is not possible, if you slightly turn out after notching the first AIM-54, he won’t be able to see you with only HDN modes. You can let him get closer and launch an R-27ER in his face.

This is where having actual experience would actually be informative and people with experience keep going back to the same point. The MiG-29 radar has an abysmally slow refresh rate and it takes a long time to complete its sweep pattern and a long time for targets to pop up. The F-14 will see the MiG-29 on its radar much sooner and be able to launch a follow-up Aim-7F before the MiG-29 is able to launch an R-27ER; a 2-3 second head start for the Aim-7F basically negates the range and acceleration advantage the R-27ER has.

@Panter2005

Quantity matters with modern ARH missiles. With SARH missiles quality is more important.

Strong flight model and sensors are valid points, but weapons are more important.

U.S. radars at 12.7/13.0 aren’t perfect either. F-14 has only HDN modes and a very narrow scan, F-16’s and F-15’s radars lose lock easily and don’t have TWS. I’ve lost lock once in an F-16A ADF on a F-14B in air rb, when he was flying towards me at a 45 or 30 degree angle for seemingly no reason.

And this is another point where I can tell that you are actually clueless. The F-14A has two TWS scan settings…it has an 80 degrees by 4 degrees wide scan setting and a 40 degrees by 6 degree medium setting. In regular PD mode it also has a 130 degree x 6 degrees wide search pattern as well as a narrow 20 degree x 6 degree pattern.

The MiG-29 has a single radar pattern of 50 degrees x 10 degrees. The time that it takes in order for it to complete its search pattern and populate targets is noticeable longer than the F-14A radar. This is especially true for the regular TWS mode which is why most smart players will use TWS HDN in most cases.

@Panter2005

You have to ignore or underestimate the AIM-54 to get killed by it. In theory it shouldn’t be able to get any kills, but in practice using it, people just kind of fly into them.

You have to make some sort of reaction to it or you will die to it. That is kind of the point everyone has been making.

[Panter2005]

@UnknownDistance

The MiG-29 has a single radar pattern of 50 degrees x 10 degrees.

This is actually huge, if you’re stuck with a search pattern (optimal width for searching). I assume it behaves like in F-15A, so 4 vertical steps and it repeats the top and bottom, wasting time. I hated the 60 x 10 degrees scan pattern in F-15A, I can imagine how frustrating it is to be stuck with it.

This significantly changes the situation, unlike the actual speed of the beam itself. A bad scan pattern multiplies your scan time. That’s why I thought you were exaggerating, since even slow radar beams are more than sufficient, if you can set a scan pattern that has like 2 vertical steps or is very narrow.

This makes you right. With an old R-27ER you would still pull it off, but with the current nerfed one you would most likely be even with an AIM-7F/M.

In my defense, even my ancient MiG-21S, that has essentially only standard and radar homing AIM-9Bs, has 2 scan patterns. It was perfectly reasonable to assume that MiG-29 has at the very least 2 (for example wide and vertically narrow wide), but most likely standard 3 scan patterns (wide, half width, narrow) and I was confident that it had them. This is really shocking and I think you can’t really blame me for these assumptions. These are very basic characteristics, especially for a plane that has TWS and HMS. Maybe I could have done more research, but again these are very basic things for a plane that has much more advanced features.

I wish you said it earlier and informed me about this very odd fact, instead of ranting how I’m disconnected from reality and wasting time for both of us. Everyone should inform everyone else about the oddities of the planes they’ve played, that no one would assume were true. I think it’s better to inform each other and come to one conclusion, than to insult each other and speak with a sense of superiority over the other side.

Also be specific, instead of just saying “bad radar” or “slow scan”. When I say that F-14 has some shortcomings, I point out what’s the problem, like only HDN modes (I didn’t mention it has a non-PD mode that isn’t HDN, but a non-PD mode at this BR is obsolete).

@UnknownDistance

You have to make some sort of reaction to it or you will die to it. That is kind of the point everyone has been making.

But the amount of effort required is minimal. Before the buff you could dodge AIM-54s by accident, now you just need to treat them like a threat, not an annoying RWR warning.

---

I think that the MiG-29s and Su-27s should be changed in the same way I was proposing:
-buff R-27ER back to realistic levels and remove it for planes which don’t have R-77s
-add R-73 for all MiG-29s
-fix flight models for all MiG-29s and Su-27s
-move down Su-27 from 13.3 to 13.0,
but any buffs are much more urgent than I thought. Right now MiG-29 9-13 truly doesn’t do anything better than F-16A ADF or F-14B, except running away, having TWS and having HMS, which isn’t a game changer without R-73. It has similar missile jousting performance, worse long range BVR performance and everything else is much worse.

---

Out of curiosity, could you list me the scan patterns of Su-27, Su-27SM and MiG-29SMT, and tell how they behave? Also correct me if MiG-29’s scan pattern behaves differently than I assumed here. I would really appreciate it.

[BramborovySalat]

@UnknownDistance

So let’s assume your numbers are correct and both players launch at the 30km.

The F-14 has to guide the Aim-54 for 1/3rd of the flight before it goes pitbull. So it has to guide it for 7 seconds and then has another 7 seconds to notch the incoming R-27ER. And if the MiG-29 attempts to guide the R-27ER for that time it will get hit in the face by the Aim-54.

So in all likelihood the MiG-29 gives up 1/2 R-27ERs in order to maybe close the distance for a follow up shot. Except because it broke radar lock it is going to run into the issue of the radar being incredibly slow to populate targets. F-14 has the advantage when it recommits after the first ER because of the radar being much faster to populate a new target…especially iwhen paired with a narrower scan option.

Worst case scenario is MiG-29 gets R-27ER off first and F-14 just notches it again and then it’s free to push the MiG-29 into a dogfight which it will win.

So, we ran a mock battle, large vietnam like one you would get in random battles, multiple respawns, fuel consumption and everything.

My MiG-29G vs. F-14A.

Everything was allowed.

The result?

Had exactly 42 AIM-54s launched at me (once my friend landed after sending all phoenixes and rearmed).

Only once they came even close to hitting me, and that was when he essentially ambushed me with 20km launch while i thought hes farther.

I didnt even need to fully notch nor use chaff at all, keeping the missiles at the gimball limit of my radar was enough for them to COMPLETLY miss at long ranges.

And, unless sim has different physics than realistic, this WILL apply to simulator battles too. I was flying solely by instruments 100% of the time.

We didnt even test close range because we never got there.

So yeah, i stand by what i said.

@BramborovySalat

Im nearly sure cranking 29 will be completly safe.

[UnknownDistance]

We can test in Sim. I will take F-14A and you can take MiG-29.

[BramborovySalat]

Would unironically love to if i knew how to take off with sim controls in the first place. Tried keyboard+mouse but it just aint it.

i plan to get HOTAS tho in the near future so if you are willing then, why not.

[UnknownDistance]

Put SAS damping on, throttle up, and then move the cursor down/up depending on your settings. It’s easy.

[BramborovySalat]

Let me get at least some basic experience on how to fly with sim controls first, otherwise im fraid it would be one sided spanking even if you took a prop plane against me 😅

[cercata]

@BramborovySalat

And, unless sim has different physics than realistic, this WILL apply to simulator battles too. I was flying solely by instruments 100% of the time.

That would apply to a 1 vs 1 in SB, but EC is not that, with bots and many players around, the Mig29 radar becomes crazy and often you see everything except the threats.

Also in 1vs1, instead of 6 phoenix, the F-16 can bring 3 phoenixto put you defensive and 3 sparrows to kill you while you defend the sparrows.

[BramborovySalat]

@cercata

Also in 1vs1, instead of 6 phoenix, the F-16 can bring 3 phoenixto put you defensive and 3 sparrows to kill you while you defend the sparrows.

@cercata

People crying because the 27ER is too good, and then you try to take off with your Mig29 and you are spammed by AIM-54C

You are now bringing sparrows into equation.

Inb4 well duh its obvious i also meant sparrows!

[UnknownDistance]

Bringing a mixture of both has always been part of the conversation.

Typically if I am in the F-14 I will bring some variation of 4 Sparrow + 2 Phoenix or vice versa.

Even against determined enemy…the point of launching Phoenix would be to force defensive and then follow up with sparrow.