Currently, Yak-28B is not performing well at BR 10.7 for arcade and 9.7 for realistic and simulator. The aircraft is currently underperforming at its arcade BR at 10.7 due to low bomb load and lack of function as of currently.
As many aircraft have superior performance in both 9.7 and 10.7, such as the Su-7 ( all variants), F-105D thunderchief, harrier / AV-8 ( most variants) could carry similar or larger payloads while being able to fly faster, turn better and are more viable and could function better than the Yak-28B. Yak-28B currently bears a very unimportant role in all air battles as it is outperformed by all comparable bomber / strike aircraft units, rendering it fundamentally unneeded and harms gameplay for other players actively by the current game standards
The Yak-28B is notable slower than the comparable F-105D thunderchief at 10.7, through multiple battles, F-105D thunderchief are known to be able to destroy a base bomb target in a single attack run and is able to maneuver away easily to avoid enemy attacks while the Yak-28B could only damage the base by 25-30% in a single attack run with best performing bombs depending on maps. At all aspects of maneuverability, speed, payload capacity, the Yak-28B would only qualify at best a 10.3 or a 10.0 vehicles and at worst a 9.7 vehicle due to low performance even by 9.7 standards.
Possible removal of the aircraft may improve overall gameplay experience as to lessen to problem that arose from the Yak-28B’s low functionality in active games.
Addon here: Yak-28B by 10.7 quite outdated in design by br 10.7 as it has older designed swept wing along with the Su-7 developed during the 1950-1960 (estimated)
If the performance of the vehicle is an issue I suggest simply foldering it as removing it for the sake of ‘being redundant’ would frankly mean a lot of other vehicles would also necessitate deletion such as a lot of other bombers (the many, many subvariants of propeller bombers and the Vautours without their airspawns for jets etc) which I don’t think is a very good way of balancing the game.
While the Yak-28B (at least in Realistic Battles with my limited experience in it) it can have a place when it comes to bombing since it’s at a far lower BR than all aircraft mentioned in the complaint (in RB the F-105D is 10.0, the AV-8A/C/GR.1/GR.3 are 9.7 and the Su-7s are at the same BR (9.3). Being unable to reach M1.0 on the deck aside while the plane is extremely unwieldy and very monotonous when it comes to bombing I usually did get my bombs off before other planes on a base of my choosing. It also has access to flares while being a supersonic at altitude (the 105D does not have flares and the chaff pod is not built in while the Harriers have flares (GR.1 lacks these) but can’t go supersonic) - which does give it added survivability those other vehicles lack.
As a whole in my opinion the aircraft (across all modes) suffers more from the fact that base bombing is just not a good gaming experience period. It’s only exemplified because it’s at a BR where intercepting and catching up to jet bombers or any bomber/fighter-bomber for that matter is a fairly trivial task - altitude provides no defense and fighters can just catch up to the bombers if they make any mistake or none at all sometimes. While I cannot say why it’s at 10.7 as I do not play the Arcade side of air, for Realistic Battles the aircraft like many others is in a catch-22 where if you lowered it to say, 8.7, it would simply outspeed everything and be basically untouchable like how the 104As terrorize the 8.X bracket now - or you keep it at its current BR and risk it being mostly unplayable and boring for users.
By the line of thought that ‘obsolete’ aircraft should be removed for the sake of gameplay while reasonable to some extent also would inevitably gut possible variety for players and frankly would just set a bad precedent. If being ‘lackluster’ while being hard to balance warrants removal bombers as a whole would benefit from ironically being removed as while for props and even to early jet bombers said bombers can reach their targets - but ultimately do nothing for the match and the overall game experience would frankly not be any different before and after aside from chasing the odd bomber player into the heavens. I think this says more about bombers and bomber gameplay/interactions with the player and enemy teams being fundementally flawed than a case for removing vehicles that don’t fit in line with being good performers simply for the sake of progression and optimization.
I ground out some of USSR rank VI with it, and enjoyed it a fair bit.
The only threats I ever really faced was the F104s and at one point the F8E.
The only uncounterable threat was the F104 which could catch me effectively in battle. Even then, simple evasive techniques kept me safe most of the time. (Drop bomb, pull up and away from the battle to > 10km alt, fly home)
Yak28 has absurdly powerful engines, and with the FAB-3000 I’m pushing supersonic speeds in a severe climb. Most battles I’m able to get 2-3 runs off.
Stats:
80 battles, 49 deaths, 130 respawns in RB. Though a dismal 40% win rate and not a single air target killed because its gun is unusable
Currently at least in arcade, it is not adequate to help the team by any effective extend. Sometimes flying it actually harms everyone else’s experience pretty badly since as for br-wise, most aircraft by that time would start to bear a somewhat multi-role like ability of doing something very good (aircraft main role) and somewhat okay at something else(attacking ground with bombs / rockets). which really limits the Yak-28B to an almost defensive bomber role where you primary plays similarly to an unarmed aircraft(lack of defensive weaponry and manuevability to ward off enemy fighters attacking the Yak-28B pilot or any other trying to hunt your teammates down even with the single 23mm.) In some rare cases, worst case happens when the match is limited to 7 people on each team(periodically lower br players squaded with 10.3 players). This causes them to lose a possible spot of an fighter to protect and possibly win the game.
In air arcade, the Yak-28B is very easily defeated by most aircrafts, since most aircrafts have a better climb rate and certain subsonic such as the harriers and yak-38(though yak-38 and its variants are rather slow against 10.0 standards and rarely seen above their br 9.3) can breach supersonic relatively easily and lose little energy in a vertical climb unless climbed from 1000m to 8000m in one go(particular harriers). and traditional supersonic fighter normally fly at height way above 14000m(14km) high(most experienced players in arcade). Actively, Mig-19 and Su-7 are very capable of intercepting the Yak-28B due to a somewhat abnormal flight model as Mig-19 have a very long-lasting afterburner and the Su-7 attacker spawn combined with high engine output paired with a wing designed better for high altitude performance(both at 9.7).
For AB, all aircraft receive airspawn which periodically result in prop and early jet bomber issues as the average speed of flight for the Yak-28B at functional defensive altitude is around 10000m(10km) and 12000m(12km) at IAS is between 300 to 450km/h. alongside the very short spacing between bomber and fighter airspawn ranging between 1km to 2km above the fighters. while vantour could also be put down from 9.7 to 9.0 possibly 8.7 (though 8.7 maybe a bit low but if a general decrease in br for all bombers occurs it might fit well since most jet bombers lose performance faster at altitude against single engine units due to weight and drag coefficient due to large surface area.)
Addon: in arcade the Yak-28B would sometime see F-14A early and Mig-23MLD.
ooh you’re talking about AB
Its 9.3 in RB and much more balanced there. Tops out at F8E, bottoms out at b57
In arcade, most problem become extremely magnified due to arcade boosting power by a slight bit, sometime a bit too much for some such as the ash-82 fuel injection upgrade for la-5, la-7 or any radial specific variant(some other nations have this weirdly high horsepower buff) buffing from realistic’s 84.3hp up to arcade’s 215.1hp boost. making some aircraft extraordinarily fast, which overtime extend and magnify further down the tech tree. The performance buff the power to weight ratio of most fighters by a very extreme extend, while heavier and bigger planes generally receive the short end of the stick as their power to weight ratio is barely increased. best case example i can easily compare to is the mig-21f-13 against the yak-28B or the pe-8 or tu-2(though tu-2 and its variants tend to be the only good bombers so far) against the la-5fn. The traditional realistic would be more playable since things are more logical and balance maybe slightly less iffy.
Addon: its the particular effect is the shift in power to weight ratio over realistic and arcade
While I do know this is the Arcade threads I still responded as such as the post was marked as for ‘all’ BR modes and also suggested the idea that the vehicle should be removed entirely - an appalling solution to at best a middling problem in my opinion, which is what prompted my response. While yes, the Yak-28B is a lackluster aircraft frankly regardless of the mode it’s being played in, I still think the original suggestion of outright removal sets a bad precedent with how vehicles are implemented as well as are played - a large part of why I at least like War Thunder is the ability for me to switch out vehicles (much moreso in ground as lineups need not consist of a single vehicle like in air RB) and bring lower BR but still effective options or less standard but still usable vehicles into a match if I feel like it. Unless it’s intentional griefing done by people bringing props to top tier I don’t see a reason why the vehicle warrants a removal when its lack of a role is more due to the class as a whole (Bombers) being obsolete in this game as a means to ending a game.
In arcade, the Yak-28B is quite weak for its purpose in-game which causes has a tendency to have cause a high rate of loss for your teammates in particular. Commonly, the Yak-28B is unable to contribute adequately to provide any form of help towards teammates. Normally resulting in basically the lack in 1 of 7 players in a team for smaller battles (Yak-28B is able to perform better at smaller battles due to lack of total enemies on the hunt but at the cost of all your teammates) while in major battles that have 10 to 16 players it is more common to be among the first few aircraft to be shot down, normally through SARH missile jousting or rarely through a full speed f-104( somewhat common vehicle found), since at its current br and the somewhat hard to fix situation of the subsonic and supersonic gap. at best i can be kept a a slightly lower br at 10.0 or 9.7(preferably 10.0) though still outclassed by its strike aircraft breathren Su-7 by speed and maneuverability.
(though the addition of flares would make me consider it best at 10.0 alongside the mig-21 smt arcade)
unlike in realistic and simulator, the Yak-28B suffers from poor speed mainly out of weak engines by arcade standards, having a heavy weight paired with 2 engines prior mounted on the mig-21f-13 limited its performance heavily as the power to weight is considered on the low end by 10.7 arcade standards.
in realistic and simulator, it should probably perform better as the performance buff for engines do not exist to the extend arcade did.
the Yak,-28B would periodically encounter far superior units such as the F-14A early and Mig-23MLD (and its variants which are nigh impossible to dodge theur missiles as i believe that missiles also get a slight performance(though vey unsure, they feel like they pull way harder than in realistic).
later note: by most standards of the game, Yak-28B is comparable( to a lesser extend) to the Su-7 in most aspect , the biggest difference is the presence of flares but at speeds slower than Su-7 (due to increased drag coefficient),
I don’t really think that’s addressing the points I’m making since I’m saying that across all modes bombers as a whole and bombing bases as a mechanic are just functionally irrelevant to the actual flow of the game unless it’s something like full 288 teams at 6.0 or a full 4man squad of B-29A-BNs in RB properly wiping all bases off the map. I’m not saying the Yak-28B is fun to fly or practical to fly in any mode yet the reply I got amounts to ‘it is outdone by players very easily at its Arcade BR’ when I wasn’t even saying anything about that to begin with.
I frankly don’t see this conversation going anywhere with two of these deadpan answers seemingly coming with no regard to what I’m actually saying but I still oppose the idea of removing vehicles outright from the game unless absolutely necessary - and I do not think ‘is not competitive at its BR’ is a justification to simply axe a vehicle from a tree despite it being semi natural progression. If you want it to go down in BR it has the inverse issue of the A2D (9.0 in AB despite being 7.0 in RB because people bombed their way to that BR in Arcade due to auto-refilling bombs) and would frankly be all it needs if we don’t tackle the fundemental gameplay loop issues bombers have as a whole.
for me, its sort of a matter of whether the developers can make it fit into the game at least somewhat properly,which given the lack of care given to making bombers functional in active games post bomber strength nerf many years ago.
given the disparity when it comes to the gap between subsonic and supersonics complaints, you could expect both sides to be extremely angry when any supersonic is lowered in br by any means since that will sometimes cause subsonics to encounter certain full blown superosonics. When it comes to that, the developers would try to mitigate it in some way,sometimes a bit too little or a bit over the top.
i consider them possibly removing just removing it or hiding it off just to avoid the hassle like previously done(similar case to the po-2(not particularly useful but sometimes that is nice to have,not nice to use) hiding hago(good tank for 1.0 despite low performing gun) or the dissappearance of the few german tanks for balancing reasons( if i remember correctly maus was removed bacause it couldnt fit in the ww2 and cold war properly without being on both end of the balancing problem). as for the supersonic / subsonic era which the yak-28B fit should fit somewhere in 9.7 to 10.0. but due to the supersonic/subsonic issue, it would probably keep jumping between 10.7 and 9.7 until the developers decided it is not worth the hassle to attempt to balance and throw it in the bin.
basically my idea of its possible removal would probably be an eventual predicament from previous scenarios occured unless they make a bomber dedicated mode ( which i have doubts whether they would even make it,as heli modes are pretty much abandoned by the developers, or assault( not many players played it due to low rewards and bad experiences at low tier assault while being played by lots of 9.0 to 12.0 players)
I find it an excellent base bomber in RB - only problem is sometimes ripping the wings in straight and level flight 'cos the engines are too powerful!!
I consider the Maus a different case and frankly think its current ‘semi-removed’ status is fine as is - it’s not a ‘meta’ vehicle even if I do enjoy it and it’s a vehicle with a very specific playstyle that both works and doesn’t work at the same time. It’s a very radically tilted vehicle with very strong traits in armor and firepower but lacks the reactive mobility to really be ‘fun’ for a lot of people as well, compared to the Yak-28B which frankly doesn’t differ much from something like the Vautour in current roles and is arguably better now that the Vautours have lost their airspawns in RB. The Yak-28B can still perform its main role in modes like Realistic e.g. bombing bases however pitiful the bombload is because it’s still a supersonic with flares at the end of the day unless you fly it at sea level where it can’t go mach, and it has CCIP (the Vautours don’t even have this) as well so you can drop your bombs from immense distances without any worry of being intercepted. Compared to the Maus it can fulfill its primary role without much issue outside of being a bit of a brick to fly and in RB it is fairly well placed - you can’t really remove a vehicle because it doesn’t work in one specific mode of your choosing when it’s not even that dysfunctional (albeit a bit pointless from a practical POV) to play. Might as well remove the Type 60 ATM from the game then since it sucks in RB (meanwhile in AB it has SACLOS missile controls making it far less poor, but by this logic it shouldn’t matter since only one mode’s performance should clearly dictate if a vehicle is in or out of the game, right?).
The Maus is better off as a limited time availability vehicle because it’s such a polarizing vehicle to play to begin with, and the Yak-28B is simply a lesser alternative to other vehicles due to powercreep and low bombload in exchange for some more survivability in RB where planes don’t get run down instantly because everything has jacked engine power. I see no reason or case for its removal and if we were to remove it from the game a long list of niche vehicles would have to also leave the game for this exact same reason which to me is just both untenable and incredibly shortsighted.
Also in simulator it worked well but now it is little bit outdated. RWR would help with this, but for some reason Gaijin didn’t implement it.
https://ruslet.webnode.cz/technika/ruska-technika/letecka-technika/a-s-jakovlev/jak-28b-brewer-a-/
I am lazy to translate it to English.
Here are RWR antennas on Yak-28B in game.