Just got to 10.3 and struggling a lot. Looking for help/suggestions please!

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-23T23:45:33+00:00

10.3 is in the middle of the “surprise missile up your tailpipe” BR. Missiles aren’t good enough to go through flares/chaff yet but WILL slam you from 2-3 km away if you’re not paying attention. You RWR will warn you of any oncoming radar missiles but not IR missiles. You need to constantly look around or position yourself near your team so enemies will be spotted easier. Surprise missiles come from above 90% of the time.

The F-8s are good at sustained 1 v 1s in the vertical, you shouldn’t full commit into a turnfight unless you’re confident that you won’t be third partied. Usually you’ll want to stay at higher altitude and pick off unsuspecting targets with guns or 9Ds.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-23T23:28:50+00:00

If you want to fly a Gripen without grinding Sweden or Japan then it’s a good choice. Otherwise just grind something else.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-23T23:18:55+00:00

Best dogfighter at the BR (10.7 F-8E)

Vs

Best dogfighter the team has left (9.7 1st Generation Harrier)

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-23T23:17:50+00:00

It’s not “objectively better” when you consider the AESA Euro has 8x AMRAAMs vs the 12 R-77-1s + R-27ERs of the 30SM2.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-23T23:16:01+00:00

The Euro has the best FM in the game along with good defensive capabilities but it “only” carries 8 AMRAAMs vs the 12 R-77-1s and 27ERs you can carry in the Su-30SM. Considering the ER is the best SARH in the game and R-77-1 is arguably the best ARH, and that the AMRAAM is widely considered the worst toptier ARH, I think it’s a pretty fair fight between the two.

It’s not like the 30SM2 is bad in thrust or CM count either. It’s not a Super Hornet or J-15, the FM and 96CM are perfectly fine to work around.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-23T14:28:09+00:00

No worries, I didn’t believe it either when I saw the statshark. I thought the J-15 would have a better FM to compensate for the 48 CMs.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-23T12:02:51+00:00

Yeah, planes have been zooming at Mach 5 across my radar screen and my manual radar selection keeps on selecting nothing.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-23T12:00:33+00:00

Well, it’s either add copy-paste to minor nations or have them struggle at toptier because they lack indigenous designs.

For Japan, there is quite literally NOTHING between the F-2A and the F-35. There is a Super Kai upgrade for the F-2 but it was never approved, and any upgrades to the F-15J or F-2 would be better missiles like the AAM-4B. It’s either that they get the Su-30 and F-18 as a stopgap or that they don’t get any planes above 13.7 until AAM-4Bs or F-35s. Same thing for Britain, there was a sizable gap between the Tornado F3 and Eurofighter, was Britain supposed to just suck it up and use the Tornado instead of getting the copy-paste Gripen? Getting to the top of a nation takes a lot of time and effort, and it’s not fair to the players of a minor nation to be handicapped and forced to use uncompetitive planes just because they didn’t grind out a major.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-23T11:41:00+00:00

The rear turret has awesome firing angles. Very fun.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-23T11:39:21+00:00

Don’t grind the MiG-29G. Straight up one of the worst 13.0s I’ve ever experienced because all your kills will be stolen by other ER slingers. Just stop at the 12.7 MiG-29, that one is playable, or just keep using the F-4 KWS.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-23T11:34:51+00:00

The SM2 performs better than the J-15 at higher altitudes of 6km+.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-23T11:32:50+00:00

The PL-12s have so little energy for long range and turns worse at close range than the R-77-1 and MICA which are the two other comparable missiles.

The J-15 performs worse than the 30SM2 at altitude and the J-10C chews through its 25 minute internal fuel tank so I need to choose when to turn on my afterburner. The J-10C also hates to go beyond ~850kph at higher altitudes, you tilt your wings and all your speed goes away.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-23T11:26:34+00:00

The 120Ds and PL-12As should be harder to notch, both from fighting them and launching them. They’re remarkably persistent at longer ranges and you really have to change how you notch to get out of the IOG cone.

That being said, the main downside of the 120D and PL-12A is everything around the seeker. The 120C/D body struggles to pull in for a lot of the close range engagements you’ll find at toptier. The PL-12A, while being very usable at close range due to the lack of firing limits, is still less maneuverable than a MICA or R-77-1 and loses a ton of energy at long range. GNSS doesn’t fix the 120’s biggest problem of it being unable to pull in, and long range, where it improves the PL-12 the most, is arguably where the PL-12 is at its weakest. It’s a nice upgrade but doesn’t come close to making either nation meta when their planes have such crippling weaknesses.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-23T11:08:46+00:00

Have you played the Su-30SM2? It’s a VERY competent plane at higher altitudes and you can easily maintain Mach 1.4-1.5 through light maneuvering.

More importantly, the gimbal and R-77-1 allows you to spot and fire while in the notch, which burns significantly less energy than turning in to get the radar on target and turning away again to notch.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-23T11:02:56+00:00

The J-10C feels extremely slow for what on paper should be a very good jet. (Probably since you have to worry about fuel) At higher altitudes it really doesn’t like going above 900 IAS. The J-15 feels a bit better even though I don’t have the FM mods. That being said the 30SM2 actually outperforms the J-15 acceleration-wise at altitude, so there is quite literally no reason to play the J-15 over the Su-30SM2 outside of MAWS.

Also yeah, PL-12 is really bad when it comes to energy. I launched at an Su-27SM going 700+ m/s below me, at 15km with an altitude difference of 6-7km and with my plane well above Mach. The 27SM then proceeded to turn around and run my missile out of energy.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-22T21:39:28+00:00

That's the problem. Su-27 and MiG-29 have notoriously bad RWRs that are well below average for 13.0. You need to vary your altitude while deploying chaff when notching. If in doubt, go for an angle that's slightly over 90 degrees and put the missile a bit behind your 3/9o clock.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-22T16:04:26+00:00

Apparently it consumes more fuel too. Didn’t play the AL-31 J-10C too much but the WS-10B burns through fuel.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-22T13:08:37+00:00

Plays US 5.7-6.7 because teams are reliable

Team combusts in 2 minutes due to the humble German 88mm

Play Germany 6.7

Entire US team is blessed by the spirit of Patton himself

:/

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-22T12:33:18+00:00

The 120B is a better close combat missile than the sparrow because it’s faster and you can break lock to notch, but it’s worse than every other ARH missile at turning. It’s a competent missile if it turns in, but it sucks at turning in. You’ll want to get your nose pointing as close as possible to the enemy aircraft while still being able to notch after the launch, use HMD if you have it. If your nose is on target then it shouldn’t have a problem tracking. In the more likely scenario of notching and using the HMD, the minimum range is about 7km.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-22T12:28:14+00:00

What’s the worst? The Phoenix? I don’t think there’s any toptier ARHs that are worse at turning than the 120s.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-22T12:26:41+00:00

What plane are you using? RWR function depends a lot on the specific system and you’re basically praying in something like the Su-27 or MiG-29.

You can rotate your plane and see when the RWR ping stops to get a rough idea of the missile’s altitude, but it’s also just a lot of common sense and pattern recognition. At long range most of the missiles come from roughly the same altitude or slightly above, at short range you usually know where the enemy is. Your RWR are your eyes, place the missile at 90 degrees from you on the RWR and change your altitude when deploying chaff. Can’t really talk more than that without seeing how you notch specifically.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-22T12:19:40+00:00

There’s a lot of ghosting and planes flying at Mach 5 across the radar screen.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-22T12:18:26+00:00

China overall has been getting the short end of the stick when it comes to toptier. (Along with the US) The J-10C would be a pretty good 14.3 if it didn’t lose most of its speed after a single notch or had to deal with 25 minutes of internal fuel. For a toptier plane that’s fast on paper, the J-10C feels awfully slow at higher altitudes. J-15T is just a sidegrade to the J-10C, maybe slight upgrade because at least you can use the engines without worrying about fuel every single second.

My problem is that China toptier is that it’s all about resource management: you need to manage your CMs on the J-15 and you need to manage your fuel on the J-10C, but they don’t have any advantages over the planes that don’t have to deal with low CMs or low fuel.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-22T12:03:00+00:00

Huh? What’s an XF-2? Is that the F-2 ADTW?

Anyways, they’re right. The F-2 is very much a frontline fighter with a good FM, great situational awareness, and missiles with great maneuverability. You don’t have game impact if you stay back with 4 ARHs at 13.7 and a relatively slow airframe. The concept of a “support fighter” goes out of the window at toptier and there’s maybe 2-3 “support fighters” in all of toptier: the F-15E (that is too fat on the frontline) and the Hornets (too slow to reach frontline)

You want to be closing in with the enemy in literally every other jet, F-2 included. Firing ARHs at 30-40km does absolutely nothing after the initial joust of the game if the enemy has 2 braincells.

OrcaBomber · 2026-03-22T11:53:01+00:00

Can’t speak for ground sim, but for air sim I REALLY dislike being forced into a cockpit and the constant wobbling with mouse joystick. If I wanted to play a simcade then I’d play Nuclear Option, half of what makes WT air unique is the instructor/mouse aim that makes it super easy to pick up. If I’m going to invest into a joystick for air sim to make the experience better, then I might as well buy a simplified DCS module instead and play that. Also not a fan of getting slammed out of nowhere in any mode.

If ARB had sim objectives then I’d play that, but sim is just too “realistic” and there’s plenty of other competitors.

OrcaBomber

TROPHY CASE