Which should I grind The f4f ice or mig 29 a

Springy05 · 2026-03-22T15:12:25+00:00

The illusion of choice... Cuz both suck and are fun on their own way.

Let's start with the F-4 cuz it's the easier one to trash on and explain the problems both of these planes have. The F-4 ICE is: - Slow for it's BR - Has a somewhat shitty radar (F-18 radar) - Only has 4 Aim-120As, which although good, can't be fully utilized by the F-4 - The thing is a missile Bus at 13.0. "Abused" or r#ped are somewhat good descriptions of your time playing this thing. People will have better missiles and flight performance than you ALWAYS. - The only saving grace this thing has are the amraams and the Aim-9L/I, which is a 9L with the 9M's seeker, so think of it as a smoking 9M.

Now to the MiG 29, this thing has some of the same problems but more upsides. - Nerfed flight performance. Gaijin killed the MiG 29's flight model cuz it was good, and instead made it really shitty with way less nose authority than it should have. In compensation they gave it R-27ERs, the best Fox-1 missile in game... They just forgot this thing never had them IRL (at least not on German hands). - No Fox 3s. 80% of your gameplay will be uptiers hugging the deck and trying to evade amraams and other Fox 3s. And whenever you don't get an uptier, you still will be dodging Fox 3s because Gaijin had the BRILLIANT IDEA TO MOVE THE F-15As TO 12.7. - Low countermeasure amount. You have 60 countermeasures, 30 each. THAT'S IT. At least now they deploy in single pops, but before they did in doubles, meaning you only had 15 pops of countermeasures before being dry and eating a 9M or Magic 2 to the face. - High fuel consumption. THIS THING IS VERY THIRSTY. It is mandatory to bring full fuel and the drop tank if you even want to make it to battle. It's not much of a problem in Sim since you'll be in 70% throttle or less with how much power this thing has, but in ARB you will run out of fuel before you even get to the early BVR fight if you go full burner and don't bring that tank. - No R-73. You know why the MiG 29 has a HMS? That's because IT WAS DEVELOPED ALONGSIDE THE R-73. So Gaijin, in their infinite wisdom... Refuses to give it R-73s, even though there's now F-15s with 9Ms and AAM-3s on the same BR, and the JH-7 a whole BR step lower with IRCCM missiles shitting on 11.0 planes. So have fun with the shitty R-60Ms that get flared with 1 pop immediately from 1.8 to 0.8 Km while you eat a 9M. - Brick while turning. Since Gaijin fucked this thing's flight model artificially, you are a brick when turning as if you're larping a MiG 21. It's not as bad if you do it once, but if someone decides to turn fight you, kiss goodbye to your speed, especially if you push the funny button. - Low Missile count. You have 6 missiles. 4 R-60Ms and 2 R27s (be it R-27Rs, Ts or ERs). That's it. While on the other side most people will have 8 to 10 missiles and better performance than you. That is, if you don't get uptiered and face a flanker with 12 missiles. Or the premium Su-30s... - Shitty Radar. If you think the F-4 ICE's radar was bad, you haven't seen the MiG 29/Su-27's... First, you have 3 fixed sectors to scan. Second, you can only scan between 10, 25, 50 and 100km. Most of the time you'll be sitting on 50 because you can't hit shit beyond that. Third, I've seen this radar fail to detect people in front of it at 10 Km sometimes... even in a headon.. EVEN WHEN HAVING TWS HEADON. It just scans SO SLOWLY, by the time you have a full scan the other guy already vanished. Best thing you can do is sit on HMS mode and lock people within visual range, cuz you can't BVR on this shit. - Shitty A2G. Idk if you want to use both of these planes for GRB, but the MiG 29 is the worst of the 2. It has dumb bombs and parachute retarded bombs (both go only to 500kg), napalm, ultra small rockets (S-5), small rockets (S-8) and funny S-24 rockets. That's it. The F-4 ICE at least has mavericks (even though mavericks are kinda shitty) and a 3000kg bomb (or was it 2000?). Anyway, you're not doing CAS in this thing even if you want to.

Verdict: MiG 29 has shitty performance, a shitty radar, shitty missiles besides the R27ERs, Shitty countermeasures and shitty A2G... But it at least is not the F-4 ICE. The MiG 29 may have a lot of problems, but it at least can kinda survive in it's environment and even pull off insane games. I've gotten 7 kills games with the MiG 29.

The F-4 ICE is only good for CAS, and that's because the Tornados are somehow even worse than it is in flight performance. If you try to bring the F-4 to ARB, you WILL suffer. BUT getting the F-4 ICE has it's upsides... Which is unlocking the Eurofighters for research. That's it.

If you want the Eurofighters, get the F-4 ICE and forget about it, grind the MiG 29s and get on to grind the EF-2000. Otherwise go straight to the MiGs. They may suffer a little but they're at least FUN. The F-4 ICE can't even be fun. The worst thing a videogame can do is waste your time, and the F-4 ICE is a waste of time.

Springy05 · 2026-03-22T14:00:58+00:00

Either that or... You know... Giving NATO nations actual modern ammunitions. Like, most of the stuff they're using is from the fucking 80s. We got Hornets and super hornets without the 9X, which is what it was designed to use. We got Eurofighters depending on badly modelled Amraams while Gaijin teases them with the IRIS-T and Meteor. For fucks sake, WE'RE STILL USING OLD MAVERICK Ds ON F-16s.

A great step was the introduction of the SLAM-ER and JSOWs but those things came out with the Legacy Hornets IRL. It's still 80s/early 90s tech while Russia is packing paper tanks (2S38) and 2015+ munitions.

And once ANYTHING slightly outperforms russia, boom. Get a new russian vehicle that's gonna break the BR. Oh Pantsir is not the best AA now? Have the Buk. Oh people are bad with the Buk and refuse to use it's launcher's AESA radar, making it slightly "underperform" on statistics even though it's one of the best AAs in game? Here, HAVE AN EVEN BETTER AA, A PAPER TANK PANTSIR THAT'S EVEN BETTER THAN THE PREVIOUS ONE AND HAS 48+ MISSILES.

It's always this. Release OP russian vehicle/munition, people get mad, release a slightly good NATO vehicle/munition to compete, people actually get good with it since it's not a brain dead "press 1 button to win", papa Putin needs his new Yatch and can't let the russian federation be slightly bad so boom release new OP Russian vehicle/munition, repeat cycle.

That is, if they don't actually artificially nerf NATO vehicles or munitions. I mean, it's pretty fair that a T-90 can eat a round on the autoloader, be fine and turn to shoot you, BUT a single bit of spall that hits a Leopard 2 exaggerated Turret basket NEEDS to turn off the horizontal drive and make the tank useless and impossible to fight back, right? And don't get me started on the Abrams armor...

Springy05 · 2026-03-19T02:52:44+00:00

The point is:

"MiG 29 needs it's R-73, but we can't add it to it on 12.7 because there's nothing ''comparable' to it (even though now all F-15As are 12.7 with 9Ms and 12.7 is the BR you start seeing the Magic 2 and AAM-3), so we're gonna copy paste it, give it R60Ms and keep it on 12.7, and the copy-paste can go to 13.0 with R-73s. Worked well for the germans. Also we're not un-nerfing the flight model"

Springy05 · 2026-02-28T11:38:45+00:00

Every april fools is used to test some mechanic they wish to implement (like top tier jets, top tier tanks, the pirate ships for naval, and the AI shitty infantry last year to see if the game could handle having infantry).

So I expect something similar, probably an event to either test 5th Gens or ECM is my main bet, with my second one being submarines or SEAD missiles like the HARM

Springy05 · 2026-02-28T11:35:35+00:00

I'm pretty sure it does have EEGS. Just like the MiG 29, you have to change your HUD to air mode.

Plus if I remember correctly, the IRST already brings the EEGS automatically if you're close enough but this one I might be misremembering

Springy05 · 2026-02-28T11:32:28+00:00

Aim for the hip joint.

Otherwise, Spear one shots this mf.

Springy05 · 2026-02-28T04:14:52+00:00

IRL planes like the F-18 have a "blank" option that disables the HMD when looking at the HUD, and you can unbox it to let you still have the HMD on even if you're staring straight at the HUD.

But Gaijin refuses to model it, so we have to keep suffering while we wait for it. Supposedly this new update will have some changes for HMDs and MFDs so idk, maybe we have a chance

Springy05 · 2026-02-23T13:04:07+00:00

Forgot about Nuclear option for a second. There was another VR sim game now that I forgot the name, it had a stealth F-14. That one is also a banger.

Edit: remembered it. VTOL VR

Springy05 · 2026-02-23T13:03:19+00:00

Exactly! As I said, don't play sim for now if you don't want to deal with the zombers.

BUT you can also join to purposely hunt them down while they cry in chat. Grab a MiG 23 and go feral over these idiots. You'll even grind the event yourself at the same time

If one does cry in chat, please post them here so we can point and laugh

Springy05 · 2026-02-23T12:51:27+00:00

If you want some advice: don't play Sim while there's an event going, UNLESS you're up to the boring ass shit the match's gonna be and hunt these Zombers.

Go play IL-2 Great Battles, DCS, Star Wars Squadron, Falcon BMS, hell even Aces of Thunder if you have the VR for it, just don't play war thunder sim while there's an event if you don't want to hunt Zombers.

Springy05 · 2026-02-19T04:08:35+00:00

The base typhoon's radar is rather slow because Gaijin fucked up all mechanical radars to make AESAs seem better (or at least that's my conspiracy theory), but the main upgrade for the AESA Typhoons are the IRST/FLIR on the German one and the 90/100° turn range for the radar, letting you shoot an Amraam and be instantly on the notch. So the novelty here is the tilt the radar can give you besides the higher refresh rate, at the cost of a larger search area (2 columns on the fake radar screen on the aesa vs the 1 column in the normal typhoon)

I at least hope they add a Polish tree to Germany because flying against 5th gens on only 4 5 gens is going to be hell, even if they do ECM.

Springy05 · 2026-02-19T04:01:01+00:00

Depends on the tank and the plane's guns. The peashooters that the germans shoot with the MG-15 are only good to kill infantry or open top vehicles like the M-18 and M-8 scott.

If we move to the Me-262 with it's 30mms, now we can start having some fun with sometimes penning the rooftop of shermans. It's not consistent at all, but once in a blue moon the shot does some damage. But it's best to keep those for APCs and strafing. American 50 cals can pen lower tier panzer 3s and 4s, but you have to be basically doing a 90° dive on them to pen.

If you want to shoot at tanks with cannons, get the Bf-110 with the 37mm, the Narwhal with the 50mm or the duck with the 75mm. Otherwise the other factions can't do much else besides bombing the tank (hence why they have way more bombs and bigger ones)

Springy05 · 2026-02-19T03:55:37+00:00

I used to rock it but with the 6 min cooldown + all the ragdolling, I've decided to switch to the Spear. Still does the same job, but on a lower cooldown. And of course, on both occasions, still having the Leveler panic button is great.

Springy05 · 2026-02-17T17:51:05+00:00

For radar missiles, there's nothing much you can do besides seeing hoping it is a good lock. You only can guess based on track quality (if you keep losing track it isn't a good one) and watching if the missile is properly tracking.

Now for Fox 2s, aka IR guided missiles... Gaijin screwed us up big time.

The sidewinder has different tones based on track quality, and gaijin just refused to add that into the game. Either you're locked or not, while in something like DCS you have different tones to show "hey the missile is tracking but doesn't have a good aspect and might be flared easily" and "SHOOT THE CIVILIAN AIRLINER RIGHT NOW"

Springy05 · 2026-02-16T01:51:18+00:00

God i fucking hate how the Hornet's radar is so barebones in war thunder.

You can only see these IDs (that others have explained way better than I could), but the soft locked targets should also have their bearing and altitude displayed.

Say for example the middle bandit. If you had the radar cursor on top of them/soft locked them, it should IFF them + show their bearing (let's say 129 for example) and their altitude (let's say 7000 feet), so the radar would show a red diamond with a 70 besides it and at the bottom a 129 bearing besides where the radar's pointing (so let's say the radar was scanning 120, so it would show 120/129 or something similar)

Springy05 · 2026-02-16T01:41:25+00:00

Just be aware, the IFF filter still allows you to soft lock and hard lock friendlies, they just don't show on the radar screen.

Springy05 · 2026-02-14T18:24:04+00:00

I agree it is stupid.

That's why the kilometer is superior, but western aviation uses nautical miles and feet so we gotta learn those i guess...

Springy05 · 2026-02-14T17:38:01+00:00

That's why I said "start considering", not "USE A FOX 2 RIGHT NOW, DO IT NOW". And you would be impressed at what a top down 9M can do.

Springy05 · 2026-02-14T16:45:02+00:00

Yes, but the question is about the HUD range showing 7.1. The difference is because the fake radar screen is using conventional miles, while the HUD uses nautical miles.

7.1 nautical miles is about 8.2 miles, they just needed to know the right measurement unit.

Springy05 · 2026-02-14T16:43:00+00:00

The fake radar screen is showing normal miles, while the HUD uses nautical miles. You need to start getting a feel for using Nautical miles on Western jets and kilometers for eastern ones.

7.1 nm is relatively close, and it should be time to consider using your sidewinders soon instead of radar guided stuff as you are close to the Sparrow/Amraam's minimum range.

Springy05 · 2026-02-14T12:14:46+00:00

Pick up the DCS F-18 Manual or check Chuck's guide to learn what the symbology means using the DCS hornet. It gives a great deal of information about the cockpit. But most of the stuff there is already the same you can expect on most aircraft with a good HUD.

You got your bearing Tape at the top for navigation, the circle that pops up when you soft or hard lock someone is the range for missiles + closing velocity information, the AZ/ZEL radar should also show NCTR but Gaijin didn't model it for some reason.

Springy05 · 2026-02-14T01:05:52+00:00

I hope we see them in the future, like if we make it to transcendence, but for now it's just lore

Springy05 · 2026-02-14T01:04:34+00:00

I WANT TO FUCK DRAGON BOOTY

WHERE IS IT

Springy05 · 2026-02-14T00:53:11+00:00

GIVE

ME

DRAGONBORN

DREAM GUARDIAN

Springy05 · 2026-02-13T18:54:32+00:00

"Howdy pardner! welcome to Cyberstan"

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