Delta vs F-4 tactics?

[harryleith 12]

After nearly 2 years playing SF2, I have just started playing WOE multiplayer with a friend. He is new to flight sims (the last time we played was Chuck Yeager's Air Combat) and we had some fun, but I found we were both just cranking around in the sky.

 

He was in an F-4 and I took several aircraft, including MiG-23s and a Mirage IIIE. Due to keyboard limitations, I was playing without radar. We would close and merge, then crank around for another pass. I felt I should be doing something else, especially given the Mirage as a delta wing fighter has a big turning circle. However, when I tried the vertical, the twin engines of the F-4 meant he had more power, his AIM-9J Sidewinders were better than my AIM-9Bs and I got splashed.

 

In this matchup I wasn't sure what to try. If I tried extending, he could just pick me off with Sparrows. I tried low and fast and waited till he ran out of missiles, then chased him around the sky until I got a guns kill. (AIM-9Bs, remember! They never did lock on...)

 

I would appreciate any thoughts.

 

PS. What are the limitations on multiplayer? I noticed a lot of stuff seemed to be simplified. No chaff or flares. My MiG-23 didn't have a radar, despite a radar guided AA-7 Apex under one wing glove! Not all the third party aircraft showed up, including the Mirage Factory MiG-29s I was hoping to fly.

[+streakeagle 871]

Multiplayer will allow you to fly non-flyables using a generic A-4 Skyhawk cockpit, but that won't allow the aircraft to function correctly, i.e. no radar for MiG-21, and MiG-23. You need to download 3rd party mods for MiGs.

 

As for how to win against an F-4 with an aircraft which has inferior maneuverability, inferior power, and inferior weapons... sheer pilot skill using reflexes and timing. I used to fly multiplayer a lot and would fly the F-100D Super Sabre to give new pilots a fighting chance. But, I could still beat them by forcing them to overshoot and taking a quick snapshot with guns as they zipped by me. Against a good pilot, all I could do is hope for a lucky head-on pass and then wait for the inevitable tail-chase followed by death.

 

If you are flying with the Oct 2008 patch level, AIM-7 Sparrows and even AIM-9s can be easily defeated: stay low. If you stay low and keep your speed up, you should be able to fight the F-4 on nearly equal terms, gun to gun. But you will find a slatted F-4E is still quite a bit more maneuverable than many of its contemporaries. Chaff and flares are not available on many aircraft in the old SF/WoX series games, as most of the planes covered did not have chaff or flare dispensers in the time frames covered by the game.

 

Try flying the same type of aircraft for a bit to evaluate tactics and skills. Then pick matchups designed to balance the game. i.e. if one player is simply better at ACM, don't give him the more maneuverable aircraft! If you both fly tubs like the F-100D and F-105D, the pace of the game will be a bit slower due to the wide turn radius and limited power in the vertical. The MiG-17 and MiG-19 are tough planes to beat close-in. The F-4 can't win using missiles against such maneuverable aircraft and will have a hard time getting a gun solution as well. Of course, the gun packages on the MiGs are low on ammo and rate of fire, so you have to be a skilled gunner to score hits or get in real close.

[+Gepard 11,303]

The stock MiG-23 are undermodelled a little bit when you compare it to the F-4. The same is to say about the soviet missiles, even the R-3S (AA-2) is worther than the AIM-9B and it was in reality a perfect one to one copy.

 

If you want to fight a F-4 with a Mirage or a MiG-23 or MiG-21 stay low, fight below 500 meters, there the radar of the F-4 cant lock on your plane, what means, that your opponent is unable to fire the Sparrows. in curve combat use the best turning speed of yor plane, what means, dont pull the stick to much, dont lose speed to much. Try to fly high speed or low speed jojos, if you has the enemy on your tail fly scissors, use your airbrake, make all the pilots stuff to avoid that he can open the fire. In a MiG-21 you can outturn a Phantom, with a well flown Mirage III too.

[harryleith 12]

Thanks guys. We added in a bunch of Mirage Factory aircraft (MiG-21, MiG-23s, F-14, F-16, MiG-29s, Mirage III) but only some of them show up in multiplayer. I'm not sure why. Thanks for the tips. I'll let you know how I get on...

[Slartibartfast 153]

Last time I flew online was with an A-4 and damn was that fun...

[Fubar512 1,350]

"even the R-3S (AA-2) is worther than the AIM-9B and it was in reality a perfect one to one copy"

 

Worthier? That's not exactly an accurate statement, Michael.

 

The original R-3 was such an exact copy of the '9B, that it has been said that the Soviets even imitated the (soldered) corporate logos on the circuit boards, in the belief that they were duplicating a necessary part of the circuit!

 

It was also said that one could swap boards and tubes between both missiles, without effecting the performance of either.

[+streakeagle 871]

Gepard was trying to say that the Atoll is even worse than an AIM-9B in the game, which he would argue is unfair since the design was nearly identical. Right or wrong, TK tends to favor western assessments of Soviet equipment over Soviet assessments. With no real solid reference, it is more a matter of personal opinion. It is my opinion that the observed build quality of Soviet equipment (such as tanks, MiGs, and ships) and the publicly reported combat records favor TK's assessment.

 

A Mirage III cannot turn tighter than an F-4E, with a very significant difference between sustained rates as observed by Israelis.

[+Gepard 11,303]

You are right i meant worser than worthier English language = difficult language :grin:

 

If Streakeagle said, that the combat records are favoring TK's assessment, so he is right, but also wrong. This point of view forgets one major factor and this factor is the soldier, pilot, who fight with the weapon.

Only one example from October 1973. Israeli observers stated, that egyptian T-55 tanks fought from stand still and needed 35 to 45 seconds to open the fire after detecting an enemy vehicle. Its a fact and true, but to draw the conclusion that the T-55 is not able to fight while driving and needs always more than 30 seconds to open the fire is dangerous. Why? In the east german army (NVA) the T-55 tank crews were drilled to fight while driving and open the fire after 15 seconds maxium after detecting the enemy vehicle. Imagine what would have happen if NVA tanks would have faced egyptian tanks in 1973:

Lets say one company in combat against one other T-55 company (10 vehicles each), one East german, the other egyptian, all tankers detect the enemy at the same time.

After 15 seconds the east germans open the fire. Hit chance of T-55 gun was 2/3 = 66%, what means, that 6 or 7 of the egyptian tanks would be hit and destroyed. The duell is now 10 vs 4 or 3. Even if the egyptians would fire back now, they would kill only one or two enemy tanks, but in case, that the egyptians need 35 seconds to open the fire, the east germans would fire the second round 5 seconds earlier than the egyptians their first shot, what means, that all egyptian tanks would be destroyed after the second or at least third german salvo. The same happend when israeli tanks came in contact with egyptians in 1973.

The israeli victories were victories of the more skilled soldiers, not of the better armed soldiers.

 

And last to fight the F-4E in game with the Mirage III is possible if you stay low and not to fast, and never go vertical. In reality it might have been different.

Edited September 15, 2011 by Gepard

[+streakeagle 871]

In reality, the quality and/or quantity of the people, be it infantry, armor, aircraft, or ships, almost always win over technical superiority. There has to be a major technological advantage with adequate numbers to overcome superior training/tactics. Usually, when there is a "turkey shoot" in air combat, whether it is over the Marianas in WW2, Korea, or the Bekaa Valley in 1982, there is a lot more going on in favor of the victor than a particularly good airplane or missile. Some computer simulated combat with AMRAAM to validate its value prior to going into production showed that great pilots win no matter what aircraft or weapons they are given, largely due to an uncanny ability to maintain "situational awareness" no matter what is going on. Of course, lesser pilots benefited greatly when given agile aircraft with great avionics and AMRAAM. In the case of Israeli performance, not only are they good at air combat with whatever they have available to fly, but they are good at propaganda as well. It can be hard to assess performance accurately when the information needed is being provided by the people being judged. It doesn't help when Israeli opposition either says nothing or makes claims as or more outrageous than the Israelis. I have read some Soviet assessments of the MiGs versus F-4s from Vietnam to Israel. But where the US is willing to admit they made mistakes and suffered unacceptable losses, the Soviet reports do nothing but praise their aircraft and criticize the F-4 and/or the poorly trained crews that failed to fly the MiGs properly. Whereas, the assessments I have read of the MiG-21 versus the F-5E and MiG-23 versus all major western aircraft from the F-4 and Mirage to the F-15 and f-16 seem far more honest/sincere.

 

No one has ever set up a lab where we can perfectly compare equipment in a way to provide fair data for flight sims. The fact is, mass production never produces identical products. Any two aircraft or missiles may have very different characteristics, perhaps performing significantly better or worse than the brochure data. The great thing about the SF series is you can easily change it to match your preferences if there is some aspect that really bothers you. At this point, so many patches and upgrades keep coming down the line, that I would rather stay stock just to keep it simple and not worry about which files didn't get updated correctly due to mods or broke mods due to updates. I still drop some stuff in for fun, just not the gigs and gigs of stuff that is available online (though I have downloaded and burned to DVD quite a bit of it).

 

In the latest SF2 patches, the Soviet equipment is performing much better than ever. MiG-23s are very much a threat. I can get comparable results with AA-2 Atolls as to AIM-9s per comparable versions. Later Atolls work plenty good :) AA-8s are absolutely the way to go if you can get into firing parameters. AA-7s seem to perform comparably to AIM-7Es, which is a pretty fair way to model it given what I have read online and in books. I have lots of stick time flying MiG-21s and MiG-23s. I can very much beat F-15s if I know where they are coming from, but agianst AIM-7F/Ms and AIM-9L/Ms with no decoys, there is no room for mistakes.

[+Gepard 11,303]

Back to topic.

 

Below screenshots of a dogfight Mirage III vs F-4E