Definitely Capable Of Fighting Rank 8 Jets /s: F-104S ASA (War Thunder)

It’s totally competitive bro just trust me

Thanks for all the support. It means more than you know :)

[Lonxreelbreel]

What works best for me is in the ASA is bank 90° to the side at the start, sideclimb to 10k, wait for the furball to start and then just eagle drop down and take out 3-4 high prio targets with the 9L's. No one in top tier climbs anymore and the planes with sparrows and the like are so focussed on locking people in front of them on the deck, they're not expecting death from above. It's all about timing your approach to be succesful.

[damaan]

Wake up babe, Spitflyer ASA video dropped

[Lonxreelbreel]

That F14 reversal and 9L kill was brilliant btw :) Love the way it curved straight into his engines

[benni]

When they implemented the loadout system into the game, you could make a loadout with aspides. the vulcan and aim 9l. Gaijin fixed that but they never removed the already existing loadouts, hence i can use this to this day. This does make the ASA fairly capable, although it is still no match to the F14. When they work the Aspides are quite good, but the radar is so buggy, they are very inconsistant.

[Jaeger_]

There are certain planes that I think Gaijoob needs to dump the technical/historical aspect and give countermeasures for the sake of balancing. Such is the case of the early 104s, T-2/F1 and other similar aircraft. You can't keep bumping them down and you can't keep them where they are because they are nearly useless. That way you can also spread the higher BRs so planes that are going to fall behind against Tier 8 won't completely massacre the fragile balance below them and push even more shit below when they get lowered in BR.

[PaulGrech]

Literally completed spading the F-104J today to avoid all the new spam of missiles with no countermeasures

[mrcoolkidgaming]

That was a cool reverse maneuver trick you did with the f14, i might try that trick once i buy it in Germany, since i am already grinding it while i am mainly grinding in Swedish air tree, i am almost done with sweden and then i will grind in germany

[Iskads]

The fact that this will be fighting Mig-29s, F-16s and probably more advanced planes further on is ridiculous, but I would like to say a few tips because this is my favourite plane and I play it a bit too much.

To counter basically all SARH missiles you should fly tree top level, and i do mean tree top, at that height even PD radar will be confused and think its target is lower than you actually are and miss, you do however need to move a bit to the side when the missile is coming so the explosion on the ground doesn't damage you and you don't lose alot of speed with this.

Some people say to climb, but i disagree, it just makes you vulnerable to SARH while you can achieve the same thing when going left of the battlefield and flanking with the Ls, if they don't see you or don't know how to properly dodge its a free kill. I don't usually fire them frontally, but when I do i accompany it with a burst of 20 mms, then they either don't see the missile or forget to flare it, or the 20 mm gets them, its still not guaranteed tho.

[farmcat]

I got this F-104S TSA to hit 2071km/h before the wings ripped off the thing i think is prolly the fastest jet in the new ranks for premiums, no lie i even got vid pics of it 👍 but this thing turns like a rock.

[angelvidal]

When rank 8 really arrives in the future this jet could get a new update since it served till early 2000's. This model is the 104s-asa but the latest one was the f-104s-asa/m. Which could be released as another aircraft or just give the new systems/weapons to it.

[Check_Vibe]

I personally do very good in the ASA
Usually 3 kill games
You gotta eagle dive to furballs and fire em off and get out quick
The countermeasures while limited, save your life
You can dogfight very but it’s limited with your advantage being the roll rate but that’s last last resort

I personally enjoy the play style and find it just fun
You gotta be always ready to take advantage of your teammates dogfights
Most my deaths are AIM54/AIM7 head ons that always usually result in trades

You are the ultimate supporter
You come in like a gust of wind and sweep away the trash
You must be methodical about your moves, it teaches you to look at things a new way

[elnewbie]

Italy became my fav nation after player it for a couple of months to the point that now I am an Italian main, and I can say with confidence that Italy is probably one of the high skills-required tech trees if not the one with most skills required to play, I like that from Italy, it's challenging to play, it makes you a better player after dying 500 times, and all that knowledge gained with one specific lineup, sometimes can or cannot be applied to a new lineup so you have to learn to play your new lineup, in summary, you need skills to play Italy and it's not just go brain dead and kill everyone, cough Germany...

[Hellyeahheaven]

I love this aircraft and I agree it is a great fit for fighting rank 8's, but not as it is. It was built with ECM radar jammer, that's why it's RWR gives no directional indication. Gaijin took the RWR functionality because historical accuracy, but didn't give it the ECM because either they hate Italians or just didn't bother working ECM into the game yet. I also read somewhere that it had lead indication for its guns in close range when it had a radar lock on a target. If they gave it the systems it was designed to have, it would be not only fitting to fight rank 8, but to be a rank 8 itself.

[ODST_Parker]

Could not have said it better myself. Had the exact same experience, but with much less experience. This is my first and only top-tier fighter, and it was a pain to spade. I did it, and I'm proud of that, but it was mostly not an enjoyable process. Countermeasures and AIM-9Ls are required to do anything. You cannot carry a battle by yourself against opponents with brains.

It's niche in every sense of the word, only being top-tier at all thanks to the missiles. Now that they work properly, they're fantastic, but the opportunity to use them is not guaranteed. The footage you show is mostly people who didn't flare, who didn't even see you. That rarely happened to me, as the moment someone spotted me, they tended to tunnel-vision me because they knew they could kill me easily. F-14s, MiG-23s, Mirages, etc. will all out-perform you one-on-one. You cannot carry a battle, it's just not possible unless your opponents are crippled or braindead.

[StudleyDuderight]

Good video for demonstrating the importance of managing closure. Players get so focused on trying to get the kill that they don't notice they're closing too fast and end up overshooting.

[ofekk]

An important thing everyone talking about this jet misses is that the F-104S.ASA does not have a true PD radar like most jets at that BR, but MTI instead, and unlike the MiG-23 it does not have an alternative LD mode for high altitude.

MTI works very differently from normal PD, behaving in a reversed way compared to true PD: instead of directly measuring an enemy aircraft's acceleration toards you, MTI radars measure the acceleration of the ground toards you and register any anomality in the scan as a target.

As a result, it is much harder to notch or chaff MTI radar lock, but it is a bit trickier to get a lock in the first place because you need to make sure theres always ground between you and the enemy aircraft.


edit: MTI radars _should_ be immune to ground noise because of this, but Gaijin seems to think differently.

[spencerdenney]

The 104SASA is a weird one. For me it's one of my most fun aircraft to fly in the game, and it's one of the few jets I've gotten 5+ kill games in. You have to play it very different and its a huge challenge, but its one of those aircraft that it's a good challenge.

[AkiUwUx]

Mind you, it's even worse now facing the F-14B

[garudalead]

At 4:25 watch the merge between the two jets at the bottom, they shoot down each other's missile. I didn't know that was possible

[michaelrossi]

What I do with the ASA is immediately turn left at a 60 degree heading and when you are 15km away from your teammates turn back in. Because you are so fast and most enemy planes are distracted, you will get easy aim 9l kills