Maybe I am just used to the Japanese perspective, I’ve been playing a lot of them recently. But in my encounters, as long as a opposing P-38 does not have the energy to leave a encounter or takes you out immedietly, you’ve got them dead to rights. Yes they shred you if they can hit you, so there will be times when you think you’re flying alone and then your pilot just dies, but when you know where they are and you got the room to manouver you just dive into them to avoid the incoming fire and then turn back around to get them in return. I fear being suprised by a P-38, but I don’t fear confronting one.
As for the bombs vs rockets debate, I agree, bombs are more useful. Rockets are, however, situationaly stronger, and I can confirm that having played on the mostly open Japanese maps, rockets are a very strong tool, given the right cirumstances. Not to mention that Japanese tanks in that BR bracket are very vulnerable to the HVARs, so whilst they’re less useful as vehicle killers against Germany, they are very dangerous to Japan.
It should also not be underestimated that one of rockets biggest benefits is reach. Being able to target people without having to fly directly over them is a good trade for being less effective at taking out armour. Being able to lob rockets inside cramped streets or inside buildings is huge, and so is being able to skirt AA defences.
Considering that the Corsair got bumped to br5 exactly because it’s a fighter with rockets… perhaps br2 is indeed too low. Br3 might be a good fit for it thought.
But I’m a fan of the P38, for air combat, I even prefer them to the Mustang.
Yes, Japanese tanks are weak against HVAR, but in my experience, the M8 performs much better against German tanks. I have never had good results with the M8 against HO-I, but I can easily hunt down PZ IVs.
Yes, but again, there’s only 2 and since you cannot really aim them correctly due to broken flight model AND that those rockets ALSO have dispersion… to kill tanks they also require direct hits.
So the rockets are only good if they can hit something, which is really difficult to do with them.
It’s also why almost no one use that plane…
It’s unreliable.
Might change if one day, the flight model finally gets fixed.
Two of them are much more deadly against infantry than 6 M8.
And against tanks, well I can’t comment, I’ve never tried to waste those rockets on tanks.
If you can score a direct hit… which is pure luck because the flight model is broken and those rockets have high dispersion.
In truth the broken flight model is the reason why the plane got lower br last patch. A lazy fix… instead of making it work properly they just lowered it’s br…
I would definitely say BR 3 for this as this is very comparable to the FP-5 (F6F) that is already in BR 3.
I would also like to see the Dive Bomber / Ground Attack variant of the P-51 added under attack pilot (See A-36A “Apache” (essentially a P51 with stronger wings and dive flaps):
