It’s worth noting that (at least in my experience with the American F-104s) you can deploy flaps above Mach for about 2 seconds before ripping, very useful for those high speed little adjustments for a shot
I have to say, I really appreciate you actually offering an opinion on this plane that isn't just "NO FLARES = BAD". Every other review/overview of this plane (and other F-104s) are just 5 very unhelpful minutes of bitching about the lack of flares and then 5 minutes complaining about how it doesn't turn. This is a good review. People! Watch this guy more.
Any game with some kind of winning 'meta' is always going to have players that feverishly pursue 'the meta.' Anything that falls outside 'the meta' is therefore probably not worth anything. That's how I see it, anyway
inb4 somebody asks for what the arrestor hook is used for in real life, it is used for engine run-up tests on the ground as the engine would overpower the wheel brakes and for emergency landing systems on runways. Most USAF jets have one, including the F-16, F-15, F-35A, and F-22.
A minor detail someone flying a Starfighter should keep in mind is that, while turn performance is generally lacking, it will outpull any other jet at altitude and beyond Mach 1. So should you find yourself in an uptier with something chasing you that's just as fast, you'll still be able to outmanoeuvre them if you go high and play your cards right. The Starfighter excels in situations where other planes would lock up.
@@user-gv4zb9rc6u True, especially on the flareless versions. There is a chance that in a chase scenario it's already pretty late into the game and your enemies might have expended all their missiles prior, but certainly not a chance you should rely upon.
I feel like the reason the Japanese had a better time with the starfighter is because they actually used it for what it was intended for lol not ground pounding
@@cmdrTremyss the Germans and Italians took a jet fully intended for interception and tried to make it a CAS over the G91s they had Lol never-mind the fact that both air forces were still rebuilding experience from WW2 lol go from Me 262, F86-CL13s to BOOM F104s for CAS lol
Iirc, newer US pilots actually had LOWER accident rates than more experienced US pilots in the 104, because when they were told “don’t do that, you’re gonna get yourself killed”, they took that as gospel
9:26 one of the more unrealistic things, since it only should work for the arrestor systems for shortening the landing on ground bases, not aircraft carriers. But since CV's are almost impossible to find outside of air sb...
When I first tried it, I honestly expected the hook not to catch and assumed it was just cosmetic ... when I realized it was functional, I had to include it in the review, as goofy and useless as it is.
As a suggestion, It could be interesting to either have reviews like this cover all the 104s in a single go, or have a dedicated video for each shared plane going through the differences between each one.
Tim I really appreciate that you give the Genuine history of the craft in your war thunder videos. It really is great as I was curious if these actually saw service with japan or just were on of those trainer projects etc.. thanks for the information - about do do some more research now :D
To grind through Rank VI and VII I just couldn't with this one, I ended up going with the F-1, it has the same weaponry plus you can do CAS and dogfight on some occasions. Still, this is a great review as always Tim!
turns out if you dont use an interceptor as a ground levelattacker and dont ban a country from having an airforce and then try and take people from props or basic jets to something competitive in terms of speed with modern jets.. its pretty safe
My experience with the 104J in regards to the turn time is that like everything else about this plane is situational, I get the best flat horizontal turns at high alt at mach 1.20 (managing to pull 10g's consistently). Low alt, I concur with your observation. If you manage your speed in a dive you can also sustain a long turn with minimal energy loss in a split S. As a rule of thumb never go below mach .90 for more than 3 seconds or you're dead
As an update to newer viewers, due to the br decompression at 10.0 and above, this thing has become quite useable at its own br (finally). Not only did it stay at 10.3 while everything else around it was shifted up, at some point since this video it got the ability to carry up to 6 Aim9Ps. As such, it’s become a missile boat which is now quite fast at its own br (as a star fighter should be). The stock grind is still not great, but if you find a play style that works for you with it, it will do mighty well for you now. This is one of my few planes with which I have a positive K:D, so I might be biased, but I do highly recommend it. I’ve flown well over a hundred matches with it and it still feels great to play.
I guess I should also add, if you use the rockets as flares, they work great on missile fired at you front aspect, but they’re nearly useless flaring rear aspect. This means you can head on A-10s and Su-25s with much less worry. As the players of both of those aircraft don’t expect flareless planes to survive head on missile shots, you can frequently catch them off guard and spray them down with your Vulcan. Also, I personally recommend not playing this like a F-104. I fly low to the ground flanking missions typically, and engage in guerrilla tactics, popping up from behind ridges, firing a missile or two, and then throwing on the afterburner to get out of there before they knew you were there. Rinse and repeat. As anyone new to Japanese jets will learn, if an enemy knows you’re there, you’ve majorly messed up. Nearly every one of the Japanese jets is out matched majorly in at least one metric that can be exploited if the enemy knows it (which they always do), so the only way to win is to kill them before they notice you. It’s tricky and won’t net you close to as many kills as everyone else is getting, but you’ll survive. Not having to pay a massive sl repair cost every match is a win in its own regard. Never give your opponents a fair fight. Ever.
Wasn't a fan of any other F-104's but I used this to grind the Japanese jet research tree through necessity and got pretty good with it. Definitely not the worst jet in WT.
BTW I disagree about the rocket pods. The air to air missiles on this aircraft are so bad (at least the Aim-9B's and E's) they aren't really worth using. High speed and the vulcan are your main weapons. So I'd only load up 2 air to air missiles and use rocket pods for getting a few ground kills here and there.
I played the F-104J shortly after release and it was a very fun plane to fly in combat for the first year or so. If played right, with its strangely fun BnZ play style, it can slap hard, but I find it overtiered since a few major updates later.
I skipped out on it completely going up the tree. Just stuck with the F-1 primarily because it was lower BR. Now they're the same so, might be alright to revisit.
G'day Tim, Now it's strange that this G model (J in japanese service) got to go down in BR but the RoC version is still stuck at 10.7, On that note how do you feel in taking out that G model for extra starfighterness heh. Still It isn't impossible to down ground attack in the Starfighters even ones without CCIP and nearly all AI targets in ARB are prone to destruction from the M61 autocannon (I find cockpit view in a shallow dive while flying at 600-700kmph the best speeds for ARB ground attack). It definitely does get a nice selection of skins this one better then the RoC one since it gets none. The rockets as flares are usable imo but it does suck not having CM although some on the forum suggest it might have had them as one topic goes into in the machinery of war section.
@@daddytito917 The RoC G model is flareless as well & don't even dare say it's due to the underwing plyons for the ability to carry 2× 750lb'ers and or 2× AGM-12B's as that's a copout vs other Starfighters or any other aircraft around that BR. Somehow the RoC G model still sits at the same BR as the West German one which is the superior G model with 4× AIM-9J's, all the bombs & AGM's plus CM, That's followed by the Italian G model but it only gets 2× AIM-9J's & CM plus a few bombs.
I'd caution in general against anyone using an F104 to ground pound or strafe. You go so fast and have such limited maneuverability that you're very likely to just eat dirt because you could not pull up.
I spaded this a while ago, and since 12.3 is coming, I’m gonna have to give this the F-104J a revisit. Also, does the F-104J in game have the correct amount of pylons? I heard you say it had additional weapon pylons.
In real life the JSDAF only used the ventral twin rack for Sidewinder missiles, it was very rare to see one of their F-104s with missiles on the wingtips. This was allowed in WT though
The reason the Avro Shackleton in WT has no torpedoes is that the aircraft was never a maritime patrol bomber but a Long-range Maritime Patrol and Anti-Submarine Warfare aircraft for hunting Soviet Navy submarines. Technically while it could carry a 15,000ib bomb load equally 30 500ib G.P. Mark 4 Free-Fall Bombs or 15 1000ib G.P. Mark 1 Free-Fall Bombs, really it would carry Depth Charges, Sonobouys and the only torpedoes it could carry were British 18" Mark 30 Dealer-B or American Mark 44 Anti-Submarine Warfare torpedoes which aren't in WT as submarines aren't in WT and the Shackletons never carried any conventional anti-surface warfare torpedoes. The two 20mm Hispano Mark 5 cannon in the nose in the MR.3 are for strafing enemy submarines only whereas the MR.1 Shackleton had two 20mm Hispano Mark 5 cannon in the nose and dorsal turrets and two 12.7mm Browning Machine Guns in the tail which was needed at the time whereas the WT Shackleton MR.2 is the pre-service model as the Shackleton MR.2 in service had no guns at all. The Avro Shackleton is basically an aircraft that was created in a time where depth charging a submarine was still done as Anti-Submarine Warfare torpedoes as an ASW weapon had not fully matured to be reliable enough to kill a submarine
you have to turn off the afterburner, otherwise even flares wouldn't do their job. and using these rockets to dodge missiles from behind is also not an option.
Those are from the colour scheme crates which are basically 698 GE and poxy RNG so it may take a few tries & after a few tries if you don't get it early you can scrap skins in the workshop for coupons to try again for the skins, IIRC the blue skin is from a pre 2.01 update crate.
10.3 starfighter with no flares is just stupid imo i dont recommend this plane u will often just die to things u cant hope to dodge Its workable but the play style of the thing is basically based on luck
By the way, the AIM-9J/P is getting a massive buff next patch, the cage angle is huge now
Massive info. F-104S Might be very fun
Might@@gansior4744
Do you know if the swedish rb24j will get the larger cage angle ?
@@User90126 should be all of them
This is only for pre launch I believe so it shouldnt suffer with flares as much after launch as it should with pre flaring
It’s worth noting that (at least in my experience with the American F-104s) you can deploy flaps above Mach for about 2 seconds before ripping, very useful for those high speed little adjustments for a shot
I have to say, I really appreciate you actually offering an opinion on this plane that isn't just "NO FLARES = BAD". Every other review/overview of this plane (and other F-104s) are just 5 very unhelpful minutes of bitching about the lack of flares and then 5 minutes complaining about how it doesn't turn. This is a good review. People! Watch this guy more.
Any game with some kind of winning 'meta' is always going to have players that feverishly pursue 'the meta.' Anything that falls outside 'the meta' is therefore probably not worth anything. That's how I see it, anyway
Sadly, the "eh .. shit's mid ..." not-even-skin-deep vids get 30x the views this one will.
inb4 somebody asks for what the arrestor hook is used for in real life, it is used for engine run-up tests on the ground as the engine would overpower the wheel brakes and for emergency landing systems on runways. Most USAF jets have one, including the F-16, F-15, F-35A, and F-22.
Also Eurofighter
F-104's can honestly surprise sometimes in a dogfight. Flaps are a must tho
Dogfighting in a f104 is like trying to drift in a F1 car 😅
A minor detail someone flying a Starfighter should keep in mind is that, while turn performance is generally lacking, it will outpull any other jet at altitude and beyond Mach 1.
So should you find yourself in an uptier with something chasing you that's just as fast, you'll still be able to outmanoeuvre them if you go high and play your cards right.
The Starfighter excels in situations where other planes would lock up.
Problem there is then it's just one missile required to kill ya and oh boy howdy are those common.
@@user-gv4zb9rc6u True, especially on the flareless versions.
There is a chance that in a chase scenario it's already pretty late into the game and your enemies might have expended all their missiles prior, but certainly not a chance you should rely upon.
In that situation an R-60 from a MiG-21SMT will take care of you just fine
Sparrow enters the chat
I feel like the reason the Japanese had a better time with the starfighter is because they actually used it for what it was intended for lol not ground pounding
Japanese: Wait, what if we use this interceptor for interception?
Americans: You can't do that, that's illegal!
@@cmdrTremyss the Germans and Italians took a jet fully intended for interception and tried to make it a CAS over the G91s they had Lol never-mind the fact that both air forces were still rebuilding experience from WW2 lol go from Me 262, F86-CL13s to BOOM F104s for CAS lol
Iirc, newer US pilots actually had LOWER accident rates than more experienced US pilots in the 104, because when they were told “don’t do that, you’re gonna get yourself killed”, they took that as gospel
@@LibranSoldierofFortune the benefit of using a f104 vs g91 for cas is it's raw speed which the G91's airframe could never handle
Idk man the idea of the f104 as cas sounds cool, but it'll never work out
beautiful video, i promised i watched it all before commenting
Very good video. Expected nothing less.
9:26 one of the more unrealistic things, since it only should work for the arrestor systems for shortening the landing on ground bases, not aircraft carriers. But since CV's are almost impossible to find outside of air sb...
When I first tried it, I honestly expected the hook not to catch and assumed it was just cosmetic ... when I realized it was functional, I had to include it in the review, as goofy and useless as it is.
@@TimsVariety it is functional (also on the ground based F4's and stuff).
The only hooks, that don't catch are bugged.
@@TimsVarietyWhats life without Japanese planes going into ships wait I mean onto ships
As a suggestion, It could be interesting to either have reviews like this cover all the 104s in a single go, or have a dedicated video for each shared plane going through the differences between each one.
Tim I really appreciate that you give the Genuine history of the craft in your war thunder videos. It really is great as I was curious if these actually saw service with japan or just were on of those trainer projects etc.. thanks for the information - about do do some more research now :D
To grind through Rank VI and VII I just couldn't with this one, I ended up going with the F-1, it has the same weaponry plus you can do CAS and dogfight on some occasions. Still, this is a great review as always Tim!
wow as soon as i got it i see you tim
Thay carrier landing was terrifying lol
turns out if you dont use an interceptor as a ground levelattacker and dont ban a country from having an airforce and then try and take people from props or basic jets to something competitive in terms of speed with modern jets.. its pretty safe
I love this variant after the Italian F-104 ASA, also it has a cute codename "Eiko" xD
My experience with the 104J in regards to the turn time is that like everything else about this plane is situational, I get the best flat horizontal turns at high alt at mach 1.20 (managing to pull 10g's consistently). Low alt, I concur with your observation. If you manage your speed in a dive you can also sustain a long turn with minimal energy loss in a split S. As a rule of thumb never go below mach .90 for more than 3 seconds or you're dead
As an update to newer viewers, due to the br decompression at 10.0 and above, this thing has become quite useable at its own br (finally). Not only did it stay at 10.3 while everything else around it was shifted up, at some point since this video it got the ability to carry up to 6 Aim9Ps. As such, it’s become a missile boat which is now quite fast at its own br (as a star fighter should be). The stock grind is still not great, but if you find a play style that works for you with it, it will do mighty well for you now. This is one of my few planes with which I have a positive K:D, so I might be biased, but I do highly recommend it. I’ve flown well over a hundred matches with it and it still feels great to play.
I guess I should also add, if you use the rockets as flares, they work great on missile fired at you front aspect, but they’re nearly useless flaring rear aspect. This means you can head on A-10s and Su-25s with much less worry. As the players of both of those aircraft don’t expect flareless planes to survive head on missile shots, you can frequently catch them off guard and spray them down with your Vulcan. Also, I personally recommend not playing this like a F-104. I fly low to the ground flanking missions typically, and engage in guerrilla tactics, popping up from behind ridges, firing a missile or two, and then throwing on the afterburner to get out of there before they knew you were there. Rinse and repeat. As anyone new to Japanese jets will learn, if an enemy knows you’re there, you’ve majorly messed up. Nearly every one of the Japanese jets is out matched majorly in at least one metric that can be exploited if the enemy knows it (which they always do), so the only way to win is to kill them before they notice you. It’s tricky and won’t net you close to as many kills as everyone else is getting, but you’ll survive. Not having to pay a massive sl repair cost every match is a win in its own regard. Never give your opponents a fair fight. Ever.
Wasn't a fan of any other F-104's but I used this to grind the Japanese jet research tree through necessity and got pretty good with it. Definitely not the worst jet in WT.
BTW I disagree about the rocket pods. The air to air missiles on this aircraft are so bad (at least the Aim-9B's and E's) they aren't really worth using. High speed and the vulcan are your main weapons. So I'd only load up 2 air to air missiles and use rocket pods for getting a few ground kills here and there.
Don't forget they used a bunch as test drones from Iwo Jima. The videos of it are on TH-cam. Very cool to see.
Boom and Zoom tactic is an essential to get things right while playing this plane.
boom and zoom would be viable if you didn't just get obliterated by a front aspect from an unspotted pane
With the current state of the game a 10.3 plane with no countermeasures is basically a non starter if you want to have any fun
For real I feel like you would just get murdered playing this thing at 10.3 and are better of with something else. Just seems kinda useless.
I have a good time flying this in sim battles when 10.0 is in.
This is the best thing I ever saw.
I played the F-104J shortly after release and it was a very fun plane to fly in combat for the first year or so. If played right, with its strangely fun BnZ play style, it can slap hard, but I find it overtiered since a few major updates later.
F-104 are VERY interesting platforms, but I really can't get over how bad they look, especially from the side. THEY LOOK LIKE A PENCIL WITH TREX ARMS
You never made an AH-64 video :( I’d like to see one, or at least something unique like the VBCI or Bradley review
I skipped out on it completely going up the tree. Just stuck with the F-1 primarily because it was lower BR. Now they're the same so, might be alright to revisit.
G'day Tim,
Now it's strange that this G model (J in japanese service) got to go down in BR but the RoC version is still stuck at 10.7, On that note how do you feel in taking out that G model for extra starfighterness heh.
Still It isn't impossible to down ground attack in the Starfighters even ones without CCIP and nearly all AI targets in ARB are prone to destruction from the M61 autocannon (I find cockpit view in a shallow dive while flying at 600-700kmph the best speeds for ARB ground attack).
It definitely does get a nice selection of skins this one better then the RoC one since it gets none.
The rockets as flares are usable imo but it does suck not having CM although some on the forum suggest it might have had them as one topic goes into in the machinery of war section.
It went down in br cause it’s got no flares unlike the rest of the G’s, unless the Chinese one also doesn’t get flares in which case lmao
@@daddytito917 The RoC G model is flareless as well & don't even dare say it's due to the underwing plyons for the ability to carry 2× 750lb'ers and or 2× AGM-12B's as that's a copout vs other Starfighters or any other aircraft around that BR.
Somehow the RoC G model still sits at the same BR as the West German one which is the superior G model with 4× AIM-9J's, all the bombs & AGM's plus CM, That's followed by the Italian G model but it only gets 2× AIM-9J's & CM plus a few bombs.
The F-104J has no skins though? Just the ugly looking silver one.
@@imlivinginyourceiling no it has a blue one
It can carry 6 Aim-9s now, but it's RWR is technically no longer exists!
I'd caution in general against anyone using an F104 to ground pound or strafe. You go so fast and have such limited maneuverability that you're very likely to just eat dirt because you could not pull up.
Gotta love Japanese Camos
Turns better than the goddamn tornado f 3 at least
9:25 *Whew!* Barely Made It.
I spaded this a while ago, and since 12.3 is coming, I’m gonna have to give this the F-104J a revisit. Also, does the F-104J in game have the correct amount of pylons? I heard you say it had additional weapon pylons.
In real life the JSDAF only used the ventral twin rack for Sidewinder missiles, it was very rare to see one of their F-104s with missiles on the wingtips. This was allowed in WT though
If only it had flairs...
The reason the Avro Shackleton in WT has no torpedoes is that the aircraft was never a maritime patrol bomber but a Long-range Maritime Patrol and Anti-Submarine Warfare aircraft for hunting Soviet Navy submarines.
Technically while it could carry a 15,000ib bomb load equally 30 500ib G.P. Mark 4 Free-Fall Bombs or 15 1000ib G.P. Mark 1 Free-Fall Bombs, really it would carry Depth Charges, Sonobouys and the only torpedoes it could carry were British 18" Mark 30 Dealer-B or American Mark 44 Anti-Submarine Warfare torpedoes which aren't in WT as submarines aren't in WT and the Shackletons never carried any conventional anti-surface warfare torpedoes.
The two 20mm Hispano Mark 5 cannon in the nose in the MR.3 are for strafing enemy submarines only whereas the MR.1 Shackleton had two 20mm Hispano Mark 5 cannon in the nose and dorsal turrets and two 12.7mm Browning Machine Guns in the tail which was needed at the time whereas the WT Shackleton MR.2 is the pre-service model as the Shackleton MR.2 in service had no guns at all.
The Avro Shackleton is basically an aircraft that was created in a time where depth charging a submarine was still done as
Anti-Submarine Warfare torpedoes as an ASW weapon had not fully matured to be reliable enough to kill a submarine
How does this have anything to do with the F-104...
39 seconds ago huh? Damn
That's a speedrun
Can you do a video on the Mitsubishi T2 please?
th-cam.com/video/eHMoasYubAU/w-d-xo.html
Hey Tim could u review the Russian BI?
th-cam.com/video/2bLpy9flJls/w-d-xo.html
When did it get radar missiles?
It doesnt have any, hes just using the radar lock to slave the IR seekerhead a lot.
Never, those are Sidewinders
Cool
if pain was a plane
Constant uptier means that it's completely useless until you get 9Es
Any tips for using rockets as flares. I can’t seem to make it work.
you have to turn off the afterburner, otherwise even flares wouldn't do their job. and using these rockets to dodge missiles from behind is also not an option.
How do you get the special paints ? I’ve never seen them before as I’m on console
Those are from the colour scheme crates which are basically 698 GE and poxy RNG so it may take a few tries & after a few tries if you don't get it early you can scrap skins in the workshop for coupons to try again for the skins, IIRC the blue skin is from a pre 2.01 update crate.
PAIN.
Aim9p and rb24j has radar slaving ability, the aim 9j lost the ability to radar slaving
where did you get the camo?
104 players can be so frustrating
Bro's gonna make an april fools review on the lockheed lancer before he reviews the american starfighter variants 💀
Hey, maybe the US A model will get its ANG upgrade by then
Pencil gang
long video to say no flares, skip it (have all the 104's other than the prem one)
Was a better grinder than the T-2 or F-1 prior to the coming patch.
10.3 starfighter with no flares is just stupid imo i dont recommend this plane u will often just die to things u cant hope to dodge
Its workable but the play style of the thing is basically based on luck
Wtf is it with the enemies you get bro? No one does anything about the missiles coming at you!
ah politics and corporatism we could've had a Japanese Super tiger but nah just another 104, rip the chances of a super tiger ever in game now
Airsoft Defense Forces XD
Wish someone gave the F104 Aim 9ms
The most modern AIM-9 the F-104 ever used was the AIM-9L on the Italian models.
Dumb comment
This plane is a massive hunk of shit, thanks for a good review though.
Trash plane honestly
I just use its unbreakable flaps at like 700km it wants to break but any speed above an below you can have them out