The real reason is because so few people actually watch content with lower tier prop aircraft. Most of us (WT youtubers, or really just youtubers in general) "go where the views are", but I have the luxury that I still do this as a fun hobby so I can kindof do what I want without worrying too much. For context, a low/mid tier prop review like this will get a bit less than half the views of one of my higher tier on-meta jet reviews.
@@TimsVarietydefyn gives good prop reviews but I like the history sections it's pretty cool, I'd say that's one or the best aspects of your channel, little easily adorable pieces of history
@@TimsVariety Yeah I agree same with cherry-picking content, the viewers watch the good bits and people looking for unfiltered real content to see if they want to play that premium get scammed. This happened to me seeing a pink video back in 2022 about the mig21sps-k, he said it was the best premium so I bought it and oh boy. At the time at 10.0 flare less (because always take the gun), luckily it got moved to 9.7 and I completed the tech tree
A historically well loved airplane being hindered by War Thunder's obsession with low-alt dogfights? Never seen that before, love the Wildcats and the cats that follow!
An interesting fact irl is the way the flaps operate in the wildcat, they use a vacuum pressure system and at certain speeds they don't deploy because of the force caused by the airflow preventing it, in fact if you take off with full flaps they raise slowly as you gain speed because of the airflow and the most interesting thing is that this is simulated in game!, so basically there is no flap speed and you cannot rip the flaps in this plane.
I hope we will get the FM-2 as a tech tree plane some time soon. It was one of the more important fighter planes of ww2 and it should have been in the game like 10 years ago.
Probably the same reason why we don’t have the A-4M or other later variant planes: “the tech tree is full enough already, and we want to present more ‘unique’ aircraft in the tree rather than more variants.”
The Martlet Mk IV is the best of the three for me, 517 kills, 64 ground targets and 4 water craft in 281 Sorties. Divide by two for the F4F-4 and half that again for the F4F-3.
I love the Wildcat so much, and it's one of the planes I immediately wanted to get when I first started playing the game. It's a bit of a brick in War Thunder, compared to its contemporaries, but still very fun for relaxing in low-tier. All thanks to a little old game called Secret Weapons Over Normandy. The TBD Devastator, SBD Dauntless, and F4F Wildcat are heavily featured in the Pacific theater missions, ending with the Battle of Midway. Grew to love all three so much, and looking at them always reminds me of those days when I was first getting into studying military aviation.
@@TimsVariety I need to make a TH-cam channel. I gotta start making videos because I wanna play with you. Just a point all these little things you do out.
Folks sleep on the -3. The insane amount of trigger time and lighter weight make it a pretty decent dog fighter. The 6 gun -4 was a request by the Brits to better deal with the land base Luftwaffe and RA fighters in the ETO but was not preferred by the naval and marine aviators in the pacific theater.
A short segment about the failure of the Brewster Buffalo in service (and thus, why the F4F eventually became the backbone of USN aviation during the war) would have been nicely appropriate during the history segment.
Hearing you talk about the Wildcat reminded me of when I used to watch Dogfights back in the day, and a lot of what you said lined up with what they said in the episodes involving Wildcats. I always loved the tubby little plane because it was always seen as sort of an underdog against the Zeroes and Oscars it was pitted against. I might need to revisit this plane now...
As much as I like it historically, I think it's also a victim of BR compression. It's not just a high tier problem. For a very small increase in br, you can fly the first versions of hellcats and corsairs that will just whip the poor lil barrel.
Part of the XF4F-2s redesign (among other aircraft) can be attributed to Bob Hall, a Grumman test pilot and engineer who had also designed the Gee Bee Z, Hall Bulldog, and Cicada of air racing fame. Of note, Hall’s Gee Bee was so interesting that Ernst Udet gave Hall a stylized drawing of the aircraft after it won the 1931 Thompson Trophy race. Hall himself finished 4th of 6th in his Senior Sportster, beating out Ira Eaker, the man who led the absolutely disastrous two years of 8th Air Force operations over Europe.
The early war 50cal tracer belt is 75% pure tracer and 25% API (iirc) so you're throwing away 75% of your damage potential. The best belts are Universal or Stealth, if you can aim.
Nice review as always! I did miss the section going over the available skins. It's info I've not seen anywhere else, and an appreciated part of your reviews.
Been spading this line lately after watching "Devotion", no idea what it was about the F4Fs but they worked really well for me! Another well done video, as always!
The US Navy props tended to be better optimized for lower altitude combat than the USAAF’s planes, due to the fighting in theater being dominated by the naval combat below. This in turn reflects better into the low-altitude furballs that commonly develop in War Thunder’s aerial combat.
I wish the game would allow all BRs to play on all maps. Naval maps are nvr seen in the game. Some maps I used to see 24/7 before but they are no longer appearing in the MM even tho they are still present in the game.
I recently scored a 1.5km kill against a He 111 firing like a burst of 50 rounds of stealth ammo, which set his fuel tank on fire from below, against an otherwise undamaged plane. It's was amazing, both from the perspective of me scoring that kill and the fact that this never should have happened 😂
Hey Tim, first of all great video, the Wildcat is my favorite overall american plane and one of my all-time favorites in general, it's always really nice to see content creators' interpretations and opinions regarding your favorite vehicles, especially when it's a more obscure one when it comes to the attention that it gets. Having said this, the Wildcat is one of my most played vehicles, and (seriously not trying to brag, trust! I just have a near-autistic obsession with the thing) I like to think that I do very well in it, which would only be natural, having flown it that much. Taking this into account there's some things you've said in this video that, for lack of a more polite way of putting it, are wrong. This isn't to hate or discredit you or anything, I'd just like to ensure that both you and the viewers are able to get as much out of this plane as possible and maybe understand why I enjoy it so much (besides the way it looks). First and foremost: while you do not make any mention of this in the video whatsoever, I would like to say that the F4F-3 is 100% without the shadow of a doubt the best of the three Wildcats in-game. The .7 jump in BR for two extra 50 cals (and less gun time) on the F4F-4 are absolutely not worth it! (funnily enough, IRL pilots thought the same thing, they liked the 4 .50 cals better because of it having more "gun time"). The 4 .50 cals on the F4F-3 are more than enough to completely shred anything in its' BR bracket, and, most importantly, the fact that it's 2.3 means it can more easily take advantage of, in my opinion (and the opinion of those that flew it IRL) its' best feature: its' ruggedness. Lower BRs = smaller guns to worry about, which really lets this plane shine on the few occasions you do get hit. In the 3.0 Wildcat it is not only harder to take advantage of this, but your flight performance is also the same as a 2.3 plane, (actually, it's worse, you climb and turn a tiiiiny bit slower) which obviously doesn't bode well. You're a sitting duck and your complaints about its' performance are justified. The Martlet is sort of the "middle of the road" between the two. I'd still say the 2.3 is vastly superior, but if you want 6 .50 cals that bad then go ahead and fly it if you have it. With that said, the following are about the 2.3 Wildcat: 3:20 I wouldn't reccomend the tracers at all, given that these are the older brownings who don't get the full AP-I belt that the later brownings do. Your firepower takes a serious hit if you take it. The best belt is Stealth, I don't usually like them in other aircraft, but the 2.3 Wildcat gets so much ammo (and gun time) that you can very easily let loose until your find your mark. The trade-off in lethality is extremely worth it (1 in every 3 bullets you fire will be an Incendiary bullet) and it also blends in very well with its' playstyle (specifically in head-ons, more about that below). You also get the usual benefits of Stealth belts such as enemies having a harder time reacting to you, so-on. If you don't want to use Stealth, Universal is a perfectly fine compromise too. More about the whole "time on target to bring down enemy planes" thing below. 4:18 The F4F-3's performance on lower altitudes is really good, it's a bit sluggish to climb but it performs a lot like a fast biplane, it out-turns a lot of things and can catch up with them relatively easily. The only planes you'll be struggling against will be those higher in BR than you, and even then, you can usually fight them and come out on top provided you're decent at the game. 4:34 It absolutely does NOT! Rolling in this thing is awful, it sort-of rolls okay 80~90 degrees to each side, but the moment that cockpit starts to turn upside down your rolling slows down drastically and you bleed off ALL of your energy. Actually, if there's anything to take away from this nerd rant wall of text it's this: AVOID ROLLING IN THE WILDCAT, this is the trick to keeping all of your energy in a plane whose only weakness is its' retention! Don't roll the thing more than 90 degrees unless you absolutely have to (or unless you're diving on someone) and you'll be golden! It's a bit of an awkward playstyle but it drastically improves this thing's performance. 4:54 This is true, it's just that yet again I'd really like to emphasize that you should fly the F4F-3 to really take advantage of this. And speaking of its' performance in real life: Wildcat pilots loved head-ons! Don't be scared of them in War Thunder, in the worst case scenario, your plane will be badly damaged (but not dead) but not too damaged to not make it back to base, and your enemy will be dead. 5:44 Your climb performance is serviceable for 2.3, 15m/s isn't the best but it's good enough to let you get some altitude and pick off the higher-altitude planes who might become nuisanses later on when you decide to dive on lower altitude players. Your performance will usually make up any gaps in climb rate. 5:52 Unless the Spitfire has a significant altitude advantage, you can absolutely win turnfights against them as long as you stay horizontal and remember the golden no-rolling rule. If the Spitfire is smart enough to go vertical you can still win but it'll be much harder because you have to manage your energy near-perfectly and dodge him while slowly climbing. If you have an altitude advantage, Spitfires are very easy kills that you can also easily disengage from if you mess it up. I-16's are just easy kills overall as long as you, once again, remember not to roll with them. If either of these planes (or any, really) start to roll, just let them do so and either break off temporarily or hover over them for a bit, they're just wasting energy while you're keeping yours because you're flying horizontal (right?). 6:53 Not true, 4 brownings are enough to shred anything in your BR without staying on target for too long. Bombers and the like might require some more precise aiming (wings, engines) but it's easy considering the amount of ammo you get and how slow they usually are. Fighters fall apart, though. You can very easily go on a killing spree with the amount of ammo you get and still have enough leftover to kill some AI targets while your team-mates chase the remaining enemy bomber at high altitude, just because you have so much ammo and need so little of it to kill anything. The 6 .50 cals on the F4F-3 are also more than enough, but sadly your 50% increase in firepower doesn't translate into a 50% increase in ammo, so you can't be as carefree with your shooting if you plan on going on killing sprees, and it also means you can't take Stealth belts. The video is already done and uploaded, so I know this was a bit pointless, but I just wanted to help you and your viewers out, I seriously enjoy this plane and want others to enjoy it as much as I have, it's borderline OP! Everything else you said was correct, by the way. I particularly enjoyed the historical segments and that little footnote at the end about being reminded of its' history everytime you see it, it's the same for me and part of why it makes it so enjoyable. It's just the rolling thing in particular that I wanted to point out, because it unfortunately translated into a bit of a "snowball" effect for how you percieved the way this thing flies, as well as you unfortunately (but understandably, trust me, I've made this mistake before) picking the "wrong" Wildcat as a representative. I really like your content, it's very modest and straight to the point, keep up the good work and thank you for reading if you did!
Used to not be much of a fan of this plane back when I was a noob who only played Air AB, now took it out for a few tries and had a great experience ❤ I love flying it even more than the Hellcat imo, especially bc of its better turn rate
The performance difference might not be that much between the F4F-4 and F4F-3 but the BR difference makes an incredible difference. The F4F-3 is already the best performing F4F. It gets to 3km a little over 10 seconds faster than the F4F-4 and has a barely noticeably better turn too while being 2.3 vs 3.0. Nearly 200kgs of extra weight in the -4 combined with the frankly unjustified BR jump make the -3 the much better version to fly as it goes against aircraft it can 1v1 against way more often. It still isn't exactly good for 2.3 but it is a much nicer time than the -4 at 3.0.
Heres that rare "Tim, give us the FW-189 some day!" that I'll drop every few months when I'm early enough to catch it within the first few hours. 😂 Great stuff as always, I remember back in the Tier 20 days that the F4F used to be pretty wild like that F2A-3 before their engines got fixed to be more accurate!
@@TimsVariety hah, that's awesome! Honestly, I was just surprised nobody else had taken the low hanging fruit of that loading screen tip. I quote it regularly with friends when queuing.
"the F4F-4 is gonna take some getting used to" you are being EXTREMELY generous, this is worse than the Sakeen. It's probably the worst fighter, BR for BR, in Air RB. The F-4 needs to go back to 2.3 with the F4F-3
1:48 the superior tactic was the "Thach Weave". Teamwork turned this clearly less capable fighter into a winner. If only we had the same idea in game lol
the better engine would really make it on par with the hellcat and other 3.3 planes. i always loved the wildcat, just naval planes in general, but the thing has a place in my heart. i hope it gets an HD overhaul and some more variants as we could even get the goofy float plane version
@@Sniper5875 It really wouldn't make it "on par" with other 3.3 planes. It would be incredibly slow for 3.3. Sure, the FM2 would have a respectable climb rate and agility but 3.0 would really be stretching it performance wise. The F4F-4 at 3.0 is seriously over BRed as is. It is a 2.3 plane at best as it takes a fairly noticeable overall performance hit just to add 2 .50s, which doesn't amount to any meaningful firepower increase. That is all compared to the F4F-3, which doesn't particularly excel at 2.3. A very apt comparison for an already in game prop would be with the Hurricanes that have 1,300+hp. The best climbing Hurricane in game gets to 15k ft at about the same time that the FM-2 did historically. The FM-2 is near 5mph faster at crit alt. The Hurricane historically had a slightly better turn in general but the Wildcat has better high speed handling characteristics. None of the Hurricanes are any good at 3.0. The FM-2, basically an American version of the later Hurricanes we have in game, wouldn't be any better than the best Hurricane in game.
@@rainsilent the fm2 looses the 2 guns and goes down to 4 with more ammo for each, along with extra hardpoints for weapons. yes the plane isnt that fast, its engine is rated at 1300 hp, which is decent but the plane is heavy. at 3.0-3.3 i think it would fit nicely at least in RB. now i am basing my judgemental off how i fly, and ive used the wildcat upwards to 4.0 and still did decently. i know its not a plane that clearly has full control of the skies, but itd pair nicely against the a6m2's around the same BR. i think comparing it to the hurricane is a bit odd as the hurricane only shares a rough engine power and nothing else. one is canvass coated with medium caliber machine guns and the other is a full metal with large caliber machine guns. yes both are slower than other lighter planes such as the 109 and 190, but that doesnt only dictate its BR. i think it would make a good place between the wildcats and hellcats right now
@@Sniper5875 I know the FM2 is basically an up engined F4F-3 but it wouldn't fit nicely at 3.0. "i think comparing it to the hurricane is a bit odd as the hurricane only shares a rough engine power and nothing else." Try looking at the performance profiles. The FM2's historic performance profile is very similar to the late Hurricanes. Nearly the same climb time to 15,000ft (within a second if you grab the right Hurricane performance data), nearly the same top speed, virtually the same maneuverability. If you looked at the performance sheets and weren't told what they were you could easily think that they are different models of the same aircraft. The British, in testing both, considered them pretty much the same aircraft overall with the FM-2 having better performance below 5000ft (FM-2s engine was specifically tuned to be great at low alt. Hurricane's Merlins were more mid alt.), being able to carry more ordinance and being better suited for naval ops in general. Would the FM-2 be a great fit between the F4Fs and F6F? Yes, but it should be at 2.7 with the F4Fs 2.3, or even 2.0. That is relative to where most contemporary fighters performance wise are and should be. The A6Ms are not only over BRed but are greatly benefiting from extremely overbuffed elevator compression. Historically no A6M could pull inside of a P-47 at 300mph IAS per tests with many captured A6Ms both during and after the war. In game they can do that up to around 450mph IAS. One of the A7M's design goals was to improve on the high speed maneuverability of the A6M and the A7M succeeded in this historically. In game the A6Ms beat the A7Ms and it isn't close. The A7Ms are, per flight data, fairly close to accurate in terms of the start of compression historically.
I remember a match where a chad in this plane clutched a 1v3 and won us the match. Holy crap, it was epic! I personally preffer the F6F over this plane because i could not get accostumed to it,most of my best matches have been in the Hellcat. I guess its the pilot and not the plane after all!
Great Video!! Love the historical side of your videos!! Was wondering if you would ever cover certain planes histories more in-depth or possibly have a video dedicated to their histories. It's probably not great for the algorithm but would be cool to see.
I've thought about it, and it would be do-able - with some of these planes I end up with like 10 minutes of background and need to chop it down to 2 or 3. I may do one at some point, like split the historical context and the in-game content into separate vids to see how it goes. Dunno, TBD.
With the early war U.S. .50 cal belts I would recommend using the ground target belts as they are 3/4 AP and since the solid AP weighs like 10 grams more then AP-I or API-T it does more damage.
Unfortunately that's not some logic that works with WT. Damage is simply based on whatever the developer write down in their code and not based on some system that takes different stats into account. Stealth gives you the most firepower with 2/3 AP and Incendiary that can set planes on fire.
You would think the AP does more damage due to the extra weight. In game it does the same damage as AP-I and API-T with AP-I and API-T rounds getting the extra added ability to cause fires. API-T have the best fire chance (next to the I) and match all of the rest of the AP rounds in terms of raw damage so the best belt for US .50s in game is the late full tracer M20 API-T belts.
@@TimsVariety That is astonishing to me. I understand why you made the video about moving it around. Tbh it doesn’t matter where you put the history part in the video for me. You’re one of the only content creators I watch from start to finish 😂 Please don’t get rid of it though!
Hi Tim, as per usually a great video. I don't know if you consider request but if you do I reckon the B-57 Canberra bomber would be worth a shot. Anyways thanks for the amazing content per usual.
hay i just noticed something broken the germany marder 1a3 has thermals and a self guided rocked that has a 530 pen on it with mechine guns that pen 66 with a lazer rangefinder and max forward speed of 83kmh and max reverse speed of 83kmh broken af at rank 5
I like this Chumky little plane a lot, especially with the -4 getting that Navy tricolor market skin 😮💨. But I definitely agree, the cockpit is awful and I pray we’ll get a visual update someday for some older planes.
According to retention data, roughly half of viewers skip it. A good chunk, about 20% or so, cut right to the flight performance and pick up from there.
The stats for the first hour are totally unreliable. Even throughout the first day, the V/L/C numbers on the video are different looking at the video page itself vs looking at the stats it shows me on the analytics panel. I really dont know why.
I really dislike this line of planes, the corsairs are extremely good, but the cats are just bad to fly, the only one that is good is the undertired one with .50s.
Kinda funny though we have the opposite views; I perform quite badly (personally) in the Corsairs, but love the cats because of their ruggedness (and that I can turn-fight better).
@@Akaeru They only turn slightly better than the corsairs and the main issue is that the 20mms put them higher than they should be. Try to get better with the corsairs they are the better planes.
Tim the only TH-camr that takes props seriously and gives good advice
The real reason is because so few people actually watch content with lower tier prop aircraft. Most of us (WT youtubers, or really just youtubers in general) "go where the views are", but I have the luxury that I still do this as a fun hobby so I can kindof do what I want without worrying too much.
For context, a low/mid tier prop review like this will get a bit less than half the views of one of my higher tier on-meta jet reviews.
@@TimsVarietydefyn gives good prop reviews but I like the history sections it's pretty cool, I'd say that's one or the best aspects of your channel, little easily adorable pieces of history
@@TimsVariety you're the only guy who respects lowtier aircraft, ground and even naval in your videos. the only true objective content creator
@@TimsVariety Yeah I agree same with cherry-picking content, the viewers watch the good bits and people looking for unfiltered real content to see if they want to play that premium get scammed. This happened to me seeing a pink video back in 2022 about the mig21sps-k, he said it was the best premium so I bought it and oh boy. At the time at 10.0 flare less (because always take the gun), luckily it got moved to 9.7 and I completed the tech tree
Meanwhile the Wildcat has far greater real world achievements than most top tier jets
Bro wake up, your favorite plane is reviewed by Tim's Variety
haha i never fell asleep💪🏽
this is my favourite prop, extremely satisfied with this cause of waking up
You mean favourite messerschmitt clubbing machine?
A historically well loved airplane being hindered by War Thunder's obsession with low-alt dogfights? Never seen that before, love the Wildcats and the cats that follow!
My favorite plane (p-47) feels unusable because of this
@@cartographer5030 firecrest, pain
An interesting fact irl is the way the flaps operate in the wildcat, they use a vacuum pressure system and at certain speeds they don't deploy because of the force caused by the airflow preventing it, in fact if you take off with full flaps they raise slowly as you gain speed because of the airflow and the most interesting thing is that this is simulated in game!, so basically there is no flap speed and you cannot rip the flaps in this plane.
Yesterday i bought the Airfix F4f-4,and you posted this video today,how lucky i am
Its a known fact that I am, in fact, a mind reader. :-)
@@TimsVariety That answers a lot of questions now,have a great day bro
I hope we will get the FM-2 as a tech tree plane some time soon. It was one of the more important fighter planes of ww2 and it should have been in the game like 10 years ago.
I really have no idea why its not in the game already.
Probably the same reason why we don’t have the A-4M or other later variant planes: “the tech tree is full enough already, and we want to present more ‘unique’ aircraft in the tree rather than more variants.”
@@zanaduz2018 waiting since 2013 for the G3M Chukou and Ki-51 hehe.....
It was also the most produced Wildcat variant, by FAR.
@@zanaduz2018can't have 3 wildcats but can have 29 spitfires.
Actually past 30 now.
Watching this plane in the Dogfights History channel tv show changed my brain chemistry forever, it's why I love planes so much today
The Martlet Mk IV is the best of the three for me, 517 kills, 64 ground targets and 4 water craft in 281 Sorties. Divide by two for the F4F-4 and half that again for the F4F-3.
I love the Wildcat so much, and it's one of the planes I immediately wanted to get when I first started playing the game. It's a bit of a brick in War Thunder, compared to its contemporaries, but still very fun for relaxing in low-tier.
All thanks to a little old game called Secret Weapons Over Normandy. The TBD Devastator, SBD Dauntless, and F4F Wildcat are heavily featured in the Pacific theater missions, ending with the Battle of Midway. Grew to love all three so much, and looking at them always reminds me of those days when I was first getting into studying military aviation.
It was "Aces Over The Pacific" for me, back in the MS-Dos days.
@@TimsVariety Yeah, that one's a bit before my time. First one I ever played was Jane's WWII Fighters in the late 90s.
@TimsVariety haha I used to love AotP, Aces Over Europe, and Red Baron, then MS Combat Flight Simulator 1 and 2..
SWON now that's a game I've not heard in a long time
@Fearless1247 It's a huge reason why I still love military aircraft and WWII history to this day.
“Sturdy lil plane” Tim became a southern pilot 😅
I can fake a southern accent if you want 🤣
@@TimsVariety I need to make a TH-cam channel. I gotta start making videos because I wanna play with you. Just a point all these little things you do out.
@@TimsVarietydo it
you got me sold at carrier stuff
Folks sleep on the -3. The insane amount of trigger time and lighter weight make it a pretty decent dog fighter. The 6 gun -4 was a request by the Brits to better deal with the land base Luftwaffe and RA fighters in the ETO but was not preferred by the naval and marine aviators in the pacific theater.
A short segment about the failure of the Brewster Buffalo in service (and thus, why the F4F eventually became the backbone of USN aviation during the war) would have been nicely appropriate during the history segment.
My all time favourite warbird. Thank you Tim.
This is the plane that got me interested in aviation. Dogfights and Battle 360 back on the History Channel, cable TV. Awesome.
This plane is my go to when I get tired of top tier. It’s just grabbing a club and finding a few seals.
I wish we had the FM-2 in game.
5:02 made me giggle
Hearing you talk about the Wildcat reminded me of when I used to watch Dogfights back in the day, and a lot of what you said lined up with what they said in the episodes involving Wildcats. I always loved the tubby little plane because it was always seen as sort of an underdog against the Zeroes and Oscars it was pitted against. I might need to revisit this plane now...
I love all the pre-NACA US fighters. P-40, P-39, Wildcat. They just feel good, and their aesthetics are on point.
As much as I like it historically, I think it's also a victim of BR compression. It's not just a high tier problem. For a very small increase in br, you can fly the first versions of hellcats and corsairs that will just whip the poor lil barrel.
Wildcat my beloved 😍
Part of the XF4F-2s redesign (among other aircraft) can be attributed to Bob Hall, a Grumman test pilot and engineer who had also designed the Gee Bee Z, Hall Bulldog, and Cicada of air racing fame. Of note, Hall’s Gee Bee was so interesting that Ernst Udet gave Hall a stylized drawing of the aircraft after it won the 1931 Thompson Trophy race.
Hall himself finished 4th of 6th in his Senior Sportster, beating out Ira Eaker, the man who led the absolutely disastrous two years of 8th Air Force operations over Europe.
Aye, Wildcat's gettin some love. Nice!
Babe, a new Tim’s Variety Video is out!
The early war 50cal tracer belt is 75% pure tracer and 25% API (iirc) so you're throwing away 75% of your damage potential. The best belts are Universal or Stealth, if you can aim.
I've seen some guides recommend ground belts because of the extra ap belts
F4F-3 is an old love just like the P-40 from heroes of the pacific days
Nice review as always! I did miss the section going over the available skins. It's info I've not seen anywhere else, and an appreciated part of your reviews.
The skins for the Wildcat are all incredibly basic, unfortunately :-\
Been spading this line lately after watching "Devotion", no idea what it was about the F4Fs but they worked really well for me! Another well done video, as always!
The US Navy props tended to be better optimized for lower altitude combat than the USAAF’s planes, due to the fighting in theater being dominated by the naval combat below. This in turn reflects better into the low-altitude furballs that commonly develop in War Thunder’s aerial combat.
2:43 that kill """""assist"""" really sums up the war thunder experience
Yeah .. don't get me started ...
NGL I'm surprised we don't have the FM2 Wildcat in the game. It would be cool to have it as a premium plane.
I wish the game would allow all BRs to play on all maps. Naval maps are nvr seen in the game. Some maps I used to see 24/7 before but they are no longer appearing in the MM even tho they are still present in the game.
i love to see the prop reviews,keep up the great work
I recently scored a 1.5km kill against a He 111 firing like a burst of 50 rounds of stealth ammo, which set his fuel tank on fire from below, against an otherwise undamaged plane.
It's was amazing, both from the perspective of me scoring that kill and the fact that this never should have happened 😂
Here to commend you for another carrier landing :)
The little statcards are amazing 🤩
Hey Tim, first of all great video, the Wildcat is my favorite overall american plane and one of my all-time favorites in general, it's always really nice to see content creators' interpretations and opinions regarding your favorite vehicles, especially when it's a more obscure one when it comes to the attention that it gets.
Having said this, the Wildcat is one of my most played vehicles, and (seriously not trying to brag, trust! I just have a near-autistic obsession with the thing) I like to think that I do very well in it, which would only be natural, having flown it that much. Taking this into account there's some things you've said in this video that, for lack of a more polite way of putting it, are wrong. This isn't to hate or discredit you or anything, I'd just like to ensure that both you and the viewers are able to get as much out of this plane as possible and maybe understand why I enjoy it so much (besides the way it looks).
First and foremost: while you do not make any mention of this in the video whatsoever, I would like to say that the F4F-3 is 100% without the shadow of a doubt the best of the three Wildcats in-game. The .7 jump in BR for two extra 50 cals (and less gun time) on the F4F-4 are absolutely not worth it! (funnily enough, IRL pilots thought the same thing, they liked the 4 .50 cals better because of it having more "gun time"). The 4 .50 cals on the F4F-3 are more than enough to completely shred anything in its' BR bracket, and, most importantly, the fact that it's 2.3 means it can more easily take advantage of, in my opinion (and the opinion of those that flew it IRL) its' best feature: its' ruggedness. Lower BRs = smaller guns to worry about, which really lets this plane shine on the few occasions you do get hit. In the 3.0 Wildcat it is not only harder to take advantage of this, but your flight performance is also the same as a 2.3 plane, (actually, it's worse, you climb and turn a tiiiiny bit slower) which obviously doesn't bode well. You're a sitting duck and your complaints about its' performance are justified. The Martlet is sort of the "middle of the road" between the two. I'd still say the 2.3 is vastly superior, but if you want 6 .50 cals that bad then go ahead and fly it if you have it.
With that said, the following are about the 2.3 Wildcat:
3:20 I wouldn't reccomend the tracers at all, given that these are the older brownings who don't get the full AP-I belt that the later brownings do. Your firepower takes a serious hit if you take it. The best belt is Stealth, I don't usually like them in other aircraft, but the 2.3 Wildcat gets so much ammo (and gun time) that you can very easily let loose until your find your mark. The trade-off in lethality is extremely worth it (1 in every 3 bullets you fire will be an Incendiary bullet) and it also blends in very well with its' playstyle (specifically in head-ons, more about that below). You also get the usual benefits of Stealth belts such as enemies having a harder time reacting to you, so-on. If you don't want to use Stealth, Universal is a perfectly fine compromise too. More about the whole "time on target to bring down enemy planes" thing below.
4:18 The F4F-3's performance on lower altitudes is really good, it's a bit sluggish to climb but it performs a lot like a fast biplane, it out-turns a lot of things and can catch up with them relatively easily. The only planes you'll be struggling against will be those higher in BR than you, and even then, you can usually fight them and come out on top provided you're decent at the game.
4:34 It absolutely does NOT! Rolling in this thing is awful, it sort-of rolls okay 80~90 degrees to each side, but the moment that cockpit starts to turn upside down your rolling slows down drastically and you bleed off ALL of your energy. Actually, if there's anything to take away from this nerd rant wall of text it's this: AVOID ROLLING IN THE WILDCAT, this is the trick to keeping all of your energy in a plane whose only weakness is its' retention! Don't roll the thing more than 90 degrees unless you absolutely have to (or unless you're diving on someone) and you'll be golden! It's a bit of an awkward playstyle but it drastically improves this thing's performance.
4:54 This is true, it's just that yet again I'd really like to emphasize that you should fly the F4F-3 to really take advantage of this. And speaking of its' performance in real life: Wildcat pilots loved head-ons! Don't be scared of them in War Thunder, in the worst case scenario, your plane will be badly damaged (but not dead) but not too damaged to not make it back to base, and your enemy will be dead.
5:44 Your climb performance is serviceable for 2.3, 15m/s isn't the best but it's good enough to let you get some altitude and pick off the higher-altitude planes who might become nuisanses later on when you decide to dive on lower altitude players. Your performance will usually make up any gaps in climb rate.
5:52 Unless the Spitfire has a significant altitude advantage, you can absolutely win turnfights against them as long as you stay horizontal and remember the golden no-rolling rule. If the Spitfire is smart enough to go vertical you can still win but it'll be much harder because you have to manage your energy near-perfectly and dodge him while slowly climbing. If you have an altitude advantage, Spitfires are very easy kills that you can also easily disengage from if you mess it up. I-16's are just easy kills overall as long as you, once again, remember not to roll with them. If either of these planes (or any, really) start to roll, just let them do so and either break off temporarily or hover over them for a bit, they're just wasting energy while you're keeping yours because you're flying horizontal (right?).
6:53 Not true, 4 brownings are enough to shred anything in your BR without staying on target for too long. Bombers and the like might require some more precise aiming (wings, engines) but it's easy considering the amount of ammo you get and how slow they usually are. Fighters fall apart, though. You can very easily go on a killing spree with the amount of ammo you get and still have enough leftover to kill some AI targets while your team-mates chase the remaining enemy bomber at high altitude, just because you have so much ammo and need so little of it to kill anything.
The 6 .50 cals on the F4F-3 are also more than enough, but sadly your 50% increase in firepower doesn't translate into a 50% increase in ammo, so you can't be as carefree with your shooting if you plan on going on killing sprees, and it also means you can't take Stealth belts.
The video is already done and uploaded, so I know this was a bit pointless, but I just wanted to help you and your viewers out, I seriously enjoy this plane and want others to enjoy it as much as I have, it's borderline OP!
Everything else you said was correct, by the way. I particularly enjoyed the historical segments and that little footnote at the end about being reminded of its' history everytime you see it, it's the same for me and part of why it makes it so enjoyable. It's just the rolling thing in particular that I wanted to point out, because it unfortunately translated into a bit of a "snowball" effect for how you percieved the way this thing flies, as well as you unfortunately (but understandably, trust me, I've made this mistake before) picking the "wrong" Wildcat as a representative. I really like your content, it's very modest and straight to the point, keep up the good work and thank you for reading if you did!
Thanks, that was quite a nice read! Been giving out this plane a try again. Also, wonder what would be the best MEC options for it?
Used to not be much of a fan of this plane back when I was a noob who only played Air AB, now took it out for a few tries and had a great experience ❤
I love flying it even more than the Hellcat imo, especially bc of its better turn rate
Heehehe... low tier german phantom😅. Amazing video sir! O7
The downward spiral is where this plane shines.
Great video, thank you Tim.
The performance difference might not be that much between the F4F-4 and F4F-3 but the BR difference makes an incredible difference. The F4F-3 is already the best performing F4F. It gets to 3km a little over 10 seconds faster than the F4F-4 and has a barely noticeably better turn too while being 2.3 vs 3.0. Nearly 200kgs of extra weight in the -4 combined with the frankly unjustified BR jump make the -3 the much better version to fly as it goes against aircraft it can 1v1 against way more often. It still isn't exactly good for 2.3 but it is a much nicer time than the -4 at 3.0.
The Wildcat walked so the Hellcat could run
Do a lot of people skip the History section in your Videos? for me its actually a bit of a highlight
Based on the retention stats, roughly half.
@@TimsVariety Well, considering the average WT players attention span it's not surprising.
Can't wait for him to round our the entire Carrier Cats line.
Heres that rare "Tim, give us the FW-189 some day!" that I'll drop every few months when I'm early enough to catch it within the first few hours. 😂
Great stuff as always, I remember back in the Tier 20 days that the F4F used to be pretty wild like that F2A-3 before their engines got fixed to be more accurate!
8:03 To extend or retract the landing gear, Wildcat pilots had to turn a handle of a mechanical winch 29 times.
Belter of a review, as always o7
As a neat little bonus - if you;re in the cockpit view while the gear is going up or down, you can see the crank going! :-)
@@TimsVariety hah, that's awesome!
Honestly, I was just surprised nobody else had taken the low hanging fruit of that loading screen tip. I quote it regularly with friends when queuing.
"the F4F-4 is gonna take some getting used to"
you are being EXTREMELY generous, this is worse than the Sakeen. It's probably the worst fighter, BR for BR, in Air RB. The F-4 needs to go back to 2.3 with the F4F-3
Sakeen is way worse. It is a 1.7 plane, at best, at 3.3. The F4F-4 is a 2.0-2.3 plane at 3.0.
1:48 the superior tactic was the "Thach Weave". Teamwork turned this clearly less capable fighter into a winner. If only we had the same idea in game lol
i hope one day we see the fm2, id love to fly it at rank 3
the better engine would really make it on par with the hellcat and other 3.3 planes. i always loved the wildcat, just naval planes in general, but the thing has a place in my heart. i hope it gets an HD overhaul and some more variants as we could even get the goofy float plane version
@@Sniper5875 It really wouldn't make it "on par" with other 3.3 planes. It would be incredibly slow for 3.3. Sure, the FM2 would have a respectable climb rate and agility but 3.0 would really be stretching it performance wise. The F4F-4 at 3.0 is seriously over BRed as is. It is a 2.3 plane at best as it takes a fairly noticeable overall performance hit just to add 2 .50s, which doesn't amount to any meaningful firepower increase. That is all compared to the F4F-3, which doesn't particularly excel at 2.3.
A very apt comparison for an already in game prop would be with the Hurricanes that have 1,300+hp. The best climbing Hurricane in game gets to 15k ft at about the same time that the FM-2 did historically. The FM-2 is near 5mph faster at crit alt. The Hurricane historically had a slightly better turn in general but the Wildcat has better high speed handling characteristics. None of the Hurricanes are any good at 3.0. The FM-2, basically an American version of the later Hurricanes we have in game, wouldn't be any better than the best Hurricane in game.
@@rainsilent the fm2 looses the 2 guns and goes down to 4 with more ammo for each, along with extra hardpoints for weapons. yes the plane isnt that fast, its engine is rated at 1300 hp, which is decent but the plane is heavy. at 3.0-3.3 i think it would fit nicely at least in RB.
now i am basing my judgemental off how i fly, and ive used the wildcat upwards to 4.0 and still did decently. i know its not a plane that clearly has full control of the skies, but itd pair nicely against the a6m2's around the same BR.
i think comparing it to the hurricane is a bit odd as the hurricane only shares a rough engine power and nothing else. one is canvass coated with medium caliber machine guns and the other is a full metal with large caliber machine guns.
yes both are slower than other lighter planes such as the 109 and 190, but that doesnt only dictate its BR.
i think it would make a good place between the wildcats and hellcats right now
@@Sniper5875 I know the FM2 is basically an up engined F4F-3 but it wouldn't fit nicely at 3.0.
"i think comparing it to the hurricane is a bit odd as the hurricane only shares a rough engine power and nothing else."
Try looking at the performance profiles. The FM2's historic performance profile is very similar to the late Hurricanes. Nearly the same climb time to 15,000ft (within a second if you grab the right Hurricane performance data), nearly the same top speed, virtually the same maneuverability. If you looked at the performance sheets and weren't told what they were you could easily think that they are different models of the same aircraft. The British, in testing both, considered them pretty much the same aircraft overall with the FM-2 having better performance below 5000ft (FM-2s engine was specifically tuned to be great at low alt. Hurricane's Merlins were more mid alt.), being able to carry more ordinance and being better suited for naval ops in general.
Would the FM-2 be a great fit between the F4Fs and F6F? Yes, but it should be at 2.7 with the F4Fs 2.3, or even 2.0. That is relative to where most contemporary fighters performance wise are and should be. The A6Ms are not only over BRed but are greatly benefiting from extremely overbuffed elevator compression. Historically no A6M could pull inside of a P-47 at 300mph IAS per tests with many captured A6Ms both during and after the war. In game they can do that up to around 450mph IAS. One of the A7M's design goals was to improve on the high speed maneuverability of the A6M and the A7M succeeded in this historically. In game the A6Ms beat the A7Ms and it isn't close. The A7Ms are, per flight data, fairly close to accurate in terms of the start of compression historically.
This is the best thing I ever saw.
I remember a match where a chad in this plane clutched a 1v3 and won us the match. Holy crap, it was epic!
I personally preffer the F6F over this plane because i could not get accostumed to it,most of my best matches have been in the Hellcat. I guess its the pilot and not the plane after all!
"Tough little Plane"
"Little?"
Great Video!! Love the historical side of your videos!! Was wondering if you would ever cover certain planes histories more in-depth or possibly have a video dedicated to their histories. It's probably not great for the algorithm but would be cool to see.
I've thought about it, and it would be do-able - with some of these planes I end up with like 10 minutes of background and need to chop it down to 2 or 3. I may do one at some point, like split the historical context and the in-game content into separate vids to see how it goes. Dunno, TBD.
This is the plane I first started realistic battles with so it has a special place for me.
With the early war U.S. .50 cal belts I would recommend using the ground target belts as they are 3/4 AP and since the solid AP weighs like 10 grams more then AP-I or API-T it does more damage.
Unfortunately that's not some logic that works with WT. Damage is simply based on whatever the developer write down in their code and not based on some system that takes different stats into account.
Stealth gives you the most firepower with 2/3 AP and Incendiary that can set planes on fire.
You would think the AP does more damage due to the extra weight. In game it does the same damage as AP-I and API-T with AP-I and API-T rounds getting the extra added ability to cause fires. API-T have the best fire chance (next to the I) and match all of the rest of the AP rounds in terms of raw damage so the best belt for US .50s in game is the late full tracer M20 API-T belts.
what kind of monster would skip the first part of the video? I'm curious to see the analytics.
About half.
A solid 20% skip directly to the flight performance timestamp.
i got a strange feeling, that this whole video, when plane started shooting, video slowed down a little, am i tripping?
Carrier stuff W
Do people actually skip the intro?? That’s my favorite part
According to the retention stats, about half.
@@TimsVariety That is astonishing to me. I understand why you made the video about moving it around. Tbh it doesn’t matter where you put the history part in the video for me. You’re one of the only content creators I watch from start to finish 😂 Please don’t get rid of it though!
I don’t really understand when it’s referred that it has much better performance in air AB, isn’t that the case for literally every plane?
Low tier is fun tier.
Hey Tim, can you make a video on the new Japan F-5 Squadron jet
th-cam.com/video/xFnGwghr-fQ/w-d-xo.html
Oh I’m so late for my favourite naval fighter!
Hi Tim, as per usually a great video. I don't know if you consider request but if you do I reckon the B-57 Canberra bomber would be worth a shot. Anyways thanks for the amazing content per usual.
hay i just noticed something broken the germany marder 1a3 has thermals and a self guided rocked that has a 530 pen on it with mechine guns that pen 66 with a lazer rangefinder and max forward speed of 83kmh and max reverse speed of 83kmh broken af at rank 5
But the F4F-3 is just 2.3 in RB 🤔
I like this Chumky little plane a lot, especially with the -4 getting that Navy tricolor market skin 😮💨. But I definitely agree, the cockpit is awful and I pray we’ll get a visual update someday for some older planes.
Just like you said, I always felt that I was way too slow compared to all the other planes. Not my cup of tea honestly.
so tim about the 50s tracer and universal belts are not good with early war 50s, ground targets or stealth is so much better
Do the K4 next!
F1M Pete please and didn’t the fm and markets have more powerful engines?
P-47 next!?
Fw 190 A next?
I'll get to it eventually. I've already got one on the NC.900 which is very similar.
Love when he does lower tier stuff too😅 This game gets depressing very quickly above tier 5
Imagine skipping the history lesson
According to retention data, roughly half of viewers skip it. A good chunk, about 20% or so, cut right to the flight performance and pick up from there.
I watch primarily for the history
Worse than skipping leg day
70 views, 7 minutes ago, 7 comments, 14 likes. Interesting.
The stats for the first hour are totally unreliable.
Even throughout the first day, the V/L/C numbers on the video are different looking at the video page itself vs looking at the stats it shows me on the analytics panel.
I really dont know why.
Hi
18 deaths 6 kills with this plane so far, it’s not so good against other planes of the same br
I really dislike this line of planes, the corsairs are extremely good, but the cats are just bad to fly, the only one that is good is the undertired one with .50s.
Kinda funny though we have the opposite views; I perform quite badly (personally) in the Corsairs, but love the cats because of their ruggedness (and that I can turn-fight better).
@@Akaeru They only turn slightly better than the corsairs and the main issue is that the 20mms put them higher than they should be. Try to get better with the corsairs they are the better planes.