Basics: Airframe

Now that we've discussed armament, we're ready to look at the other side of an airplane's cost: its airframe. Where an airplane's variant determines its armament (the F/A-18C, for instance, is better armed but more expensive than its A variant), its base airframe determines its tactical ruggedness. Airframes range from basic, 60 point and under degunned bombers like the East German MiG-17 series and the Czech L series, to the advanced contours of the American F-15 and Soviet MiG-29 series. Some airframes service aircraft operating under highly variable price-armament conditions: the American AV-8 Harrier series serves a role ranging from 55 point multirole rocket striker to 120 point multirole tank hunter-killer. Being one and the same aircraft, just upgraded, the airframe nonetheless remains the same.Let's try evaluating an airframe: in this case the Soviet, off of the unit card of the MiG-29K (we'll look at unit cards more closely in the next section). Theis a top-of-the-line multirole cluster bomber with a catch - it comes armed with medium, not short, air-to-air missiles. Very nice!First,. This statistic does not vary for airplanes: large or small, A-10 or MiG-17, it is always 10. You should take strength to be a measure of how much and how many anti-air missiles and gun hits the plane can take before it is destroyed. Most ground-based air defense systems do four of five damage; particularly high-end systems may be do six or more, and the mighty BUK does eight or nine a hit. What does this mean? Planes are not very survivable. We'll discuss this in greater depth later.Strength is not the only measure of the plane's survivability: since it's always the same, the more important statistic is. ECM, or electronic countermeasures, ranges between N/A or None - these planes will take every missile that lands a shot - and Exceptional - such planes are very, very hard to hit. In this screenshot our MiG-29M has Medium ECM. This is better than None or Poor, but worse than Good, Very Good, or Exceptional. The latter two categories of ECM are reserved for SEAD aircraft; the best a normal plane can do is "Good", and since the MiG-29M is a close third to the F-15E and Su-25T for most expensive aircraft in the game, it not having fully Good ECM is a bit disappointing. This weakness is counterbalanced by the relative merit that - as mentioned as an exception in the "Armament" section - the MiG-29K gets medium, not short, air-to-air missiles. And damn good ones at that! ECM is the one airframe category that varies between iterations of that plane.are bad for all aircraft, but this is a good opportunity to say a few words about aircraft sight. Aircraft can see a few things: units almost directly beneath them that aren't Small or hidden; other aircraft and helicopters within a certain wide radius; and ground-based air defense systems actively shooting at them. The moral of the story here is that aircraft can rarely spot their targets, so you must make use of recon units and/or the "Fire Pos" command when attacking.Next is. This is the plane's airspeed; the faster the plane, the faster it gets to its target and the faster it evacuates. Airspeeds vary from 500kph to 1100kph, with most jets being tiered to 1000, 900, or 600. Since this is a top-end airframe 900kph is again, a bit disappointing, another tweak to counterbalance the raw power of the plane's missile armament. Airspeeds are very important for planes, like this one, that you want to come back from their jobs, and though 900kph isn't much of a drop it's still noticeable when you're evacing off of a ground attack or trying to outrun an enemy F-15C.Next is. Most planes get Poor stealth: this is a category made of use of only by SEAD planes and by the special F-117 Nighthawk bomber. Stealthy planes are harder to see, thus reducing response times for your foes and allowing you, with good management, to attack targets unmolested by enemy air superiority fighters not already present on the battlefield.is not important, butis. Autonomy tells you over what distance that aircraft can loiter: not the loiter time per se, as this is also affected by the plane's speed, but the higher the Autonomy, the longer the plane can stay on the map before it has to Evac Bingo. There is not much variance in this category; ground-attack planes generally have significantly longer loiter times, and cheaper aircraft, shorter ones. If you want to rate the plane's fuel consumption, divide Autonomy by Fuel Capacity...not that it matters you eco-hippie.has no effect on gameplay (it's "Very Good" for all gun-armed planes that don't have a Gsh-21, which is only "Medium" for some reason).The remaining general statistics are important for deck-building. The MiG-29K entered service in 1989, according to its, and so qualifies as aunit, one that can be usedin Soviet national decks. Thetells you what type of decks the plane can be slotted into, and which types it is not available for. Deck-building may be covered in a future section of this guide.To discuss the final element of aircraft airframes, let's jump ship to the AmericanIf you examine the unit card for the A-10 you will see that it is, with 2 armor in front and back, and 1 on the sides and on top. Only two airframes in the game carry armor: the American A-10, and the Soviet (and Czech-exported) Su-25/25T. Armor works differently in the air than it does on the ground: the armor value is subtracted from the HE of an impacting missile, and then debuffed another point of damage. Weapon systems doing 3 damage or less - R60 Molniya short air-to-air missiles, SPRAAGs, and the vast majority of airplane cannons - won't even effect the Thunderbolt, and anti-air weapons with an HE value of 4 or 5 - the most common values - will be debuffed to 1 and 2 damage, respectively (2 and 3 on side-hits). A huge increase in survivability, but if you pay attention to the A-10's statistics (and cost) you'll see the airframe cost of such good shielding and armament.There are also a couple of hidden statistics. If you brought out an A-10 and a Corsair and had them both make a sharp turn, for instance, you'd find that the Corsair has a much larger turning circle than the A-10 does., not displayed on the card, is dependent on the quality and, to a lesser extent, airspeed, of the airframe, and is an important element of asset micromanagement. The second hidden statistic is. This is a lot more fuzzy, but basically, well-armed and higher-end aircraft can spot threats from significantly farther away than mere bomb taxis can, and medium ASFs and interceptors have the best air sight in the game, able to see unstealthed airbourne units out to perhaps two kilometers of distance. This is why, say, your Skyhawk II can't see the MiG-25PD that was sent out to deal with it before the latter is almost in shooting range.One more thing to note: in terms of armament, with some variance all planes in a series tend to be armed with the same cannon, and this holds true for the MiG-29. All three versions - the Soviet MiG-29 and MiG-29K multirole cluster bombers, and the East German MiG-29 9-13 medium air superiority fighter - sport a Gsh-301 cannon, a meh cannon with good accuracy and extended air-to-air range but a low firerate. We'll put all these observations together in the next section.