MiG-21S (R-13-300): What are countermeasures?

This MiG-21S is a jet fighter for the Russian tech tree. It has many perks, like a good airframe and loadout, early radar missiles, and incredible acceleration. However, it has one major flaw — you get no countermeasures. This doesn’t make the plane unplayable; however, it requires a bit more thinking than other MiG-21s. So, how is it played?

Flight Performance

The centre of the plane (or pretty much the entire plane) is the Tumansky R-13-300 engine, with a maximum thrust of 6977 kgf in full afterburner under optimal conditions. Considering the aircraft is very light, this gives it an incredible rate of acceleration, given its weight, reaching Mach 1 in a short timespan. Despite the engine power, you do not get supersonic cruising, with your max speed not in afterburner sitting at around Mach 0.85. Compared to other supersonic jets you might find, like the F-100, you have a much better engine.

Being a MiG-21, you have delta wings. While this gives a low stall speed, you bleed speed at an incredible rate during manoeuvres. This means even if you are travelling at above Mach 1, getting into a turnfight can bleed all your speed.

In a turnfight, you will outclass most opponents, however it is recommended not to get into a dogfight due to poor energy retention and instead you should fly the plane like you would an interceptor. Fly with minimal turning and turnfighting, and 'boom and zoom' — try a surprise missile strike or gun run, but if you miss, don’t recommit and find another target. Dogfighting can be great against targets you can’t run away from, due to the light airframe. A couple of sharp, aggressive turns can easily catch a plane on your tail off guard, bleeding speed, possibly forcing an overshoot and a gun kill. This is if you are forced to fly along the ground.

Survivability

The survivability of the vehicle is at a minimum. You begin to face planes with AIM-9Ls, like the A-10A. These have an incredible maximum overload, and due to the lack of countermeasures are hard to evade. Due to them being all aspect, it’s even easier for them to lock you.

Due to your whole plane being the engine, it is easy for any type of IR missile to lock you, not just the AIM-9s. Against radar missiles, while you do have an RWR with a 50km range, it’s not very good. This due to the fact that your RWR only warns you if you are being tracked, and not of radar missile launches.

Survivability is at a minimum, and you must be prepared to counter that or face surprise missile deaths. You need to be aware of missiles. Make sure to keep an eye on the minimap to see if anyone gets within missile range. By 'missile range' it is meant by the range that even if they have low G tolerances, like the AIM-9Bs, you cannot pull and evade in time. If any plane with an AIM-9L or something with a similar pull locks you and shoots you, you are guaranteed to die unless you can put something in the way. You could also try using rockets as makeshift flares, however this takes away from the small number of pylons you have.

Air to Air weaponry

There are 3 main weapons you get access to deal with planes.

• GSh-23L 23mm cannon — with only 200 rounds, while the gun is effective, you need to be careful with your shots to conserve ammunition. The bullet drop is rather drastic and can take some time to get used to.
• R-3S missile — a rear aspect IR missile. With a lock range of 3.5km, a launch range of 9km, and a maximum speed of Mach 1.7, these are very effective at surprising enemies in brawls. The main problem with the missile is the terrible overload of only 10Gs, making it easy to outmanoeuvre and escape. If you can surprise a target, the missile will make short work of the enemy so long as they don’t try anything fancy, or have countermeasures as the missile is very susceptible to them. Either way, the other missiles are generally superior.
• R-3R missile — a radar missile, and the best missile on the plane. Identical stats to the R-3s, however with a lock range of 9km, and very susceptible to countermeasures. Being a SARH missile, it means it doesn’t care about aspect. The plane’s radar can generally lock at 10km, meaning in the context of what planes you face you have a range advantage. What you need to keep in mind is maths. If you launch in side aspect, the missile needs to pull, which it cannot do. If you launch from behind, the closing speed of the missile is equal to the missile speed minus the plane’s speed, meaning most shots you fire from the rear miss. In head-ons, the closing speed is equal to the speed of the missile added to the plane’s speed. This means that while at altitude, if you launch fairly early, you can surprise enemy planes. Something else you should bear in mind is if you are within about 3km of the enemy. Because the proximity fuse arms more or less instantly, you can shoot within 1.5km, giving the enemy no time to manoeuvre and allowing the missile to smack them in the face. Ironically enough, the missiles are least effective at medium ranges.

CAS weaponry

This MiG-21S comes with a variety of CAS weaponry aside from the cannon, suited for different tasks.

• S-5K rockets — these are HEAT-FS rockets. As you can carry 96 of these, with CCIP, they are great for carpeting an area of the map, to kill tanks in an area.
• S-24 rockets  —  the best rockets the plane has to offer. With 25.5kg of explosive, a direct hit is an almost guaranteed kill. As you can carry 4, when played correctly, it is 4 easy kills.
• FAB-500M/OFAB-25sv — 500kg/250kg bombs respectively. As you don’t have CCIP for bombs, these are incredibly hard to use, and are not enough to knock out a base in air RB.
• ZB-500 incendiary bomb — a napalm bomb. You can carry two of these, which is enough to take out a base due to damage over time caused by the napalm. These are the only bombs I would ever equip (for mindless grinding) but are still hard to drop as they cannot be dropped past Mach 1, and you don’t have CCIP.

Playstyle

There are 3 main ways to play this vehicle, and they are base-bombing, ground attack (ground RB) or anti-air (ground/air) so I’ll go over each.

Base-Bombing

I would equip the cannon, two IR missiles and the napalm bombs. Rush to a base, make sure you’re below Mach 1, drop the bombs, and head to attack the enemy from the rear.

I would bring the gun as chances are that a Harrier or another strike jet would rush at you. If this happens, pull upwards hard (you should be travelling at about Mach 0.95 when bombing, so you have plenty of energy to turn). Wait for them to stall, pray they don’t launch a missile at you, turn around, and spray bullets in their face. The reason this would work is you have much better acceleration in a straight line. In an uptier, there is not much you can do if a plane like a Mirage III gets on your tail.

Avoid getting into an actual dogfight, as while you can outturn most jets you face, the delta wing configuration means you bleed speed at a ridiculous rate, leaving you susceptible to missile, strafes and crashing into the ground. It’s a very brainless playstyle, however it gets the grind done, and you can still lob missiles at people while doing so.

Ground attack

Very simple. Four S-24 rockets and the cannon. Skim low along the ground, perform a 'flanking manoeuvre' to get to the side of the enemy, launch rockets, then head home.

There is a little more to it than that. First off, you should launch the S-24s in pairs, while you can launch them one at a time it is less likely to get kills. Secondly, avoid any SPAA, IRST-equipped vehicle, or enemy plane at all costs, as these will easily down you especially if you don’t have missiles. If you can surprise the ground based platforms, then go for it, but if they start shooting at you, get out of there.

A very easy, but rewarding playstyle. Very fun as well (what part of large HE rockets isn’t?).

Anti-air

A very simple loadout, easier to do in air RB due to you knowing where the enemies are so its easier for your radar. Bring just R-3Rs and the cannon.

Two ways to do this. First, you can either fly along the ground, launching the missiles in head-ons so long as the radar lock conditions permit. Otherwise, use the cannon as it has great damage output. Usually, if you launch the missiles in any other aspect than head-on, they do not have the G-tolerance to turn, and the way they are launched would make it easier to out-manoeuvre, which wasn’t hard in the first place. In summary — lob the missiles in head-ons to maximise their effectiveness. This is an unideal playstyle, as it means your missiles are less effective.

The second way is space-climbing. If you noticed the first image of the plane launching an R-3R (that was at 13km in altitude by the way), you can probably guess what will happen. It’s much easier to get radar lock from high altitudes, so you can climb to about 5-6km, which is optimal (13km is excessive but funny). Climb to this altitude as fast as possible, otherwise other planes that get missiles, even other radar missiles, will blow you out of the sky while you’re climbing due to your lack of countermeasures, and vulnerability while climbing.

Launching them in the thinner air means that they move and accelerate faster, and it can be quite surprising how fast they move. If it’s an opponent with equal altitude, a head-on is the way to go, otherwise dive on some poor unsuspecting jet and launch an R-3R at them (the jet I was firing at in the image was a J-35XS). The missile is hard to spot albeit with a long burn time, and if they don’t manoeuvre, it’s an easy kill. If you use some braincells, it’s quite easy to use.

Vowel Guy

This is a video by Aoeilaeiepae, or Vowel Guy. While he primarily plays Air Arcade, quite a bit of what he points out applies to RB. Whether you want to try Air Arcade at top-tier or just get some advice, he is a great Youtuber, especially as he has many team-wipes and is infamous. Very funny guy, great video, so go check him out. Other than that, DEFYN has a video on this MiG, and a couple of other YouTubers offer great guides on the R-3R.

I hope this guide helped!