Mig-21 SPS-K In War Thunder : A Basic Review

Taking a look at the premium Mig-21 recently added to the German air tree i War Thunder.
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[@jeremyrasemas7989]

7:50 Actually this is accurate to at the very least this aircraft, as East German Migs were not equipped with German writings, and kept the Russian, and as such German pilots were forced to learn the meanings of the words in the cockpit from the Russian.

[@abroamg]

In general east Germans often learned Russian as a second language in school so it wouldn't be a problem

[@corbindrollinger1948]

yup, east germany used to teach russian as secondary language in school and further education aswell, so the cockpit being in russian wasnt that big of a problem and actually is accurate.

[@ethanphillips1507]

I'd assume the Chinese ones would be in chinese since they were reverse engineered

[@DrSabot-A]

@@ethanphillips1507 They were. Most Chinese russian aircraft were licensed produced/reverse engineered so they had chinese produced components

[@V-V1875-h]

@@abroamg only the "elite" classes had russian, others probably learned it through tutoring or in the military

[@Mungobohne1]

German migs never had German instruments. They also talked in Russian on radio. You had to speak Russian to be in the nva airforce

[@B52Stratofortress1]

They were also the only Warsaw Pact air force to be under Soviet command even in peacetime.

[@leinad3305]

As far as I know, at least the East German MiG-21's did not have any of the cockpit labeling changed. I don't know about the Chinese one's, but Germany simply used the standard Russian markings for the cockpit, probably because East German pilots were trained with them anyway.

[@PaiSAMSEN]

All Chinese aircraft with Chinese designation (though I'm not sure about J-2 as I can't find cockpit picture of it) label the cockpit in Chinese.

[@felion_]

This is actually a balanced aircraft. 2 r60s at 10.0. + no flares if u choose a gun. This won’t be another crazy F5C or A5C. This will just be a downgrade of the MF

[@V-V1875-h]

Yep

[@izzuera]

just watch till dumbasses will play so bad it will be 9.7 /s

[@DapperLindy]

How is the F5C not balanced?

[@SavvDaDon]

@@DapperLindy Turns on a dime and bleeds almost no speed compared to it's competitors.

[@DapperLindy]

@@SavvDaDon good plane doesn't make it "unbalanced" that's different

[@Maksimus_Prime]

Waiting for the swordfish review pt.2

[@majo3488]

My stepfather was the main technician for the a US (that still exists today) and told me a lot of cool things about it. The US was the trainer for 2. Gen MiG-21s like the PFM/SPS-K.

[@Hurts1983]

So as far as I know, the flare pod on the fuselage is the SPS-41, which was a counter measure pod that also included an electronic warfare capability. Pretty interesting stuff.

[@FirstDagger]

* SPS-141

[@TheWhoamaters]

Absolutely killing it with these reviews man, keep it up

[@DerSpeggn]

Another great review from my favourite War Thunder youtuber! Keep up the great work! Love it!

[@blacktail522]

This is a wonderful plane to fly. Plus really speeding up the grind for the bis sau

[@tatevolk7553]

These are coming thick and fast.

[@jonathans.5424]

bro i rlly like how this dude makes these videos. Take my like

[@mateopereyra790]

great review, thanks

[@juhos30000]

I dig so much. I'd say its not blatantly OP or anything. I usually get 9.7-10.7 MM and whilst its not the top dog there, it performs.

[@murkser4149]

The J-7E does have Chinese inscriptions which is pretty cool.

[@samtasticsongs3012]

I’ve had really good luck with this plane. Usually I come away from a realistic battle with 2 kills or so. It’s helped me grind the f4f easily

[@duskshel8119]

Nice review! A quick question-- if the US Air Tree ever gets a counter to the MiG-23MLD, what do you think it will be?

[@XpunisherX8152]

F4S Navel Phantom

[@progoku196]

@@XpunisherX8152 what about the france??

[@duskshel8119]

@@progoku196 I can't think of any. Maybe the Mirage 2000?

[@arbitercs]

I wonder what Italy gets 💀

[@timmyhers9253]

For France, maybe the Mirage F1?

[@abroamg]

Mig21s don't need the airbrake, the delta wing can dot he job just as well xD

[@chaluhacz8998]

Mig 21s is just one BIG airbrake

[@desertfalcon1539]

Yes You dont need airbrakes You ARE the airbrake

[@bradsheap6474]

I’m lovin it. When it’s not up BR’d you just feel powerful and when your are up BR’d you just have to outsmart your opponent to have a chance. Even BR feels balanced.

[@zebraro2852]

Nice to see another ting i have to counter in an f-104a

[@stormjet814]

Bought this thing a few weeks ago, I'm still new to top tier but honestly I've been having a blast I find I can at least net one kill most games, perhaps two if I'm lucky, or even three, along with ground targets and AI planes

[@stormjet814]

makes quite a profit and I've gotten a long way into the german tech tree so far! Was at early jets before

[@xx-xx9be]

dude this thing makes a ridiculous amount of SL. its been my main money grinder for a bit now.

[@ghostmw8]

It might be a unpopular opinion but the plane is too balanced to be considered to purchase, like as other top tier premiums have either good missile or good flight performance this plane really just offer nothing to the table, if you are paying $60 to buy a plane on a somewhat broken and unbalanced game you might as well get a overpower one right?

[@hansloyalitat9774]

Realistically it should have an integrated gun and be able to carry countermeasures

[@brightspark8052]

Do you prefer using the cannon or the counter measures? Its BR doesn’t need countermeasures to perform well so I’m curious what you prefer

[@Texas_Engineer_Mike]

Gun is better

[@TimsVariety]

The gun - but anytime I get uptiered and see those EJ Kais on the other team, I wish I had the CM pod ...

[@JCaleb]

If you are watching this in more recent times... You can't break your wings anymore, I've tried this inumerous times on matches, even pulling 14Gs on extreme turns and speeds, no wing rips You can now create custom loadouts, my preferred loadout is the R13M + 2 R3Rs, they are helpful in headons at the start of the match at high altitudes, vs. unsuspecting enemy CAS and if you are intercepting the last player in the enemy team, as long as you don't force them to pull turns, they should be able to get at least 2km range if you are faster than your target, even shot multiple near 3km out with great success. Why R13Ms over R60s? Simply because if I'm in a dogfight, I'd be using my guns anyway, most oponents at 10.0 get flares which they can spam in close dogfights to counter potential IR missiles, so your best bet is to use the R13 like a vulture, against players already engaged in dogfights with teammaters and the like, where you are surprise attacking someone. My current K/D is near 4.0 with more than 100 matches

[@wolf2k143]

Thank you

[@clixxzzy-897]

Idk if it’s just me but for me it says this vehicle hasn’t come out yet but I just saw it in game

[@makfrags14]

The brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr alone makes me wanna buy this monster

[@MAG3_Hiromachi]

So they retained those unrealistic R-3R missile. Its not even that MiG-21SPS / PFM could not carry them, its just that it was technically impossible to use them with RP-21M radar. Gaijin always promoting magic :(

[@kajmak64bit76]

Nobody smart would even use those anyway lol... R-60 is just way better and meta... Only real use of R-3R is well... headon all aspect short range with no turning... It's kinda really useless and not braindead to use like R-60

[@iluminas2866]

If i rember correctly in the Forum they answered it that the Romanian (i think it was Romanian )PFM had them so they gave it to the German one aswell to make it somewhat better mind u that was befor it got R60 and R13

[@iluminas2866]

It was the Bulgarian PFM where they sourced the R3Rs from confirmed by Gajin store manager also direct quote of him "You can see this premium as an amalgam of various Warsaw Pact PFM models"

[@MAG3_Hiromachi]

@@iluminas2866 Well, the problem is that its physically impossible to fit RP-22 radar into RP-21 radome. To fit Saphir, you need to change the cone and I believe nose section became wider. Certainly new type of fittings inside was needed. Finally more powerful generator would be needed to power up new radar. Basically you would need extensive changes to the airframe and obviously a bunch of RP-22 radars. But Soviet Union did not sell radars separately, it even refused to sell pylons and other equipment like that alone. So whatever some store manager said, is simply false. Both for Bulgaria and Germany. And if its amalgamation of various PFMs than its both wrong and silly. If they want everything for everyone, than WT might as well drop nations.

[@_ace_defective_]

I think this is actually a really cool premium. Its flight performance is nothing to write home about for 10.0, but it has an interesting choice of weapons and having to choose between the gun and countermeasures also is a difficult choice to make. Plus, if I recall correctly, I believe this is the only aircraft in the game that currently has the R-13M missile, as all the Soviet aircraft have the R-13M1 instead. Premiums should be done more like this, or like the F-86F-35 where they're basically identical to aircraft you can get in the tech tree (aside from premium bonuses). Balance obviously is far from perfect right now, but unlike the A-5C, F-5C, Harriers, etc., this seems far from busted.

[@cutthroat795]

MiG 21 bis has R-13m I’m pretty sure

[@GeneralLudwigSteiner]

Do you own it?

[@engineer7483]

After watching this. Im thinking of getting the Premium MIG 21

[@sicksixgamer2694]

I am not great at Air, but in this I can consistently get kills. It's really fun to fly. So glad I got it on the sale.

[@Kokolakio]

what loadout do you use??

[@sicksixgamer2694]

@@Kokolakio 2x R60 and gun pod.

[@BarcelPL]

I'm not a WT player, but a tech nerd - what does ACM Boresight stand for and what does it do (compared to "standard" radar mode)?

[@jakobc.2558]

It switches from scanning a large area in front of the aircraft to focussing the search beam on a point directly in front of the jet, typicaly directly where the sight is aimed at in the cockpit. This makes locking onto aircraft easier as you dont need to wait for your radar dish to slowly make its way left to right. The earliest example I can think of would be the world war 2 F6F-5N hellcat, which had ACM for its radar gun sight. As it was a night fighter variant of the Hellcat, oftain times the wing mounted radar would pick up an aircraft while the pilot still couldnt see it because the pacific ocean can be extremely dark at night. So with the click of a button the pilot could switch to ACM mode which would cause the radar to focus its scan directly infront of the aircraft so that on the radar screen a enemy aircraft would appear and the pilot could aim the guns using the radar sight.

[@ahmed-ze9ng]

Naaah my ju88 c is a cash machine , but this mig nice if u have nothing to grind with in Germany , nice review bro.

[@missilemans6688]

What do you think is a better combo to fly with? 2X R60s or 2x R13M? (Not R13M1s, regular R13Ms have less pull and bad flare resistance)

[@Texas_Engineer_Mike]

The most fun are x2 R3R x2 R3S and gun

[@Texas_Engineer_Mike]

My 1 and only loadout for every br

[@Texas_Engineer_Mike]

You can use R3R for long range and head on shots, R3S for slower targets and distraction, and a gun for close dogfight

[@steve-wu7jp]

Are the radar guided misses a decent loadout? It seemed like a novel thing on a premium jet

[@chaluhacz8998]

I think yes

[@TimsVariety]

They're difficult to use, but if you can get good with them, they can be effective.

[@mehmeh9714]

The Eastern Bloc used Russian as the universal language. Radio communication were in Russian as in NATO in English.

[@eagerestcrab2030]

should i buy this or the american f-5?

[@kokadosh8763]

I don't get it. In test flight, I can't extend airbrakes in the Prem Mig 21 because it will collide with the ecm pod, which make sense. But when I test fly the German Mig 21 bis, which gets the ECM pod by default, you can extend the air bakes and you can see the airbrake clip through the ECM pod

[@Coliflower185]

The MiG-21bis has its flares internally mounted, and not in an ecm pod. So gaijin probably just copied the code from the bis to the bis sau, and forgot about the ecm pod. That or it’s not supposed to have the ecm pod.

[@SavvDaDon]

@@Coliflower185 They actually aren't internally mounted. The two pods are pretty small and are placed on the bottom rear of the fuselage.

[@Coliflower185]

@@SavvDaDon oh, didn’t realise, then again i purposely avoid playing the mig-21bis due to its rep cost. Point still stands tho

[@srgabrielfb]

Mig21 bis will not be a Better grinder Than The premium one because of the battle rating. And mig 21's don't really need airbreaks I play mig21 MF with pods and you just need 2 turns to bleed all speed that you want

[@jerryjuutalainen1783]

For the german one the russian cockpit isn't actually wrong. Even their MiG-29s still ahd russian cockpits and only got updated to english after their upgrade to NATO standard.

[@codyweaver7546]

Tailed delta. The Danger Dorito

[@chaosxassassin7]

Me at 3:50. Messing around with GR1. GG

[@steve-wu7jp]

Inboard guns would have been nice

[@pickle4422]

pure SuFfErInG!!!

[@nathandavid7585]

Just imagine one day, war thunder will add the f14 tomcat in some update, it will be interesting what over countries will get

[@stoyantodorov2133]

My guess would be the tornado for UK, Germany and Italy. The MiG-23MLD, JA-37 and the F-4EJ Kai will be able to compete too if given all aspect heatseekers. Israel will get a very early version F-16A and a late model mirage F1 for France. Not sure what China has with similar capability to the F-14A.

[@lordmilchreis1885]

I mean, now we have it

[@ktanoflow]

then they are worth buying

[@stunningandbased5516]

4:22 did you just destroy 2 light ground targets with heavy rockets? That hurts to see on so many levels

[@Christph-vb1gn]

How's the engine performance compared to the pfm? The same?

[@Texas_Engineer_Mike]

Yeah, same

[@mayonotes9849]

It's the same aircraft, so flight performance is identical.

[@TimsVariety]

The same

[@Desi_Nehra]

5:12 Shoutout to the bloke with the username *Fubuki_simp* 😂

[@Boris_The_Turtle]

Not going to lie, even if its great, I doubt its worth getting tongrind the german tree as they wont get as good top tier jets even in the future.

[@DamianGaming1]

German MiG-29 :)

[@sledgetype0029]

@@DamianGaming1 probably gaijin will forget germany tt even exists and will never add it lol

[@T00dl3s]

@@DamianGaming1 Which Germany will get approx. 2 Years after the one in the Soviet Tree. It will be dead by arrival, just like the German F-4s

[@OumuamuaOumuamua]

Woah there, in all of my experiences the R-13M has out preformed the r-60, the longer range is much more useful than it’s limited range and flare addiction

[@user-tr2li3vu6u]

Ah yes the R-13M fanboys who shout about R-60 being trash. Let me explain: R13M have a slightly better range, that, don't get me wrong, CAN be useful, but -R60 have a wider seeker gimbal (don't lose track as easily -R60 can be radar slaved -R60 have a 2 times tighter turn. While dodging an R13 is close to trivial, dodging an R60 is borderline impossible The "flare resistance" is a joke because a missiles in the game get baited to the first flare they see

[@thunderking-oo2km]

This guy thought it was bad because I beat him in a turn fight with a j35d while he was in that I was like bruh it's not bad but it's not gonna beat a j35d in a turn fight

[@RavenPoet09]

Makes me sad you dont really even mention the 4x R-3R's they are a VERY capable loadout. especially in a downtier vs people who love to climb in harriers

[@ovrwrldkiler]

I know man. people sleep on the r3r. I used to love them on the Bis back in the day (though now its a lot harder with all the other better headon missiles now), so I bet that it would be pretty sweet at 10.0. Too bad that it's a premium.

[@kajmak64bit76]

@@ovrwrldkiler but R-13 has better way and turning... what's the point of a radar missile that has 1km more range then R-60 but everything else is a lot worse xd

[@mayonotes9849]

@@kajmak64bit76 You get 4 R-3R compared to 2 R-13M. The R-3R is still decent, it's really good against climbing attackers like Harriers.

[@kajmak64bit76]

@@mayonotes9849 nah R-3R is worst missile ingame ngl... maybe the British early missile is actually the worst R-3R is from the looks of it... an all aspect R-60 that doesn't turn and has 1km range more lol What's the point of it in this game idk... plus it's coupled with shit radar with no PD / look down... so only really works when looking up

[@ovrwrldkiler]

@@kajmak64bit76 at 10.0, you can get a surprising number of people with it (harriers and f4c). Lots of people climb and having an all aspect radar missile fired at them can really catch them by suprise, especially the US players since theyre usually the ones firing them at that BR. The x2 r60 is probably still the best loadout for the sps, but the r3r arent that bad either.

[@luclanglois9086]

im sorry but that landing was hot ass

[@michaelnemec558]

nice came here for one thing that is to find out how the radar-guided R-3R's work and he just skipped em ;-;

[@Texas_Engineer_Mike]

Look for some radar missiles tutorial it should help

[@GodWentAFK]

Not great. The planes radar is very basic and so are the missiles, so you're limited to head ons. It's a lot harder to catch people off guard with radar missiles now since everyone's on the lookout for them with how common they are around top tier. They're usable, but you'll get more kills on average with a pair of R-60s

[@DrSabot-A]

His radar guide goes in-depth on SARH missiles, try em

[@user-hh5pj5jv8p]

I love your reviews and all respect to you, but I find it odd how you can be so positive about more power creep coming to war Thunder. This vehicle is essentially a better A5C at a lower br that gives anybody a chance to buy their way to top tier. It seems like Gaijins plan for high tier jets is to add an instant top tier premium for every nation and then transform the BR into premium vs premium meta shitshow.

[@Ninjasimpmunk]

It’s been like this for almost a decade

[@nicogonzalez3508]

Wait, are you mousepad gamin?

[@maciekGTR]

at least it's not another game-breaking piece of scrap like the A-5C

[@slumzur]

almost the same, but doesn't have air spawn

[@maciekGTR]

@@slumzur Nope, it has a much worse energy retention and doesn't gain energy as quickly as A-5C, and Magics are far better than R-60s

[@slumzur]

@@maciekGTR R-60s still have 30G capability and on 10.0 and down, there is almost no one with countermeasures. The AOA of the mig gives you the opportunity to lead the missile, so it's also 2 guaranteed kills.

[@Texas_Engineer_Mike]

@@slumzur yeah but A5 actually has guns with flares, Mig-21SPS-K has a lot worse climb rate and acceleration than A5 + R60 likes flares a lot more than magics

[@pancake4061]

Yeah, it's really underpowered. It's not like there are any planes that get only 2 10 G missiles and NO countermeasure options to speak of, while having all around inferior flight performance. Wait, nevermind, that's just the T-2.

[@mayonotes9849]

The T-2 is a really good 9.7 plane tf you're talking about. If you're talking about the F3H-2 then I agree.

[@pancake4061]

@@mayonotes9849 Sorta forgot it was 9.7

[@thatgirlcalledleah3517]

its always funny seeing people say that planes are fuel hungry but they havent played the viggen

[@xmagma4633]

Mig21 SPS-K is like WW2 Japanese planes , low ammo , low fuel , just for kamikaze 😂 (Jk)

[@rileyxbell]

This thing is pretty op compared to some of the things it faces. Nothing on the US tech tree can counter r60's and mig 21's until 11.0

[@starfighter1043]

🤦‍♂️ the mig21s is 10x better than this and it's a whole ass BR lower 😒...same missiles....better engine...better performance...lower battle rating 😳 The sps-k isn't shit compared to the new s variant

[@flopaflop420]

same missiles? the S doesn't have R-60s.

[@morzik12345]

Another premium Mig???? Give us a premium Phantom

[@hakonred8068]

Hell no

[@Texas_Engineer_Mike]

For germany? We have F-4F "early" already

[@T00dl3s]

@@Texas_Engineer_Mike Which is not a Premium.

[@Texas_Engineer_Mike]

@@T00dl3s ok it's not but why would you need a premium phantom

[@T00dl3s]

@@Texas_Engineer_Mike Personal Preferences I guess ? I don‘t like these flying Pencils.

[@isaackminhas]

8th

[@dmav522]

first!

[@ja37d-34]

Pretty lame not making the cockpit with German letters for that price. Very lame and lazy.

[@StingrayMK1987]

Well, they didn't have them in German IRL. East Germany used to teach Russian as a second language in school.