F-2A

the F-2A, as seen in game

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## Overview

Japanese strike fighter. The aircraft was based on the American F-16 fighter under the FS-X program. The first production F-2A made its first flight in 1999.

In game, the F-2A is one of the best strike fighters of it's tier, second only (in my opinion) to the A-10 Thunderbolt II. However, that's not to say this aircraft isnt a beast, and with the proper skills, it can be as deadly as the A-10. Having a pretty standard gun-missile-bomb setup, similar in nature to the F-15N.

### Weapon and stats review

"So the F-2A is pretty much an F-15 on steroids" - People who've never played F-2

It's a close comparison, but since the F-15 was replaced by the F-14 as the stock strike fighter of the USS Nimitz, the only ship it was mounted on, most players actually haven't experienced the F-15. Spoiler alert: it's bad. The AGM-88 HARM mounted on the F-15 lacks sufficient damage to be effective against enemy targets, meaning it relies on bombs to do most of the damage, which is hard for beginners. This is where the F-15 and the F-2 diverge. the F-2 has the (at this point) vaunted ASM-3 missile, which fires 2 missiles in 2 bursts per aircraft, with a total of 6 missiles in 2 bursts from 3 aircraft. Each ASM-3 missile does 3250 damage, with 6500 damage for every 2 bursts (1 launch). That means from 3 aircraft the missile does 19500 damage, which is quite alot for tier 2, doing slightly more damage than a stock brahmos. Then we have the bombs. The bomb slot is armed with the new Mk-83 aerial free fall bomb, it's incredibly effective against large targets (essentially, CVs), and each bomb does 6k damage with each aircraft dropping 2 bombs, resulting in a total damage of nearly 40 thousand if all bombs hit (factoring in critical hit chance), which (from what I've seen while playing this thing in online) can pretty much obliterate even a kuznetsov. Finally the gun, not much to talk abt here other than the fact that it's pretty much your typical aerial ASuW gun, however coming with the F-2 is an accuracy nerf to all but a few aerial cannons in the game, sacrificing accuracy for fire rate, despite previous accuracy buffs to many aerial guns. So, the best way to use this gun is to fire it in bursts of up to 5 bullets at a time(I recommend 2-3) until you close to about 1.5 km, then feel free to fire as long a burst as you want. Said tip goes for every gun that got it's accuracy nerf. The aircraft itself is incredibly maneuverable, use this to your advantage during attack runs by circling around the enemy ship and bombing it until your plane's health gets sufficiently low. Speaking of health, F-2A actually has slightly higher health than the A-10, with 4355 HP to the A10's 4160, and the plane itself is also very fast going at 113 knots on afterburner when fully upgraded. This makes the F-2A viable on carriers that lack fighters for spotting, due to it's own extremely fast speed.

### Conclusion

The F-2A is certainly one of the best strike fighters of it's tier, and it can put up with competition from the other META strike fighters (A-10, Harrier, fullback, and F-14), while being pretty much free (since it's permanently grindable), and it also does alot of damage, yet requires some skill in aiming the bombs. Tip: ace combat > arcade.