303_Kermit

I strongly suspect, that your experience is limited to head on engagements, that start in mid air head on. In PvP environment such experience is useless. Average flying MiG will go below you - to make your radar useless. Without doppler radar on board F-4 your AiM-7 has no advantage over R-27. You'll lose a lock anyway. You have 2 options: If you fly low like he is - you're already half dead. Boresight is your best option here, and only if your opponent is naive enough to fly Headon. MiG 29 will see you first, so he will maneuver first. Mostly to place himself behind you. In most cases you end up in turn fight against MiG-29. You're low - soon you'll end up low and slow. If you stay high you'll become a victim of giraffe and effect will be the same. One more thing - flying with 4+4 AAM in F-4 is bad idea IMHO. Even against MiG-21, not mentioning MiG-29. Such payload makes you slow, acceleration even in dive is very limited, loss of speed in turn is dramatic. Range of the radar is small (surprise surprise it's not a Tomcat) and that means that you'll use not more than 2x AiM-7 in single head on. After that, the other 2x AiM-7 are nothing more than extra drag and extra weight. Most cases I fly 2x AiM-7 + 2x or 4x AiM-9. If I fail to use both AiM-7 before turnfight, my chances of winning against MiG-21 are seriously limited. So I always shoot both AiM-7 even if there's no chance to hit. Just to make my plane more agile. To have a chance against F1 and MiG-21 in turnfight, or just to outclimb / outrun them. (Outrunning F-1 is even than very hard, and F-4 needs one more trick to survive) I fly over 20 years. I doubt there is a trick that I don't know about. You may try to outsmart MiG-29. In the Holy Bible of Fighter Pilots R. Shaw describes many so called "Stunt tactics" - so you don't have to be creative. Just pick one. Some of them work in DCS, another don't. But all of them work only once or twice. After that it's like he wrote: "If you have no effective advantage that you may use against your enemy, you have very low chance to win". Yes Tomcat armed in AiM-7 may stand against MiG-29. No F-4 armed in AiM-7 can't. Simple. But you're welcome to try. Any PvP server (Buddyspike 80 for example) will cure you from illusions. Anyway... most of my colleagues (just as old as I am) doesn't even bother to take R-27 on MiG-29. Just 6x Fox2. Even F-15 isn't safe if it's not armed with AiM-120. F-4 is just a target for them and they'll win 10 out of 10 not even concentrating on game that much.

I like to fly PvP and online Campaigns / milsim Campaigns. In most of them MRF1 is placed on Red side. It's not a problem if you're interested in DCS just because of shooting. If you're in DCS because of flying, than you look for full realism missions, without your plane position provided on the map, full weather, day and night. In that case you'll miss TACAN beacons and ILS. It annoyed us up to moment when we decided to change plane. Second reason was, that F-4 is able to perform every Cold War mission ('60-'70 CW conflicts), A2A and A2G . MRF1 is very good in A2A, but his A2G capabilities are limited. SEAD - very difficult. 2x F-4 are able make serious damage to any target. Third reason - Immersion that is provided in F-4.

I hate such discussions. I flew 2 years exclusively F-1CE / EE / BE. Back then F-4 wasn't much of a challenge. Short on fuel, slow. Now I fly F-4 Exclusively - I can't see the advantage of using AiM-7M. Sure- it probably mattered for F-4J/S and other Navy variants, since they could utilize Doppler filter, and were able to perform top down shooting. But "E" ? You need to be skilled , and be a part of very well coordinated team to kill MiG-29 in 2 vs 1 combat. In 1 on 1 your best chance is some friendly SAM site. Run wait for SAM lunch, recomit, don't be too greedy. Rather defensive as offensive. But maybe you're better than me?

Which one of F-4 Missiles would be better than R-27R/T/ER/ET?

also for msfs?

Mi-2 Any version.

The true reason is simple. M61A1 Vulcan Cannon. Either that or Pulse doppler filter module. Navy chose bigger antenna of the radar and look down shoot down capabilities, since they were interested more in A2A performance of F4. Airforces wanted something else, and they have an ammo box instead of Doppler module. That is one of the reasons, why whole front end of F-4 of Navy is different.

+1

I travel from one crash site to the other. I learn the history of Starfighters form JaBoG 34. These week I visited crash site of Oblt. Kelenk on the mountain "Hochgrat". It looks very different if you see the report about the last flight, and after you see an actual crash site. Anyway.... maybe it's offtop, but may I ask for these one Skin? Looks insane.

Not that much... I mean... F-104 combat range - 420nm vs EEL combat range 135nm. Is it even worth to take off?? Purely defensive plane. Not a fighter - just Interceptor. Not very capable one, since there is no place for bigger radar antenna, and no serious Fox 1 missiles could be used on it. Unable to perform any mission behind the front line not A2A nor A2G (well... Kuwait is exception, but it isn't a very big country - they could ignore massive thirst of Lightning and his non existing range, since they sleep on Oil, and their country is so small, that you may see both ends from one tower in between them) No CAP, just GAI missions like MiG-21F-13 or MiG-21 PF/PFM (SPS). Very limited usage. You would be bored flying it after 5 days. It's actually very funny if one think: Adm. Yamamoto was killed during first known purposely performed Interception mission - thanks to huge range of P-38. British Lightning in spite of his speed would be unable to perform that interception. But if you live on an Island you can built fighters that can't reach speed of sound - pretending that they do, or build very fast interceptor, that is unable to utilize his great speed/climb anywhere except well prepared exercises. As for armament... a photo pasted by @Tengah shows one big nothing. Not Impressive even for modest F-104G capabilities. Many guys will gladly Ignore limitations of F-104 - because it's thrilling to fly , insanely pretty, and it's a legend known all over the world. EEL is nowhere near to that. It's ugly from every possible angle, and seem to be a one trick pony.

Only Mother can love that Quasimodo...

Just for my curiosity... What missiles are you going to use for BVR? no AiM-7 fly that fast / that far to be a BVR capable. Jesters Locks are fine - just do it within 10nm-15nm range. Not further. It's not F-14. For low lvl Boresight works well, but of course it's not a BVR

One can't have opinion about a temperature of boiling water.

Independent from own likes and dislikes, your suggestion is against logic and fairness to guys who bought Mirage F1. Shame yourself.

Wrong. I fly Sabre a lot, I fly MRF1 a lot - but mostly BE/CE. I never flew F-16/18/JF or any other BVR capable type. Not interested. I like to see my target sweat and scared. See their eyes when I kill them. See they stall their F-4 when I do rolling scissors. F1M is a competitor for gen 4+ fighters. BVR is not my music, and MRF1M on servers like BF modern or Contentions modern... I can't imagine that. ... Clearly you don't know what you're talking about. And how did you ever figured out that I like modern planes more, when I just wrote, that it's the opposite? It's just like with your MiG-21. PF/PFM/MF would be great for DCS. BISON is wasted time.