Harrier guide

I hope this guide achieves the goal i've set for it of making you informed about Harrier family. The goal is to give you a informative gameplay (only gameplay, i wont be talking about their history for it is way too big and im way too much of a Harrier enthusiast to leave unmentioned even a tiny bit of it) summary of each jet from this family without going too much into its history or any other details. I hope you scroll after each section with a good idea on what to use each Harrier for and how to use them. I want to clarify that im no John War Thunder or have DEFYN (although im one and only D2NUT evaluator so ig i pack some skill? /s) level of skil and that this guide shouldnt be taken as a holy grail of how to play Harriers and that you must play them only in the way i explained in this guide. Harrier jets are very fun and can be played in many, and i mean many ways. But what i lack in expertise i make up for my enthusiasm and broad knowledge in history. Harrier family is filled with many unique variants that wary a lot in gameplay.

Before i go into details of each variant, i want to make a TL;DR version of the Harrier family tree.

There are 2 generations (+ a naval version) of Harriers that wary a lot between each other but also have a few things in common, i will cover the differences in their own separate sections.

Commons between all Harriers

Strengths

• One of the best accelerations and engine performance overall in game
  
• Very good missile kit

Weakenesses

• Subsonic
  
• Most of Harriers have 2x ADEN 30 as their cannons, which has very poor performance
  
• Most of them lack radar

Note: this guide will mostly cover their gameplay in air realistic battles (with small accent on ground realistic battles and sim battles) and not Arcade. Arcade is fun and all (for someone, definitely not me tbh) but barely anyone plays it.

These guidelines are absolutely VITAL for playing harriers, especially the gen 1 where it will be the only way you will survive in a match for longer than 15 seconds that it takes you to spawn in the match.
As many of you who might already know, Harrier family has VSTOL (vertical and short take off and landing) capability, meaning you can take off vertically by pivoting the exhaust nozzles of its engine. But i wont be teaching you how to take off vertically there. Enter VIFF - Vector In Forward Flight. VIFFing is a signature dogfight technique executed by Harrier jet family and is used in 2 ways. First being increasing your turn rate, making you turn tighter, and second - rapid deceleration. About the increasing the turn rate. It is being executed by partially rotating your nozzles . Why partially? See, by rotating your nozzles only 60-80% you misalign your center of thrust with your forward momentum which will push you upwards and forwards instead of just upwards like it would be if you were to slam them to 100% (technichally upwards and backwards but i'll talk about it in a second). This can help you to get around horrible aerodynamics of first gen Harriers and complement already nice maneuverability of second gen. Now speaking of the deceleration part. You see, nozzles dont actually face straight down, instead, they're angled slightly forward (that gives it its funny signature airshow trick of slowly drifting backwards on air shows) which allows you to decelerate a lot, that can be used to make your enemy overshoot, and it does its job very nicely since an unexperienced player might not even be able to react to this maneuver in time, which will give you an easy shot. Or you can force a stall fight in which you will win 99.9% (given you master the VIFFing) of the time unless you're fighting some stall fight monster like F/A-18 where you'll have to put a lot more effort. But even after that, Hornet needs atleast some speed in order to stay in air...and you can hover! You can just stay in people's circle all day long! But there are 2 problems you must target in stall fight and 1 rule to follow:

• Harriers have insanely punchy guns (yes, all of them, the GAU-12 on AV-8B makes the plane pitch down a bit when firing even in horizontal flight) so when at stall speeds their sheer recoil will make you pitch down a lot so i recommend tapping S key (or whatever you have for pitch up, why do you have something aside from S key as pitch up???) when firing at stall speeds
  
• Mouse aim during hover is as good as not here so you'll mainly have to aim manually using key controls (rumours say John Harrier plays on his keyboard while aiming in hover more dainty than Beethoven plays piano) and that problem is multiplied by 10 when you have to aim at very high AOA where you'll also have to maintain proper nozzle angle.
  or you can just make flip shots for extra style points

And the main rule you want to follow: first one to stall - loses. First one to go beyond a point where they cant turn hard enough or distance away is to lose.

In this gif you can see me having an F-16A Block 10 on my 6, we're both at around 400-500 kmh and are going vertical, why am i going vertical in Harrier? F-16 is better in that department! But unfortunately for F-16, by going upwards at already slow speed he loses even more speed and has no energy. I slam nozzles to 100%, flipping myself and moving inside his circle, he doesnt have enough pull to pull inside to get a shot on me or even roll in order to decrease the profile and has nothing to do but to follow his path and go up. However, i get a shot on him, and by a small symphony played on my keyboard, i paint his plane with lead from nose to left wing.

If i were to miss or if he had more speed, he would just go vertical where aiming would be very hard to me, and then stall out and drop on me like a sledgehammer, in that case best you can do is immideately flip and go into horizontal flight and distance yourself from him to reset the position back to him being on your 6.

All of the aforementioned tactics will help you a lot with playing any Harrier you will get in your hands.

Very simple!

• Go into controls
  
• Search "Thrust vectoring"
  
• Set it to the buttons you prefer
  
• Turn on relative controls so you will be able to set the exact angle of nozzles
  
• Adjust multiplier if you want (up to own preference)

Congrats! You can now perform VIFFing! Now go practice it in test flight or test it with friends or you can figure it out the hard way in random battles!

In game, all of Harriers, no matter the gen, have 3 (4 if you extensively play sim) main problems that you'll have to get to live with

• Starting with the bomb due to Gaijin's poorly written code not made for something so complex and their negligence, the way game calculates amount of heat signatures for each plane is apparently "nozzles = heat signature (or engines probably)" (i dont know how else this would occur), and as you can already see where im going with it...yes. You see, Harriers have 4 nozzles, and hence, game sees these 4 nozzles and goes "hmmm, 4 engines!". This issue has been here ever since first Harrier introduced to the game back in 2020 and this guide will probably be complete at the time of 5 year anniversary of Gaijin not giving a damn about their game and selling broken product (half of the Harriers in game are premium lol). So yeah! Any IR missile more advanced than AIM-9B can be a potential threat to you and it all gets only worse at higher brs (you might as well fail at flaring head-on 9M if you dont spam flares hard enough)
  
• Now to a bit lesser problems. Harriers have unrealisticaly big overheating problems and i recommend you staying at around 90-95% throttle most of the time in order to avoid overheating (no seriously AV-8C is the only plane in game that i flew that had its engine just die mid air with no damage from enemies, i didnt even fly at WEP or anything at that time it just died). But 5-10% drop in throttle wont be an issue for you and i'll talk about it a bit later.
  
• Now to an obvious problem - Harriers are subsonic. Its not that much of an issue for 1st Gen Harriers since they sit at br where supersonics only start to appear and in full downtier you'll have one of the best engine performances (since there are like 6 supersonic places at 8.7-9.7 bracket and half of them are premium and 2 of those premium come on sale once a year (keep in mind i dont count in copypastes)) but at higher brs you will start to see an issue where if people dont want to engage with you you cant do anything about it, but dont worry, Harriers at higher brs have a few things to make up for it (partially).
  
• 4th problem that i mentioned before isnt as complex (still complex enough for gaijin to not fix it though) and isnt as significant most of the time - Harriers have exhaust smoke bigger than Admiral Kuznetsov carrier (which isnt the case IRL mind you).

All of the Gen 1 Harriers sit at 9.7 (with 1 exclusion i'll talk about in its own part of the guide) and while having a few differences i'll discuss later in this guide, they still retain some commonalities, namely:

• They're bricks with wings and rely on VIFF techniques a lot.
  
• They have poor energy retention (which is both a good and bad thing for them)
  
• They have insane flight performance that lets you go to low orbit (other Harriers also have this trait but its of a lesser relevance since at a higher brs there are far more powerfull supersonics that just make your climb rate irrelevant)
  
• They have very good missile kit

Thats where real fun starts. These Harriers sit at various br starting from 11.3 up untill 13.0. These guys are pretty much completely new airframes and have little in common with legacy harriers besides enigne performance.
Speaking of the new toys you get:

• Flight model capable of dickslapping 90% of the matchmaker back to hangar
  
• Advanced guided A2G ordnance (wait but i said i will mostly discuss about them in Air battles huh?)
  
• Even better missile kit compared to gen 1
  
• Advanced optics such as FLIR (Forward looking infra-red) and radar on one of them
  
• Metric horseload of flares (yes i count it as notable addition because with how hot Harriers are you WANT these flares)

This is a small sub-family in Harrier family and i kept them away from generations because they had their own separate development and history. Unlike other Harriers, these were originally made with fighter role in mind, unlike ground attacker like other Harriers (or ground attacker with fighter capability like on B+ but i digress). It retains Gen 1 fuselage with only notable difference being a lifted canopy for improved rear-sphere vision which barely affects it really. Whats notable however is engine upgrades over Gen 1 that make Sea Harriers a little more maneuverable (because higher engine power results in more effective VIFFing as you might have already guessed).
So, in summary:

• Like Legacy Harriers they're bricks with wings and rely on VIFF techniques a lot. ]
  
• They get radar!!! (will help you use your missiles and oh boy we'll talk about missiles later)
  
• Missile kit as good as early Gen 2 Harriers

Note: i point out all of those things here because its just stupid to write same thing for every Harrier in every Pros and Cons part so apply all of the aforementioned points to respective "sub-families" of Harriers respectively

Welcome to Harrier family

Harrier GR.1 is a premium rank 6 jet in british tech tree available for 9090 GE as of Tusk Force update with very interesting in-game history which isnt the goal of this guide currently.

Note: i will skip a flight performance part in gen 1 and shar section since the only flight performance difference they have is engine which in my book isnt worth of a whole ass subsection talking about 100 kgs more thrust and hence will mention it somewhere in the guide, well, engine is also controlled by computers and electronic stuff, right? Good enough to go in avionics section for me.

Rememmber the heat signature problem we discussed earlier? Well this problem of having 3 more engines somewhere is now made even worse since you have NO FLARES on this plane, the ONLY Harrier to not have any flares. And no, rocket pods wont work as makeshift flares, the rockets GR.1 gets are just not big enough to compensate for IR signature of 4 engines.

If you think problems end here, they dont. Harrier GR.1 lacks any sort of RWR which isnt that much of a downside but it still will make you look out when flying at high altitude.

Before Tusk Force update i'd call it straight ass and tell you to under no circumstances to ever touch it...buuuut after the update...See, GR.1 has SRAAMs, a highly advanced (at its time) thrust vectoring 50g missiles. You would think its insanely good for 9.7 which i wont blame you for, but you see, they turn solely with thrust vectoring because they have no control surfaces whatsoever so the missile will just fall out of the sky once engine runs out, which wont happen because brits made it self-destruct upon engine shutting off so it wont fall into enemy hands. So, before the update they were notorious for horrible range of sub 1.5km and spinning out 103% of the time with 3% margin of error...but its not the case now? They have historical 2km+ range and they no longer spin out! So basically now they are low br R-73s against flareless subsonics. So...with Sea Vixen now being at questionable br of 9.0 and if you want some questionable, inconsistent and skill-demanding fun? I would actually recommend you getting the GR.1 now, its definitely not good braindead level plane but no way in the world is it bad now either, its rather challenging to make the FM work solely on hopes and prayers and VIFF, and, to me, its fun making this thing work.

So i would only recommend it only if you have some sort of experience in getting around with jets with no flares using superior positioning and maintaining situational awareness all the time because remember, its 9.7 and not even a full br away from you there are all-aspect slingers such as A-10 and Su-25. If you're new to the game or anything i mentioned above, please stay away, you will just die in this plane and if you need a premium at around that ranks just buy Meteor...or save up some more money and buy Harrier T.10 which is far more forgiving and way less demanding.

Pros

• Dollar store R-73 at 9.7

Cons

• No RWR
  
• No countermeasures
  
• No way to compensate for lacking countermeasures

man why it took them 8 years to fix all problems in GR.1???

Harrier GR.3 is our first tech tree variant of Harrier in british tech tree sitting at the same rank and br in attacker line!

Overall, GR.3 is a massive upgrade over GR.1, i guess you can assume it by the giant strap-on dildo on its nose that we'll talk about in a second

Main upgrades you want to care about in GR.3 (other than the fact that you dont need to shill out 9k GE for it) is countermeasures!!! Yep, this bad boy packs 2 AN/ALE-40 countermeasure dispensers in its tail giving you 60 countermeasures total, these are double-pop and shoot downwards for your information.

The upgrade to GR.3 also included an ARI 18223 RWR which in pair with countermeasures will make you basically immune to radar missiles at this br, unless you choose to die to them. To complement all these cool toys you got to be more secure at high alt, you also get an upgraded Pegasus Mk.103 engine which outputs fairly more thrust than Mk.101 found on GR.1, making GR.3 climb to said high alt faster and also making it a little bit more maneuverable.

Now about the sweetest part about GR.3. It gets AIM-9G IR Air-to-air missiles. You get 2 of them on outer pylons and if you dont know what are they, they're rear-aspect uncaged 20G deleters with insane range...at 9.7 mind you. So, basically, you have 2 free kills each game and if you somehow end up not being positive in this thing...you're just playing it wrong and either didnt read this guide fully or it failed its goal of giving you vital knowledge... I would like to add another upgrade it had IRL over GR.1 but Gaijin didnt model it. See, in reality, GR.3 got that silly nose not just for the funnies: it packed a LRMTS Laser Spot Tracker with ±25° FOV in all directions, which gave it an ability to spot friendly laser. Why spot friendly laser? To guide a Paveway II family of laser-guided bombs. Unfortunately, we dont have friendly lasing mechanic in game yet, and hence, this LST is nothing short of a cosmetic. Pros

• RWR
  
• Countermeasures
  
• AIM-9G missiles
  
• Upgraded engine
  
• Cool camos

Cons

• Goofy nose

First crayon-eating Harrier yippie!

First american Harrier in service is presented in War Thunder as rank 6 premium found in US tech tree at the br of 9.7 available for 8910 GE why is it cheaper than GR.1.

While looking like GR.1, it is a whole different plane so dont let that fool you.

Ok, so, like GR.1, it doesnt get built-in flares, i specifically say "built-in" because it gets a suspendable AN/ALE-39 countermeasures pod that gives you 240 damn countermeasures AT 9.7. You can take it on your center pylon and never ever worry about IR missiles again. Dont worry about the additional weight or drag because it will make no difference in reality, unless you fight another AV-8A with no pod for 3 hours straight then MAYBE he'll eventually get guns on you because he's slightly lighter.

Now, you would think that there must be a catch, right? And you would be correct. AV-8A does NOT get RWR and still retains the old Mk.101 engine. But honestly, some people prefer 240 flares over upgraded engine and RWR and with how hot Harrier fm is, i cant really blame them, but neither do i agree with them, but hey, i guess its up to preference.

Speaking of other goodies, you get an already familiar AIM-9Gs, no need to go on a rant about those again, just go check the GR.3 section right above it if you forgot what are those. Oh and slightly cooler ground ordnance in form of zuni rockets i guess, not like you want to use it as attacker in grb. Pros

• 240 flares
  
• AIM-9G

Cons

• Mk.101 engine
  
• No RWR

Didnt hurry with the upgrade just like britbongs

First tech tree Harrier in US tech tree. Hooray. This one sits at rank 6 at the br oif 9.7 (you would never guess).

Like GR.3, this one is also a massive upgrade over previous Harrier, in this case AV-8A.

Upgrade include pretty much the same stuff like GR.3 - brand new Mk.103 engine, AN/ALR-45F(V) RWR (slightly better than the one on GR.3 but you wont ever notice it), AN/ALE-40 cm dispensers in tail (which is quite a downgrade from AN/ALE-39 found on AV-8A but it all comes to preference on wether you want more cms or better engine and RWR), AIM-9Gs missiles. Only difference from GR.3 is that it doesnt get a strap-on dildo nose and retains a GR.1 airframe, which in my opinion makes it the best Legacy Harrier br for br, it also gets a cool american ground ordnance (such ass Zuni rockets) instead of suboptimal british one, so bonus points for that one i guess.

no really there isnt much to talk about we already covered all of the stuff in previous sections

Pros

• RWR
  
• Upgraded engine
  
• Countermeasures
  
• AIM-9G missiles
  
• No goofy nose

Cons

• None.

Yknow, when i started making this guide, i was planning to just put it in AV-8A section, since this is just an export version of AV-8A and is located at the same br and rank but in Japan tech tree as Thailand sub-tree, and hence, is identical to AV-8A except for 2 things (1 isnt that significant though) that made me give it its own section:

Avionics
• It actually gets RWR! it gets a- WHAT RWR IT GETS?. Ok...calm down...So! It gets a Sky Guardian 200 RWR...making it a single best RWR at 9.7...Im not gona sugarcoat it, these news has hit me like a hydrogen bomb when i first found out about it.

Armament
• Since Thailand never bought AIM-9G, this one doesnt get them, instead, it gets AIM-9P missiles which are slightly worse than 9G. Its slightly worse but not worse enough to deem it bad, you're still at the br where you face a horseload of flareless jets so whats the matter?
  Other than these...not so small differences, it is a 1:1 copy of AV-8A.

But its not like you can make much use of it at 9.7 since you only face pulse-guided radar missiles the launch warnings of whom is impossible to detect due to their nature of guidance. We'll talk about the one that CAN make much use of it in a second. Pros

• Single best RWR ever put on a Harrier???
  
• 240 flares
  
• AIM-9P

Cons

• Mk.101 engine

lipstick on a pig

Now to a Harrier that can make much use of the good RWR!

Thailand really loved Harriers but was way too broke to afford a better one so they upgraded the ones they had, and hence we got one in game at 11.0 rank 7 in japanese tech tree as a part of thai sub-tree, this is THE ONLY Gen 1 Harrier that is not at 9.7 and in my book it doesnt help it.

So, the only difference and upgrade from previous AV-8S is the missile kit - you get 4 AIM-9L on double pylons, you know, 35G all-aspect deleters, cool right? And it is.
Problem with this plane however is that its the only upgrade you get, not much to talk about really. You still retain a cool ass AN/ALE-39 cm pod with 240 flares which will help you at this br and you still get a very good Sky Guardian 200 RWR which will help you a lot at this br but...you still retain the Mk.101 engine...while Sea Harriers at this br already have Mk.104 and a radar.

The way i'd explain this plane is as a sidegrade to Sea Harriers: it doesnt get radar or better engines (or cooler looks) but it gets a better RWR and a lot more flares which will definitely help it at the BR where you can meet undertiered IRCCM slingers.

Pros

• AIM-9L missiles
  
• Single best RWR ever put on a Harrier
  
• 240 flares

Cons

• No radar (limits the capabilities of 9Ls and is a massive con in sim)
  
• Gen 1 airframe (you'll see why its a problem later)
  
• Mk.101 engine
  
• Mk.101 engine (yes its that much of a downside to me, you're at 11.0, you WANT that additional thrust)

You wanna do 1 thing in all Harriers at this br: use your insane engine performance and climb as high as possible, EXCEPT GR.1. GR.1 is the only Harrier here that shouldnt climb anywhere above contrail level because you have 0 ways of dodging enemy missiles or even knowing about their launches.

For others - climb to about 8-9 km, you can comfortably sit here not caring about radar missiles because you either get RWR or enough cms to just periodically pop them. Why climb? Since you dont turn all that good and you're subsonic, having an altitude advantage over enemies is nice. Once you climb to that alt and let the battle form - start doing orbital strikes with AIM-9Gs, or go even closer and shotgun the SRAAMs at comically close range in GR.1. If you pick your targets properly, you'll usually get atleast 1 kill for free, i recommend you learn what planes at this br have flares and what planes dont to increase the effectiveness of your missiles.

Depending on closure speed my general advice regarding launch ranges for SRAAMs would be around 2km and for AIM-9Gs about 2.5-3km.

Other than that. Dont dogfight. You WILL lose most of the dogfights and if stuff like MiG-19 chooses to kill you - he will kill you. VIFFing is nothing more than a crunch to help you get around your horrible dynamics but its not a game winner. So i advise to do some defensive boom and zoom and pick separated lonely targets because you will not be winning that 2v1 anytime soon.

Speaking of Flares/Chaff, i'd recommend bring 50 flares and 10 chaff.

Things at 11.0 are totally different and radar missiles became a lot more scary, especially at full uptier. Thankfully, you have very good RWR to detect those launches (mind you, barely any plane at 11.0 can detect MiG-23 launches while you can) so maybe you can climb, i say maybe because you have no bvr capability let alone radar in order to do atleast something to those phantoms and floggers and you DONT have the maneuverability to do a rapid turn for a notch, even with VIFFing, you're still a Legacy Harrier with Mk.101 engine, so i would refrain from climbing in a full uptier.
In a full downtier however? You have pretty much the same matchmaker as the 9.7 Harriers and the worst you can meet is F-4EJ, which at range isnt that much of a threat to you, so yeah, definitely climb at full downtiers!

Speaking of the cool Limas that you get - you want to launch them from no more than around 3 km (keep in mind that those ranges apply to targtes that you close the distance with at a fairly nice pace, for enemies that go away from you you will want to launch from far smaller range)

About Flaress/Chaff, you get 240 total so you can play around with numbers if you want no one is gona blame you, but i'd recommend bringing somewhere around 200 flares and 40 chaff. (that one also applies to AV-8A)

finally a good looking harrier

At some point Navy realized they're way too broke for a good carrier so they MUST get a VTOL, so herer we are.

We have 2 FRS.1s in game - 1 in tech tree as FRS.1 "Early" and 1 as a squadron vehicle as FRS.1, so everyone can get it! The only difference between them is that early sits at 10.7 and only has 2x AIM-9Ls while the regular FRS.1 sits at 11.0 with 4x AIM-9Ls, which is a worthy tradeoff in my book.

As i already said before - you get AIM-9L missiles, just like AV-8S Late we discussed earlier. Other differences you wanna focus on (besides looks, God it looks so good) are your engine and avionics. You get an upgraded Mk.104 engine which outputs fairly more thrust than previous ones, although, it also has more overheating problems compared to earlier Harriers, but you probabably got used to it at this point.
Regarding the avionics upgrades - you might have noticed that this Harrier has a different nose compared to others and you would be correct! That slim, meaner-looking nose hides a radar inside it! Yes, you get a Ferranti Blue Fox non-lookdown radar. It isnt great yes but since AIM-9Ls have radar slaving you can use it to slave your missiles, which is a nice addition. But avionics upgrades dont stop there, you also get an upgraded ARI 18228 RWR, which is not as good as the Sky Guardian 200 we discussed earlier, but is still a considerable and nice upgrade to make you more confident against enemy radar missiles.

I also want to point out at a lifted canopy for improved rear sphere vision, which alongside aforementioned radar, will make sim players who want to play it in sim, a little bit happier.

Pros

• Radar
  
• Upgraded Mk.104 engine
  
• AIM-9L missiles
  
• Cool looks

Cons

• Gen 1 airframe

Note: i dont mention RWR or countermeasures here as pros or cons because everyone at this br already has those so it became a commonality and they're not so special or oustanding compared to others like Sky Guardian 200 on AV-8S Fun fact: FRS.1 Early should not have countermeasures since early production Sea Harriers didnt have them, instead, they should be given a "Heath Robinson chaff modification". "Heath Robinson chaff modification" is british engineers' child of improvisation that resulted in delivery system of welding rods, split pins and string, which allowed the Sea Harrier to pack a whopping, grand total of six packets of chaff to be stored inside the airbrake well (so you had to deploy your airbrake in order to use them). Yes, they literally made welding rods spark hard enough to count as chaff.

here comes the coping

Navy really liked Harrier (and then really disliked it) so they decided to upgrade it even more.

This is our first top-tier Harrier we discuss here. It sits at rank 8 at the br of 13.0 in british tech tree.

As you can probably tell, this one differs a lot not only from the previous Sea Harrier we covered, but from all other Harriers we discussed in general, and you would be correct.

First thing you noticed is a big schnozer of a nose that it gets compared to the earlier FRS.1, that "enlargement" was made in order to fix a brand new Blue Vixen radar with all-aspect pulse dopler and even TWS mode. You can also equip BOL rails that give you additional countermeasures (160 cms per pod to be specific, you can take 2 of said pods) which is, considering that we talk about Harrier here, a very nice and welcoming upgrade. But why would a Sea Harrier need such insane radar? And we gota equip them BOL rails with some other goodie? Right?
And to that i answer with active radar homing AIM-120A Advanced-Medium-Range-Air-to-Air-Missile. Pretty good right? Upgrades dont stop here, your missile upgrades also include AIM-9M IR missiles with shut-off IRCCM (basically, if a missile sees flares, it straight up shuts off its seeker and uses IOG to guide itself to approximate position of the target and then relocks on it once flares are gone, very deadly in top-down and side aspect but very weak in front aspect.) that you can take on double rails!

You also get an upgraded Pegasus Mk.106 engine to increase your maneuverability, the second best engine ever put on a Harrier, we'll talk about a first one in a bit.

But there must be a catch, right? And catch there is.

Firstly: you only have 2 wing pylons on which you can equip missiles, and you cant equip BOL rails on double rails for 9Ms. So you have to choose between 9Ms and AMRAAMs. Fortunately, you have 2 more belly pylons on which you can equip AMRAAMs without giving up your 9Ms! Sadly, you'll have to give up 1 of your 2 ADEN 30 guns instead. And dont forget about mediocre Gen 1 airframe, at 13.0. Yeah, start seeing a problem? You cant exactly bring all the cool stuff at once, you have to choose wisely. gee i wonder how is B+ doing at the same br So, what i would recommend is:

• 2 AIM-9Ms on double rails
  
• 1 AIM-120 on belly pylon
  
• 1 ADEN 30
  
• 1 AIM-120 with a BOL rail

That way you will get a little bit of everything at once - a bit of additional cms, a bit of close range firepower, a bit of bvr capability and a bit of mid range IR missiles. However, you can play around with differnet loadouts and find out which one fits your playstyle the best, wether you want to be a missile bus with no guns (we'll talk about it later) or go balls to the walls and launch 9Ms at everything that moves, its up to you. So go out there and try them all out. Pros

• AIM-120
  
• AIM-9M
  
• Second best engine put on a Harrier
  
• BOL rails
  
• Good radar
  
• Cool historical camos

Cons

• Gen 1 airframe
  
• Cant take all the good stuff at once
  
• Small missile count (i mean, you can take up to 6 but then you have no guns or BOL rails so can you really take 6 missiles?)

oh my god we're only halfway through the guide ffs
TLDR: avoid playing

Ok so. At 11.0, you have pretty much the same playstyle as AV-8S Late back from Gen 1 section, only difference being that you get a radar and worse RWR, so you sort of make up for your situational awareness with it? i would still play a bit more defensively in it since your RWR cant ID the exact plane thats looking at you. Other than that the playstyle is identical to AV-8S, there is really not much new to cover, you just get a better engine to help you climb in full downtiers and whatnot.

But honestly? At 10.7/11.0 FRS.1 is victim of poor balancing and matchmaker of this br bracket...See, at 9.7 Your engine performance was fairly alright, there are subsonics at your br there are subsonics at higher br and in a full downtier you're pretty much on par, only supersonics here are f-104 f-100 and mig-19, but all of them are flareless so you can somewhat deal with them, and your engine performance is actually superior to that of korean war jets and other guys, so you can actually avoid the scary dogfight demons like Sabre and whatnot. AT 11.0 however there are things like F-5 and MiG-21 that are both faster and more maneuverable than you, so you have little to no chances of surviving the encounter with them if they choose to kill you.

So, to sum it up: you dont go as fast as others around you, you dont turn as tight as others around you, you dont climb as fast as others around you, you dont have avionics as good as others around you (yeah your rwr is kinda nice and you get radar but its just a pulse seeker and its not like you can make much use of it outside of slaving your 9Ls...)

Note: the same relates to AV-8S Late, im just not as butthurt about Matador as i am about Shars because they were used to be so nice to play.

now this one i'll yap about

Ok so, at 13.0, you DONT want to climb, your AMRAAMs have way less range than the ones found on say F-4 ICE simply because you're slower and im not even gona bring up ERs and Fakours that will demolish you the second you get to 5k alt, and neither is your FM is really good enough to notch close range radar missiles, so i heavily recommend to hug the ground and multipath your way to the battlefield.

13.0 is where you the problem of you being subsonic screams the loudest...Since gaijin cant model their game for gods sake, they gave air spawn to 99% of the maps at top tier ARB, and so, you can no longer take advantage of your insane acceleration on take of, hence, you'll always be late for the battle and considering that the average ARB player's iq is measured in single digits, everyone will probably just kill themselves against each other in first head-on...there'll be just no one left for you to kill by the time you get there...But if you do! I advise you to use your missiles very conservatively and only on enemies that are a direct threat to your existence, since you usually will only carry 4-5 missiles total when everyone around you will usualy have 8 or more (not even bringing up Su-27s), so keep that one in mind. My advice regarding the launches of missiles - use AMRAAMs as F&F Sparrows with around 15 km of range in head-on and sling your 9Ms at about 3km if you have a fairly good closure speed, if you see that you barely catch up to enemy or it even distances from you, the range drasticaly drops, so keep that in mind.

But even though this plane isnt exactly super good...i can say for sure that it is a very fun one for one good reason that is so outstanding in my opinion, that it will get its own section later in this guide.

But overall, both FRS.1 and FA.2 are victims of its br, whenever anything supersonic and not-brick sneethes at you - you're dead, and the stock grind on FRS.1 is horrible, you literally get 9.7 missile kit at 11.0 (but you unlock option to take 2 and 4 9Ls on FRS.1 so like why not just make 2 9Ls a stock ones). If J-7D decides to kill you you cant do anything, its the single best turning MiG-21 which is also super undertiered.

So in the end...unless you're DOWNBAD for Harriers, i would advise to not play those...It takes a LOT of skill and passion to be atleast 1 K/D in them...

OooOOoOoOoooooOOOOoOOOoOOoooHHHhhhh

6-head.

This is our first Harrier 2 in this guide and BOY does it only get better from now on. Its a trainer variant based off of TAV-8B (huh?) (no we cant get this one in game btw) and its a premium jet at rank 7 at the br of 11.3 in british tech tree.

This is a MASSIVE upgrade over other Harriers we discussed earlier. You are now GENUINELY MANEUVERABLE thanks to complete airframe overhaul, bigger wings, LERX and brand new MK.107 engine. You know, the single best engine ever put on a Harrier which mind you outputs over 1 thousand more kgs of thrust compared to old ass Mk.101. You can tell im autistic for Harrier 2 and how much i wanted to talk about it.

You also get bigger flaps! Those will really help you with staying in the air and controling the plane during hovering and at stall speeds, so its also a nice addition.

Though keep in mind, its the worst turning Gen 2 and you will feel it sometimes, shoutout to that 5head.

If insane airframe (which will get only better because other harriers dont have such a giant forehead) wasnt enough for you, then worry not because you get a brand new ARI23333/1 RWR which will notify of any launch from any plane you can possibly meet and while yes its slightly worse than Sky Guardian 200, trust me, the amount of stuff you get in return is worth it.

But thats not it yet. Like the Shar FA.2, you also get BOL rails (why do i put it in avionics part? eh whatever, it WILL happen again) which you can equip with your sweet AIM-9L missiles you're already familiar with, although you can only equip those rails on inner pylons (which is completely fictional and made up by Gaijin and it should actually be able to carry those on outer pylons too ). However, as you might have already guessed by the br of 11.3, unlike FA.2, you dont get AMRAAMs, or even a radar, but worry not because you get a FLIR - Forward-looking-infra-red. This is a small camera in nose with thermals which will help you locate enemies, especially in sim battles. Speaking of the sim battles, what will also help you a lot there is rear aspect radar-rbased ARI 23348/1 Missile approach warning system that will tell you about all the incoming missiles up your ass (keep that in mind, it only can detect the rear-sphere launches so no front or top-down aspect).

With all of this mentioned, with a bit of situational awareness you're almost immune to all IR missiles you can face in this matchmaker.

Your ground ordnance is also nothing to be slept on! You also got upgrades in that department and can now carry various Paveway laser-guided bombs and AGM-65 air to air missiles. Yes. Air to air missiles. See, you can take 4 mavs with 4 9Ls i've already mentioned before, what we wanna do with mavericks now is shoot them at unsuspecting straight-flying base bombers in head-ons, or at A-10s since they're slow and usually are below average sklill level. Another way of utilizing them is to launch them at people at airfield, thats where your FLIR comes in use since it will help you locate targets at airfield/approaching airfield. Just be very careful since mavericks are slow and turn really bad, so you want to launch them at perfect conditions.

But, if the zoom and thermals quality on built-in FLIR isnt enough for you, then TIALD targetting pod will most definitely satisfy your desires. Although you will have to give up one of your guns for the pod since it goes on the same pylon as your guns. Speaking of guns, they are also got upgraded! Remember those slow sparky inaccurate ADEN 30 potato dispensers? Well, now you get ADEN 25 25 mm (you would never guess that trust) cannons that are a MASSIVE upgrade over ADEN 30. ADEN 25 have much higher firerate, much higher accuracy and much higher muzzle velocity turning them into makeshift laser guns, the only downside you can find here is that all of the belts are stealth and hence you will have to aim rellying on your pure skill, but dont worry, with the amount of muzzle velocity it has, aiming wont be an issue for you. What WILL be an issue however is atrocious ammo count. You only get 204 ammo combined, meaning 102 for each cannon, pair it with high firerate and half your magazine is gone in just 1 burst...So yeah, definitely tapfire in this one. Damage can wary from hit simulator to giga-obliterator-eater-of-the-worlds.

Pros

• Amazing airframe
  
• Mk.107 engine
  
• BOL rails
  
• FLIR
  
• Guided ordnance
  
• MAW
  
• ADEN 25

Cons

• Giant 6-head
  
• Barely any ammo for guns

Fun fact: it shouldn't have ADEN 25 because they were only tested on GR.5 (which we dont yet have in game but it will be just T.10 but with Mk.105 engine and no 6-head and chaff only BOL rails but gaijin will probably just give it BOL rails with both chaff and flares) and only cleared for emergency use on GR.7. T.10 was NEVER cleared for use of ADEN 25 cannons nor it tested them, they were probably never even physically close together IRL. [/previewimg]Another fun fact: it should actually have 6 AIM-9Ls found on pylons 2 and 6 (like on AV-8B NA we will discuss next) but for the sake of balance or gaijin being gay they wouldnt give them to it

if only av-8b was a woman

This one is is a USA premium, and, just like other early Harrier 2, located at rank 7 at the br of 11.3.

To start off with things we've already covered - you get the same gigacracked Mk.107 engine just under US designations, same old redesigned fuselage, bigger wings, LERX, bigger flaps and etc. Only difference is its a single seat one, and so canopy generates less drag and you turn and accelerate a bit better than T.10. Other than that, flight performance and VIFFing potential is the same.
Here compared to T.10 things didnt change all that much either, you get AN/ALR-67 RWR (which is slightly better than ARI found on T.10? It wont make that much of a big difference really) and FLIR, only differences are the lack of MAW and additional BOL rails, but you can make up for BOL rails with integrated additional flare dispensers found on the top of you tail, giving you 120 more countermeasures (so you have 180 total with the old pod in the bottom of the tail).

You also lack 2 pylons located on "gear-line" found on british Harriers, but dont worry, you still get 4 AIM-9Ls on 2 outer pylons and you still can equip mavericks on inner pylons, just that now you can only equip 2 of them instead of 4, but its not a big problem for you.

Thats where plenty of differences start. Firstly, you get COOL american laser bombs and also JDAM bombs which you can use to sling them up in the sky and kill the enemy anti air in ground battles without putting yourself in danger, APKWS rockets (which arent exactly good but can act as makeshit loitering munition) and LITENING II targeting pod (yes i mention it in armament and not avionics part, its MY guide and I choose how stupidly organised MY guide is.) to help you utilize it all and which you suspend on the middle pylon, meaning you're not givng up any of your guns, and even after that, you couldnt give up any - you only get 1 and the second "pod" is for its ammo. Now about said gun - you get what is the single best gun ever put on a Harrier in my opinion: GAU-12/U 25 MM GATLING CANNON which dispenses 3600 High-Velocity-Semi-Armour-Piercing-High-Explsoive-Incendiary-Tracer rounds a minute. Right in the balls. Pros

• Super-duper-giga-rape-turbo cannon
  
• Amazing flight performance
  
• Mk.107 engine
  
• Additional flares
  
• FLIR
  
• Guided ordnance
  
• Cool camos

Cons

• Why in God's name did americans not give it a gear line pylon???

If you think im biased, maybe, after all, i slightly am

Our first tech tree Harrier II. The apogee of british attacker line.For now. Sits at 12.3 and for a good reason.

If you used T.10 or NA merely as a tool of destruction, this is an Act of God. Only the beginning of a true terror that is yet to come in its full unmatched monstrosity, thats where everything you learned of VIFFing comes to its ultimate test against all of the dogfight monsters of this matchmaker, where you either kill everyone or kill no one.

A thurst to weight ratio of 1, even with a mere Mk.105 engine. The single best dogfighting Harrier throughout thousands of lines of code even after all the nerfs gaijin have enforced to contain this war machine, with GR.7A yet to come. Thats where you put everything at stake. Every merge with Gripen or Block 10 will be the David versus Goliath where you must fight like its your last time ever. And yet, them foul F-4S and MiG-23ML base bombers have no choice but run from you, for you are their imminent death. 1 match you will be God's chosen warrior against all unholy in this game and go on purging the enemy team and the other match it will be you who fights at its last breath against all of the dogfighting monsters that you must either kill untill the last one or die yourself.

So go. Take a dance.

Not much have changed since T.10 besides 2 crucial things - firstly, you now get BOL rails on outer pylons that T.10 yearns for, giving you a total of 640 countermeasures, which, paired with internal AN/ALE-40 dispensers, gives you 700 countermeasures combined, it speaks for itself. Second is the main reason why its a whole BR above the T.10 which i will discuss in armament section, you already see where this is going. Other than that, not much have changed: same old MAW, same RWR, same FLIR, same TIALD targetting pod so not much else to talk about (besides 1 outer pylon left wing-only countermeasures pod which gives you 214 cms but why care about it, you give up BOL rail with a spicy thingy on it).
The main reason you're a whole BR above the T.10 - AIM-9M. IRCCM. 4 of them. No introduction needed, we've already covered them in Shar FA.2 section (yes you WILL read the entire guide with how much i refer to other sections in this guide and you WILL enjoy it.). You're the lowest BR Harrier with IRCCM missiles and the peski 3rd gens are not gona see them coming, for they are smokeless (and the enemies are blind and skillless) (or maybe not smokeless anymore, wtf gaijin), like i said earlier before, these things are devastating in side aspect and top-down aspect. Other than that, nothing changed: same old ADEN 25s, same old mavericks, same old Paveways, no JDAMs unfortunately. Pros

• Single best turning Harrier in this all god-forgotten game
  
• AIM-9Ms
  
• BOL rails that give you a total of 640 cms
  
• Cool camos
  
• Gorgeous looks
  
• No 6-head

Cons

• God help you against the dogfighting devils of this BR.
  
• Once again, barely any ammo on your guns

Why is it at the same br as shar fa.2

First tech tree Harrier II in US tech tree and one and only Harrier in italian tech tree (where it is identical to american variant. 13.0. Pinnacle of attacker line. Fueled with hate for top tier. God killer.

While GR.7 is locked to the pitbull furball brute force killer style. You can do everything. You are ALL Harriers at once. You run on hatred towards this world that killed your heir. You are here to prove them all what Harrier III could do 2 times better, what they lost. You run on hatred for mindless soulless top tier gameplay. This is a culmination of Harriers, what it was all coming to.

Despite a more powerful Mk.107 engine, it gained enough weight to make this improvement not make it more maneuverable than GR.7, hence, making it the second best turning Harrier in game, but VIFFing potential? Oh man...it got even better.Why it gained weight though? You'll see. wait f%ck you already can

Aside from that, you're all what Harrier GR.7 is. At a higher br. But dont worry because even though you now face even more menacing creatures, you've also gained a tool to deal with them all...

Now for the tool i talked about, or atleast its part. From NA, you only get 2 differences in avionics - new wiring that allows you to carry new missile i'll talk about later, and a radar. Specifically - AN/APG-65Q pulse-dopler radar. With all aspect pulse-dopler and TWS mode, although the TWS mode on it ghosts a lot and i would much rather avoid using it in active combat.

Other than that, like i said, nothing changed: same RWR, same 180 cms, same FLIR.

First to get the boring (and 1 cool) stuff away - you get the same ground ordnance and the same giga sexy Equalizer cannon as NA, except you wont even need to take mavericks. Why? This pylon is now taken by missiles.

Now to the main part of the "new tool" - all that new wiring and radar were fitted for one and only reason - to guide AIM-120. and AIM-9M but we didnt need a radar for this one

Same as Shar FA.2 huh? Except now you can carry 4 AMRAAMs and 2 9Ms without giving up your gun or losing your additional countermeasures while also having a stronger engine and a far more maneuverable FM...at the same BR. Very balanced indeed.

Pros

• Everything the best that Harriers can offer.

Cons

• None.

They're both at 11.3 and share the same missile kit and pretty much have the same performance (T.10 turns slightly worse but not worse enough for it to have different strategy) only difference being that T.10 gets more flares and MAW which wont affect the way you'll play them.

To get the elephant out of the way - you wont be sealclubbing lobbies. The gameplay is very bipolar and its either "we're so back" or "it's so over". Any duel which is not 1v1 is a guaranteed death unless the enemy is genuinely stupid. Missiles at this br are far more advanced and you will have a hard time even with AIM-9Js. It is also backed up by a problem of gaijin implementing air spawn to literally all top tier maps further cementing you behind the lines. By the time your teammates get to the middle of the airfield you'll be 10-15 km behind them and by the time YOU get to the middle of the map there's a high chance your entire team will be dead because people at this br are zombie base bombers with no skill and now you're in 1v9. No seriously matches at this br usually last for about 5 minutes if there's no last guy on enemy team at lower orbit or airfield camping.

Anyway, unlike Gen 1 harriers or Sea Harriers, you cant just climb even in a full downtier because you can still meet stuff like F-4E which will put you on suicide watch with his missiles and superior climb rate, pair it with the fact that you cant just 1 chaff it away and have to either drop out a fair chunk of chaff or notch you may feel a bit uncomfortable up in the sky (i mean, you have plenty of chaff in T.10 sooo). And just 1 br step above you is MiG-23 ML series that i DO NOT advise to ever climb, thank God you atleast get RWR warning from him. And at 12.0 uptier and higher you can meet AIM-7F which is even deadlier at even longer ranges. So yeah if you're not in T.10 with 5 billion chaff i wouldnt recommend you climb unless its a full downtier.

So yeah, fly low (usually, mig-23 players have some sort of hivemind obsession of launching R-24 at ridiculously close ranges), let the furball form and pick targets 1 by 1, look out for people who are heading back to airfield to shove a maverick up their ass, or at stalling ones to do the very same, since they no longer have speed to dodge your maverick. Alternatively - launch them at A-10! Preferably from rear or front aspect because mavericks dont like to turn and they're barely supersonic so they will lose all the speed in that turn and the turn wont even be that tight.

I only advise to engage in dogfights when you're sure there's no one near you since because of how Harrier dogfights (stall fights if you didnt know it already) if the second guy joins mid dogfight you simply dont have energy or anything else to dodge him/ deal with him. Your best turning speed even without nozzle is 800-1000 kmh, pair it with VIFFing and you'll turn on a dime. Thats why i advise you to pack some speed before merge in dogfight becuase any lower you'll be in a very disadvantageous position considering that you still bleed a lot of energy, which, in this case, is very not good for you.

In case you end up entering a dogfight in a not-so-good situation for you - drop your mavericks, they're heavy and dropping them will significantly help your turn rate, its better to get 1 kill in a dogfight than die trying to save up missiles for kills that you'll never get.

This one is best explained as "balls to the walls" playstyle. You're basically a T.10 on some wild steroids, but the risk goes higher as well. In full uptier you can meet stuff like JF-17 which gets Fox-3 missiles and even at 13.0 you start seeing scary stuff like AV-8B+, Flanker, a malicious F-14 everyone spams phoenixes and fakour-90 in etc. So as you can understand, you should fly low in this one just as well and be more cautious in full uptiers and play more safely, thankfully, your RWR and MAW will help you a lot in surviving in such conditions (especially MAW will help you against 10km R-27ET shots you would never see coming if it wasnt for MAW, although keep in mind its rear aspect only)\

Other than that, your strategy is pretty much the same as T.10, just that now you can be far more agressive with your superior FM and missile kit and get away with more ace combat shenanigans in full downtiers but you gota be more defensive in full uptiers.

Remember when i said it is what Harriers were all coming to? Well, i MEAN it.

You can do agressive dogfight like GR.7 which will be even more agressive with your radar because now you are also able to slave your 9Ms, so those offbore shots may be funny from time to time, just remember that its not R-73 or MICA and has no thrust vectoring so it wont make a 180 turn on spot.

But if you're not a fan of dogfighting (which is lame), you can also do mindless Fox-3 slinging from across the map! Although, like Shar FA.2, you dont have as much range on your AMRAAMs as others do, however UNLIKE Shar FA.2 you have more missiles so you dont need to be so conservative like you had to be on Shar.

See where im going with it? It can do BVR, just like Shar FA.2, but it also has the wild maneuverability, just like GR.7. It can fulfill any role, wether it be close range butchering or 20km+ engagements or even mobile SAM site. Wait what?

You see, to knock off the pulse-dopler radar lock, you gota blend in with surface, which the radar filters away and only picks up radar returns that are faster/slower than the one it sent. To blend in with surface, a.k.a have the same approach speed to the aircraft as surface (so if plane goes mach 1, surface approaches him at mach 1 too). This is performed by either, well, not moving, just like surface, which is excluded for conventional aircraft because they need atleast some speed to stay in the air, and hence, they go perpindiculary relatively to the aircraft, hence, not approaching nor going away from him.

However, Harrier is not a conventional aircraft, and unlike the conventional aircraft, it doesnt need any speed to stay in the air. See where im going with it? Exactly. By hovering mid-air you become completely immune to enemy radars because they cannot see you since you simply dont move. Only time they can lock on you is when you have no surface behind you when they look at you, but in that case you can just a little bit of chaff and move away.

Now, pair it with the fact that we have radar missiles with a lot of range. Yup, we will now roleplay as CLAWS for people who didnt research US ground. Except now its air battles.

Yup, thats what i was talking about in Shar FA.2 section. You just sit somewhere in the map either behind a cover or just away from the furball and sling missiles like your average GRB SPAA bot spammer at the range of about 10-15 km. This is insanely fun and i recommend everyone try it, no one expects a Harrier in the middle of the map sitting and throwing sticks at people.

Downsides of this strategy? You can be easily gunned down and you can still be shot by IR missiles. But with proper positioning and situational awareness you will negate those problems almost entirely.

My favourite part is to sit behind a hill very close to enemy airfield where that 1 last no-skill fraud sits, wait untill he has enough balls to go out, and then jumpscare it with point blank shotgun AMRAAM which will either result in easy kill or them crashing into the ground because they shat their pants.

General advice: deploy landing gear during VTOL funnies, you may miss on managing thrust or controls and dip into the ground and explode, with gears down they'll absorb the impact...for once.

Or, if thats some annoying premium turkoid F-104 (that relates to any Harrier that can meet this piece of crap) who was cocky and stupid enough to land on unprotected airfield but now has no balls to take off and constantly J's out? just sit in VTOL right behind his back on the start of the runway and wait till he spawns, this [buddy] will NOT have time to J out away from this one.

1. Yes, i will keep the guide relevant as updates come and they affect any of the Harrier in any meaningful way (not just 1 kgs more thrust on GR.3 or whatever)

2. I will submit the guide for publication on War Thunder Wiki some day, though more tame and some of the jokes (like F-104 one since Gaijin wont like me speaking ill of their most lucrative chunk of playerbase - people with no skill or knowledge who only buy stuff) will be redacted and it will take some time since i never worked with WT Wiki tools and from what i can tell steam guide is actually more comfortable to use (and thats saying something when this thing hasnt been updated ever since 2013).

3. Im not sure if i will ever cover Harrier history. No genuinely this is a crime to talk little about it but neither am i paid enough (or at all) to make a giant 25k+ word long lecture on it. I can tell about it via vc to my friends but structurizing it and making detailed research on it for the giant story? Hell nah man i have a university, job and life to attend. Im currently making a research on AV-8B early production models history and i can write a 5-10k word lecture only on those 3-4 planes lol, and mind you there's early production AV-8B+ that raises even more questions and there are Tech Demonstrators and there's a whole ass Harrier III (yes it was an actual thing and even proposal mockup was built) and there are British Harrier 2s with the wacky ADEN 25 history and there's borderline mythical FRS.2 no one knows about and there's AV-16 and there's a P.1127 with comically large nozzles for testing the (i suppose) BS.1000 engine made for P.1154 and there's P.1150 and then there are other british schizo vtol prototypes like P.1121 or P.112 P.116 and so on and so on OH MY GOD WHY SO MANY.

Wow...this is it? Holy hell.

I thank all of you who read this whole guide till the end (without cheating). Hell, even if you just scrolled all the way here, im still happy you read it. Thanks for all the awards too, it really makes me happy to see a notification on my phone of someone sending me one.

This is my first experience in making guides or expressing my knowledge on something like this in such format, so i hope i did my job well. I really enjoyed making it and had a lot of fun both writing it as you can probably tell by the GR.7 and T.10 section and gathering some material for the guide like clips and memes.

Whether you found this helpful or useless, please do tell me and let me know how I can improve (even if its some typo in text). I appreciate feedback in any form. So thank you in advance.

Fun fact: back when this guide was just an idea of mine, i originally was afraid that this guide will be over 9000 words total if i were to include the history of each Harrier becasue of how autistic i am for these machines, and hence didnt include it.

My "goal" of this guide without history sections not being 9000 words total was reached, its now 10 thousand 5 hundred and 4 words.

07.10.2025

• Initial release

11.10.2025

• Added "Answering to some questions" section