[2023] JH-7A: The Flying Leopard!

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

The Chinese aviation research tree will receive the outstanding JH-7A jet-bomber, which features advanced avionics and excellent ordnance capabilities, enough to strike fear into any enemy it encounters!

JH-7A: A Jet Fighter-Bomber for China at rank VIII
Features:

• High speed!
  
• Large selection of secondary weapons.
  
• Laser-guided bombs.

Meet the JH-7A!
Coming to War Thunder as part of the “Kings of Battle” major update, the JH-7A will be a Chinese top-of-the-line jet fighter-bomber that features weapons to use in air and ground battles. Let’s take a closer look at the details!

Interesting: The JH-7A is also known as the FBC-1 “Flying Leopard” (Fei Bao in Chinese) as an export variant. FBC is an abbreviation for Fighter-Bomber Supersonic (the C stands for Chāo in Chinese, meaning supersonic in English)!

Originally designed to replace the aging fleet of Q-5 of aircraft, the JH-7A was designed as a versatile fighter-bomber, capable of carrying fantastic ordnance options in the form of laser-guided bombs and air-to-air missiles. In-game, the JH-7A will carry the PL-5С short-range air-to-air missile with improved target sensors. To top it all off, the JH-7A will also be able to carry the great all-rounder PL-8 air-to-air missile, which features one of the best overloads and is one of the best performing missiles in the game!

Did you know? The appearance of the JH-7A may seem rather outdated, but modern materials and alloys are widely used in this aircraft’s design!

One factor of the JH-7A modernization program was to increase the number of weapon hardpoints and to introduce a new type of weapon system. Thus, in addition to bombs, unguided rockets and air-to-air missiles, the JH-7A can also carry LS500J and the heaviest in the Chinese lineup, the LS1000J laser-guided bomb thanks to the addition of a targeting pod. To make aiming with bombs and unguided rockets easier, the JH-7A also has a very useful ballistic computer.

In your matches: Pro-tips when using the JH-7A by Jan (Copsi), WT Marketing Manager: “As the JH-7A is quite big, it might be a good idea to keep yourself from dogfighting the first enemy plane you see. But afterwards, as it’s able to carry the PL-5 (the Formula 1 car of missiles) and the PL-8, the Chinese licence build of the Python 3, you’ll not have much of a problem in dogfighting! A good amount of flares is great to see, make sure to pre-flare enemies when they come close. Being able to use high altitude precision bombs is a massive step up from the Q-5's, so use this to your advantage to avoid anti-air vehicles as much as possible.”

This outstanding jet fighter-bomber will arrive to the game in the Chinese aviation tree as part of the “Kings of Battle” major update. Until then, keep a look out for other dev blogs, enjoy your matches and see you soon!