so nuke option just dropped a new plane, clearly inspired by the A-10 warthog in real life: a ‘rugged, reliable close-air-support plane capable of obliterating tanks with its GAU-8 autocannon’. you know, the one that goes brrrt? in real life the a-10 is actually kind of dogwater, responsible for the greatest number of friendly fire incidents out of any US aircraft, and only becoming more expensive to maintain with time. but that’s a story for another day!

the first thing you’ll notice about the brawler is its eye-watering capacity for destruction. the a19 can carry a maximum of 16 AGM-68s, or 56 kingpins. each of those missiles/rockets is capable of destroying a single well-armored tank. in actual combat 56 kingpins translates to about 35 tank kills when used sparingly.

or, you could choose to bring 22 AGM-48s, which is 2 more AGM-48s than the Tarantula can carry. The tarantula weighs just over twice as much unloaded, and is also twice as big, and is more of a helicopter than a plane.

this basically puts the a19 in a nice comfortable role as the fatter cousin of the CI-22 cricket, able to carry twice as much ordnance.

THE SECOND THING you ‘ll notice about the a19 is that it flies like a FUCKING PIG. immediately after takeoff you’ll have to watch your climb so that you don’t sink into the treeline, and for every turn thereafter you’re gonna be veeery gentle with the flightstick. a pull of only 3 Gs will easily take the AoA to 15 degrees, and you’ll start to bleed airspeed. the truth is those tiny cessna wings are barely enough to lift the fuckin ordnance let alone change what direction it’s flying in.

so in an actual sortie, you’ll take off, reach an airspeed of between 500 and 600kph (top speed is around 700), and every time you turn it’ll sink back down to about 450kph while your stall warning complains, then you try to pick up the speed again on the dive into the target. you can travel light, but then you may as well fly the cricket, so.. pack a few extra lunches (AGM-48 sandwiches preferred) and whatever you do DON’T STALL.

apart from that the brawler is a rank 2 aircraft, costing 32 milly, so its available at gamestart for cheap. the pick between brawler, cricket, and compass is like. okay i want to do air-to-ground, now i have a sliding scale choice between speed and firepower. if you’re gonna be crossing the map the compass might be preferable so you can hit 1000kph.

the brawler is also less stealthy than the chicane helicopter, and sucks dick at nap-of-the-earth flight. it can’t carry troops, move vehicles, or sustain fire with a 76mm artillery cannon like the heavy lift helicopters. but it CAN carry a ridiculous amount of blowy uppy stuff, and has about 100 flares onboard. so there’s still a reason to fly every single aircraft in the lineup, raw preferences aside.

i enjoy the design, the contrapropellers are sick as fuck. but to be real its just an a10 with new engines and from that perspective i love the cricket way more. the cricket is way more in line with the ideal design for a cost-effective, subsonic CAS aircraft: a crop duster with a new sensor suite and some missiles on it. and its CUTED.