F-16 Real Life Loadouts
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Hello everyone, I have yet another topic to ask and possibly discuss. Now mind you IRL the F-16 cannot carry that much firepower in war time, All loadouts that I’ve seen the F-16 carry are 2x Longsticks 2x 370 Gal. Drop Tanks and 2x GBU-12/2x AGM65D’s or 2x CBU-105 or 97’s or other bombs such as JDAMs but so far the only F-16 that I’ve seen carry 4x GBU-38’s were in the 100th Fighter Squadron that does CAS missions.
My question to anyone who might have insight to this is at the beginning of any war the enemy has a shit load of troops ground vehicles such as various armor pieces artillery pieces and etc. How do they fight this way when they only carry so little ammo ?? and I’ve seen F/A-18’s with a payload carried into combat that is almost if not the same as the Falcon. How do they expect to achieve a lot with very little ?? and does anyone playing Falcon utilize Real World loadouts on their aircraft in the Sim ???
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In the real world, target criteria are much more constrained than we normally have. When complying with the oft restrictive rules of engagement and the law of armed combat, fuel becomes an issue before weapons does.
That said, in the case of a major theater war breaking out on the korean peninsula, I suspect OPLAN 5029 calls for lots of fighters dropping bombs all the same. One fighter might carry only a few bombs, but four or eight fighters carry a lot more.
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Oh ok so what you’re saying is as with the efforts of the different aircraft use no matter how many weapons one carries its a combined effort in weaponry to achieve the goal all the same ??
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Best reference I know to guide RL –> BMS decisions for loadouts is the Pacaf Standard Conventional Loads doc, which, I think, is in the download docs folder.
IMHO, in a real no $hit shooting war, exceptions will be made.
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Ok I’ll have to check that doc out and see what I can find.
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@Smokey254:
How do they expect to achieve a lot with very little ??
By careful planing. Instead of killing a hole battalion of tanks, one can attack the command center and deny them any guidance. You could attack a fuel depot or destroy key points like bridges. On a real war, you don’t have to kill all the opposition, just their ability or desire to fight. Will this work all the time? 50% of the time? etc. I have no idea, but you can only plan so much, maybe your plan is good, if not, maybe you can adapt quickly enough to endure or prevail.
Lets look at an example like the South Korean elephant walk during Exercise Beverly Herd 16-01
http://media.defense.gov/2016/May/10/2001535489/-1/-1/0/160509-F-LU738-221.JPG
Looking at the weapons, I think it would be a good guess that their main target will be air defense, completely kill it. After that, any thing else would be easier. -
Bridges . . . r your answer to fight massive ground operation of the enemy.
Learn the bridges on the map and destroy the important once.
In my current campaign i trapped 10 battallion’s of the enemy when i destroyed the bridges around them, now they r useless for the reds. -
@Smokey254:
Oh ok so what you’re saying is as with the efforts of the different aircraft use no matter how many weapons one carries its a combined effort in weaponry to achieve the goal all the same ??
Kind of. Im saying that BMS presents a bit of a turkey shoot compared to what a shooting war would look like, against a competent adversary.
If you carry two bombs, and your flight then carries eight bombs between you, thats still a lot of destruction. If it takes you six minutes as a combat cycle to make one release, thats twelve minutes over the target area, which is a lot of time if there is opposition. BMS flights tend towards finding a battalion of tanks all in a nice line, then dropping all bombs on that line, then going home. They usually do so from a very short flight, with many pilots complaining if they have to fly more than one hundred fifty miles to their target. Under these conditions, fuel is undervalued, while munitions are overvalued. We worry more about potential weapon slots, than we do about mission effectiveness. We worry more about missing out on potential kills, rather than about mission effectiveness.
In the average future shooting war, someone screwed up big time if you get into a mission as a fighter and wish you had brought more bombs with you. Hopefully its the enemy who screwed up, and left big juicy targets there for you. If they keep doing that, maybe the mission planners screwed up, sending a fighter flight instead of bombers. Hopefully it isnt you who screwed up, dropping on targets you didnt identify correctly (maybe friendlies or civilians) or in accordance with the law of war (potentially opening you up to charges of war crimes).
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Of course there’s the precision in PGM’s. Just compare modern RL Ops with B-17’s carpet bombing…
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Kind of. Im saying that BMS presents a bit of a turkey shoot compared to what a shooting war would look like, against a competent adversary.
If you carry two bombs, and your flight then carries eight bombs between you, thats still a lot of destruction. If it takes you six minutes as a combat cycle to make one release, thats twelve minutes over the target area, which is a lot of time if there is opposition. BMS flights tend towards finding a battalion of tanks all in a nice line, then dropping all bombs on that line, then going home. They usually do so from a very short flight, with many pilots complaining if they have to fly more than one hundred fifty miles to their target. Under these conditions, fuel is undervalued, while munitions are overvalued. We worry more about potential weapon slots, than we do about mission effectiveness. We worry more about missing out on potential kills, rather than about mission effectiveness.
In the average future shooting war, someone screwed up big time if you get into a mission as a fighter and wish you had brought more bombs with you. Hopefully its the enemy who screwed up, and left big juicy targets there for you. If they keep doing that, maybe the mission planners screwed up, sending a fighter flight instead of bombers. Hopefully it isnt you who screwed up, dropping on targets you didnt identify correctly (maybe friendlies or civilians) or in accordance with the law of war (potentially opening you up to charges of war crimes).
Perfectly explained.
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Quite a bit of firepower being used in Inherent Resolve:
2 ship with 4 SDBs and 6 500lbs PGMs is pretty nice I think.
