Anyone who played top tier air battles in recent time will probably agree that amount of countermeasures is one of the most important aspects of the top tier aircraft.
This is why the decision to have F-16 and F-15 fire two charges of countermeasures per pop bewilders me.
In the reality of the game this effectively cuts their countermeasure amount in half, and while F-15 can cope well enough with 240 countermeasures (or 120 pops), F-16 depending on the variant is limited to either 30 pops on non modernized Block 10s or 60 pops on Block 50 and Belgian MLU.
It’s especially bizaree considering that both of these aircraft are equiped with ALE-47 countermeasures dispenser system, the same one as on the F/A-18, yet in game F/A-18 fires single countermeasure charge per pop, which is in my opinion much more preferable.
Why are single CM pops preferable to double CM pops?
- Player can manage their countermeasures better
- Pre-flaring becomes more viable
- It’s just as effective at flaring missiles with tracking suspension IRCCM but less costly
- Chaff spam when defending close range ARH missiles becomes more viable
In conclusion double pop reduces the amount of effective countermeasures you have, while offering benefit that could be achieved simply by pushing the CM button twice if single pop was a thing.
For these reasons I believe that both F-16 and F-15 should be changed to fire only a single countermeasure charge per pop
Please vote whether you agree with proposed change below
[Should F-16 and F-15 CM pop quanity be changed to single countermeasure per pop?]
2 Likes
they could just get their BOL rails but gaijin hasnt added those to any US planes other than f14b for some reason
6 Likes
Did US F-16s ever get those irl?
If we get single pop, we’ll need to fix the amount and type of countermeasures each aircraft have as well.
The F-16s ingame which use the AN/ALE-45 dispensers currently have them modeled ingame as small caliber dispensers with 30 countermeasures each, despite the fact they’re modeled as larger caliber dispensers with 15 countermeasures each. Last I checked the F-15 and F/A-18 have this same issue as well, where they should have less countermeasures, but Larger Caliber ones as well (might not be the case, I’ll check late).
I’m aware, but it’s visually modeled as being spilt in some cases between larger and smaller types, it should at least be consistent with the actual model in my opinion. Perhaps an update where you can choose the type would be nice, whether through custom loadouts or another way. They decided to get it right for the Thai F-16 lol, and it was the worst possible one they could have done it too lmao.
Said I was unsure about this, but thanks for clearing it up.
All F-15’s can receive the BOL pods. Although the E has no images of it using them. But we have the Sukhoi dual pylon in the game so i guess why not get them bol pods on all F-15s
1 Like
the belgian f16a is overtiered trash that no one plays anyway so who cares
The F-16 OCU does have it accurately modeled as its limited to 45 countermeasures with 15 large and 30 normal countermeasures. All other F-16’s has them counted as normal caliber and is treated like all of them are normal caliber blocks as you mentioned, though the ROC F-16A MLU technically has it correct since if you counted them, they would total up to 60 but half would be large caliber. Also, as for the F-15’s if we were to apply the same logic based on the size of the dispensers since yes the same visual discrepancy is present, they would have 120 normal caliber countermeasures and 60 large caliber countermeasures (note this doesn’t take into account “non-standard” countermeasures as in those which are most variants of these planes such as the F-16D Barak which has extra countermeasures in the spine of the aircraft of the F-15I which has extra dispensers at the rear of the aircraft, plus the F-16AM since I am not sure how it managed 120 with the two blocks of countermeasures which were built into the aircraft already as I really don’t see any other dispensers on the aircraft and I don’t have it as well).
To be honest accurately modeling them would only hurt really the early F-16’s (including modernized ones) as they have far more to lose (relatively speaking) at what is already a small amount for their br’s, but the later F-16’s and all the F-15’s would be fine all things considered. Also as for the F-18’s the dispensers in-game are all visually the same size so they don’t really have that issue though looking at them they look too large to be normal caliber imo.
1 Like
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