Mirages 2000 more often use 1700 or 2000 liter tanks under their wings because they have long distances to cover, I agree that in game it doesn’t do much but it’s still interesting to have
While there are some planes that need them, the vast majority don’t
Especially prop planes or non afterburning jets that can hold over an hour of fuel
I don’t necessarily agree on this point, having these tanks allows you to reduce the quantity of internal fuel, which means that in dogfight once the tanks have been released the plane is better
Having a P51 with 30 minutes of fuel in an external tank but 10 minutes internally would give it a huge advantage in the event of a dogfight, for example, in particular if he is engage in early match
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Atleast the Saab J35 Draken all got their drop tanks the fuel economy was horrible.
The min fuel you can take is 30% which is usually over 15 minutes
Also props don’t carry as much fuel as jets so going from 10 to 15 mins isnt going to impact performance as much as in an afterburning jet
I’m a little biased because I mostly play in simulation so I have to take a little more fuel (usually at least 20 to 30 minutes) so the tanks would be really useful. On the other hand, it is sure that in realistic it is less useful
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I am pretty sure, they all have fuel tanks… just some planes are lacking tanks under the wings
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This is precisely the point, these planes have not received all their fuel tanks yet (unlike certain planes like the F14,15,16 or Gripen).
I’m flying Sim EC almost exclusively, and rarely use external fuel for attackers and bombers, but really use drop tanks a lot in fighters, to gain an additional tactical edge if needed:
I want to have a good fuel load to be able to have enough to burn if I need to get somewhere fast, and at the same time of course profit from the possibility to ret rid of weight quickly if needed.
So for example in the Viggen I carry 30 min of fuel, plus the additional ca. 10 minutes the belly drop tank provides, and I often drop it if i get into a dogfight early into the flight.
Or in the Tigers I carry 20, max. 25 minutes internally, plus one belly tank.
But for non afterburning attackers I rarely carry more than 25 minutes worth of fuel (A-10 being the exception with 30 min because of its quite long loitering/fighting time). But with 25 min I never have any fuel worries even if I go after 2 or even 4 mission targets in A-6, A-7, AMX, Su-25,…
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As a non-afterburning attacker, I think the A-4 Skyhawk would benefit from having a fuel tank, as the internal capacity is limited on larger maps (The plane manages to return after dropping its bombs but if the plane finds itself in a long dogfight it could become complicated).
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A few spitfires and Japanese props got some, a few American ones too IIRC. Not to mention the MiG-9(l) got its droppable.
I just looked, indeed the A6M3 among the Jamonais received a drop tank, on the other hand none among the Americans. For the Mig-9(l) I can’t drop them
Counter point.
ASB.
Large map (120x120)
Due to how heavy fuel is and how minor performance characteristics can change the outcome of duels, the side that has to travel farther to contest objectices is at a significant disadvantage.
One side must budget 7 minutes of fuel to climb and cruise just to get to the objective and another 7 minutes to get back. On top of this, this side must also carry fuel to loiter and contest objectives.
Taking the standard 30 minute fuel loadout can mean cutting it very close. As a rule, i like to have 5 minutes of fuel when entering landing pattern in case of unexpected events delaying my landing.
How would prop tier drop tanks help?
Simple.
You load the customary 20 minute internal fuel load for l contesting objextives so you can return to airfield with fuel to spare. You then add a drop tank with 30 minutes of fuel for total of 50 to give you time to arrive at battlefield and loiter until contact or objectives where you ditch the 30 minute drop tanks for perrormance gain.
Why not just take 50 minutes?
Because assymetry.
On denmark redfor must choose between an airfield without aaa or travelling 80-100 to contest the objectives in the south east corner of the map. Bluefor can take off and basically dly right into those objectives.
Bluefor can afford to take less fuel without penalty.
With this, a bf109 could engage spits and mustangs and corsairs and cats with 20 minute fuel guaranteed rather than whatever load they got left from 50 minutes after crossing (~7 minutes) and loitering (could be 0. Could be 10. Could even be 20 on lower pop or bad spotting conditions)
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the israeli ouragans, mystere and i think supermysteres have theirs modeled and appear when the planes are in the hangar as background vehicles, yet are unusable. Also the Nesher and Kfir have pylons which are actually drop tanks, also unusable
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Yes absolutely, moreover a large part of the external tanks are already modeled and the files are in the game, they are just not implemented. The Mirage 2000 wing tanks have been in the files for almost a year if I am not mistaken
Even in Air sim i run out of missiles before i run out of ammo. If you fly high you die,so everyone flies at deck to multipath missiles.
Ive had quite a few games in the f4u-4, c202 and even the bf109f4 where i stayed in the air for 30 minutes hopping from a point to a point, bomber objectives and intercepting enemy bomvers and fighters on small maps like ruhr and tunisia.
For ruhr and tunisia it is inconsequential.
For smolensk and dover, the symmetry reduces the pressing need for such.
For denmark though?
Redfor spawns in northwest corner. Objectives spawn in southeast corner.
Bluefor spawns in southeast.
Bluefor planes can load 30 minute or even 20 minute fuel loads and loiter and contest objectives without falling out of the sky. They dont even need to loiter as objectives are right nextdoor.
Redfor must either:
- Spawn on a carrier (so only IJN). You can land without a hook but it is very sketchy and id rather not make it a havit as even if you are consistent, it is not very immersive to belly land on a carrier in a bf109.
- Spawn on the tiny island without aaa that turns into the whole blue team spawncamping it. (I have killed someone without even taking off in an army plane - it is that swarmed with spawnkillers rocketing and strafing it)
- Spawn in the north west that is some 80-100 km travel away which is gonna be about 7 minutes of travel, give or take climbing to altitude .
In case of 3,
You need 15 minutes of fuel just for a round trip and that is without spare fuel to abort landings in an emergency. Let’s add 5 minutes so we can dafely abort.
We are at 20. We have zero loiter time.
Due to how objectives spawn in a way that allow bluefor to contest them with little travel time while you need to travel across the whole map, we want the ability to loiter over the southeast region to be ready to respond to calls of cover me and a points and ground battles to act as air superiority.
Let’s go with a reasonable 10 minute loiter time since that seems about what i feel the delay between objectives tend to be on other maps.
We are at 30 minutes of fuel without having room to contest an A point.
Without the enemy team delaying a points - i havnt measured how long exactly - they take a fairly significant amount of time. Let’s say 5 minutes.
Now add the possibility of enemies contesting and it dragging out and…
We want some 40-50 minute fuel load to feel comfortable with our chances to return home.
If we over estimated the fuel load - we arrived right as an a point spawned or had to respond to a friendly cover me - we are seriously overweight compared to our peers.
If we however underestimated our fuel load we need to ditch the front & allies and rtb to avoid sipping some salty baltic water
All the while our enemies can take off, fly ~16, maybe 32 km and threaten the objectives we flew some 80-100 km for.
Surely you can see the use case for a drop tank?
We can over-estimate our fuel needs and ditch the excess to fight on parity without too much risk of sipping some fresh baltic salt water.
(All this is assuming you dont care about rewards because you are penalized for flying without landing for 2 ua cycles.)
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Maybe I’m thinking of the F-9 naval jet.
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Counterpoint to your entire argument
Not enough people play Sim for gaijin to bother with the financial investment