did any F-15E recieve such an upgrade?
Paveway II and III do not require any interfaces and can be mounted on the upper CFT pylons of the F-15E, but starting with the Enhanced Paveway series, they require MIL-STD-1760 and 1553, and if it only has 1553, it can only supply power.
However, it is unclear if this applies to the GBU-54. No data currently exists on this and it is just an assumption.
Also, the USAF official article mentions that the upper CFT pylons are only used for JDAM transportation, so this will not be implemented.
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Currently, only the export F-15E series (F-15K, F-15SA, F-15SG, 15QA) have it.
Fair enough. That said, I still think GBU-12 on those pylons should come with loadouts other than just selecting the GBU-12s for the whole CFT. For instance, 3 GBU-38+2 GBU-12 CFT, or 2 GBU-31+2 GBU-12.
8 GBU-39+ 2 GBU-12… F-15E/I are missing a lot of versatility they’d otherwise have.
And man would I love GBU-56. My platonic ideal of a weapon.
I wonder if Saudi and Qatari Emiri Advanced Eagles will go to Britain. I hope they do.
is it just me who thought that GBU-38 JDAM was a 1000lb?
I’m guessing the F-15EX has this too?
I may be wrong but I believe they still require the connector to program the laser code to the unit.
Laser code is set manually by hand on the laser code panel (like on the Paveway series) on the bomb itself. I don’t think it can be changed at all in-flight even.
I’ve been looking through the (L)JDAM user manual and I can’t find anything about a lase-only employment mode of operation specifically, only some mention of quick laser acquisition when dropping from very close range (<4.5km). So I am not sure if the bomb would allow for it to be dropped in normal operation without GPS handoff. Because it is also mentioned the LJDAM specifically ignores input from the laser guidance unit until <4.5km from the target (using GPS data presumably). There’s also a lot of nice little features missing as well, but I digress…
So I’d say it’s a bit unclear if it can be used in laser-only mode. Especially when the EGBU user manual and brochures on the other hand specifically mentions a laser-only mode (referred to as legacy “laser-only”/Paveway II unpowered mode), likely it has this because it’s based on the Paveway II, unlike the LJDAM which was based on the GPS-only JDAM.
What probably can definitely be done is have the LJDAM preprogrammed beforehand with a GPS coordinate and dropped that way without 1760, but with 1553, interface (EGBU also supports this feature).
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This sounds like the laser is used for terminal guidance only on LJDAM. Now, as I understand it all laser guidance ranges for bombs are effectively multiplied several times for War Thunder so I don’t know if that actually puts it out of laser-only guidance for WT purposes in terms of RANGE specifically.
I think preprogramming GPS coordinates before takeoff is probably outside War Thunder’s scope.
Sounds like, overall, even laser only upper CFT GBU-54 is infeasible.
Probably. But mixed stores shouldn’t be. No reason it shouldn’t be able to take 3 LJDAMs and 2 GBUs on the same CFT.
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It used to be somewhat the case, but they rectified it at some point and lowered the laser seeker values (too much), however more recently (several updates ago now already) they upped most again to their more real life values.
IRL laser acquisition range is unlimited actually, it mentions so in the manuals as well. It is however limited by the laser’s properties and its range to the target (which is also modelled in WT, the dropoff in acquisition range roughly follows a 1/x curve, see attached picture from in-game tests). However it’s the software that specifically also cuts of the maximum allowed laser guidance range.
Laser acquisition range drop off respect to designation range in WT:
Spoiler
Specifically for the LJDAM in WT, the acquisition range is set at 16k ft (4.6km or so), meaning that compared to the figures in the manual, it is both under and overperforming in certain conditions (the latter may be more due to geomtric reasons, which WT does not model). But it means that under no normal conditions it would acquire the laser much outside the allowed real life laser guidance range, so this is not an issue really. WT got the laser mechanics fairly accurate to real life, of course standardized with simplifications.
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