Hope lost for a teaser today :(
So Thursday as usual, most likely.
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Dont give up hope yet!
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Bomber line was always a bomber line and F-15E is a bomber…
B-57 served as one, F-105 served as one, F-111 served as one and F-15E serves as one
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The F15E is a weird one depending on whats needed it can fit in both places in the TT BUT I do think it fits better as a “bomber”
Aslo the F15E fills the exact same role as the Tornado and its considered a bomber sooo
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What?? Absolutely not, even if it is used as such it is a strike aircraft from start to finish.
B-57 is a Bomber, F-105 is a Supersonic bomber, same goes for the F-111. Even if they place it in the bomber line it would still not be a bomber, just a strike aircraft…
The way I see it the F15E replaced the F111 so it goes after the F111
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When you hear strike eagle though, it tends to lean to strike aircraft, hope I’m wrong though
Just because it is bad at A2A combat does not undesignate it as a multirole fighter. It’s an F-111, not a B-111.
The F-15 isn’t a bomber, no, but neither is the F-111. The line hasn’t had a bomber since the B-57, and Gaijin has given no indication that will change any time soon. It has since become a heavy strike aircraft line, and the whole point of the F-15E is to replace older strike aircraft in inventory. There are, to my knowledge, no further options for heavy strike aircraft for the US besides the F-15E. Only other lane that it could be added into is the light strike fighter line, but I expect that to be where Marine Corp aircraft will be placed.
Shame. Assuming it could though, that would depend on the missile. No lower then the Sea Vixen though.
It already has been. There haven’t been any proper bombers in that line since the B-57.
Only one of those is a bomber, the B-57. The rest are strike aircraft.
After F-16D or (what is more likely) F-15C. F-16D line seems like dedicated to 2 seater light fighters in modern era while F-16C line is dedicated to single seat light fighters. F-15C line is clearly about heavy air superiority fighters.
I expect F-16I to come after F-16D and F-15I after F-15C because of what I mentioned above but also because in IAF all F-15 variants run A2G and A2A missions. F-15I only improves that with targeting pods and added dedicated A2G capabilites.
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So by your definition the F-117 is multi role too? It’s very much because it’s bad at A2A that it’s not a multirole in the facts. Sure we could say that theoretically the Nighthawk could carry Sidewinders but that doesn’t make it a Multirole jet does it?
Fair enough, but the F-111 and F-15E share almost nothing design and doctrine wise, the F-111 is way more of a bomber than the F-15E, since the latter isn’t one at all. the F-111 did use to perform carpet bombing missions unlike the Strike Eagle.
I mean, if it already has, at least the aircrafts placed in it resemble and are used as heavy bombers performing carpet bombing and everything that you would expect of a strategic bomber, the F-15E on the other hand is purely tactical.
the Strike Eagle makes far more sense in the Aardvark line than it does in the AV-8B+ line or F-15C line
As the F-15C will just perform better at A2A (unless they choose a later F-15E), the AV-8B+ line is for more close air support aircraft, while the F-15E LITERALLY REPLACED THE AARDVARK
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The Super Hornet replaced the Tomcat yet they did not have the same roles, and there are still gaps of capabilities that remain today. The role of the replacing aircraft is not defined by the preceding aircraft.
No one ever started grinding the Bomber line expecting to find an F-15 Eagle at the end.
The AV-8B+ line is the default Attacker/Strike Aircraft line; ground attack planes that can also engage in self-defence as multirole fighters if needed be.
The Aardvark line on the other hand is the medium and heavy bomber line all the way up until Rank VII; and even in Rank VII, we are looking at large and heavy attackers that can’t really double up as fighters too well.
For the Aardvark line, planes like B-52, B-1, F-117, etc, are far more fitting, while F-15E most definitely fits best on the AV-8B line.
The F-117 never should’ve been classified as a fighter and is very much an edge case. I’ve yet to find any reason it was, outside of very silly reasons.
They are both tactical bombers, and the US military doesn’t have any more aircraft that can carpet bomb, none that would be higher in BR then the F-111 anyway. Either the line gets the F-15E, or the line stops dead at the F-111.
Late F-14 and Super Hornet had the same roles and Super Hornet only improved on those except for long range fleet defense that F-14 performed with AIM-54… funny enough Super Hornets got their long range fleet defense weapon at the end (AIM-174).
So yeah - direct successor in this case
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As others have pointed out a few times. Japan has the perfect Gen 4 candidate via the XF-2A which can tweaked even further by giving it the F-16Cs radar. It would have the same loadout as the F-15J with 4 x AAM-3 and 4 x AIM-7Ms. Of course nowadays, they could give it the 4 x AAM-4s but it just wouldn’t have datalink so require a hardlock for mid-course corrections. At most, Japan would have had to wait till the F-16C got added later in the year, so another 3-4 months. Would it have sucked? Yes, but to say they had nothing till the F-15J is false.
The reason the AJ got added was for CAS, which admittedly isn’t needed anymore as there’s the Thai F-5 at a lower BR. At the BR it is at, the current AJ cannot perform CAS at all if there’s SPAA about.
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It’s funny to see you guys have this in-depth philosophical discussion about what makes an aircraft a fighter, bomber, attacker, multirole, etc. where some of you get a little too worked up about it
Meanwhile Gaijin will resolve the matter using this cutting edge method
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Probably. I’m still annoyed that the Alaska is considered a Battlecruiser instead of a Heavy Cruiser. Sure, it fills out the niche of a BC, but it was built to the standards of a HC, not a BC or BB, and made heavy use of HC fittings.
XF-2 would’ve overperformed anything we had in game at the time of F-16A addition with 8 missiles and “tweaked F-16C radar”. It would have no guided A2G munitions too
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The role of late F-14D or F-14B (U) was still fleet air defence above all, their ability to do ground strike was really just a way to make the F-14 live longer, so no they did not have the same role. The F/A-18 Super hornet was designed a a multirole aircraft and used as such.
That’s true, did they enter service yet or are they still in testing?