+1 The first USA fighter aircraft armed guided bomb & world’s first laser guided bomb and deployed Paveway I Laser guided bomb. and equipped early laser target designator
F-4D equipment store
Credit : T.O. 1F-4C-1 Performance Data Manual USAF Series F-4C, F-4D, and F-4E Aircraft (15 July 1969) (Change 14 - 15 December 1973) Page 7 ~ 8
There isn’t anything new. Too many? There is never “Too many” for anything. Variants help make a tech tree less rigid and more flexible on what you choose and how it performs depends on its ability. If want to talk about too many look at Japan. They got the complete opposite and suffered because of it. The lack of “Too many” has led to the tech tree being very rigid compared to other nations. So I’m all hearts welcomed if a variant means making a lower BR a bit more flexible on what people can do.
In a perfect world there would be F-4 C → D → E (early and late) in the Air Force line, and F-4 B → J → N in the Navy line. I fully agree that greater diversity in model choices is better overall, the only downside is how Gaijin addresses the actual grind for these aircraft. As long as things are reasonably foldered though it should make it easy for most people to get only what they want.
Putting the 4N after the 4J is a strange choice considering that the former is basically just a warmed over 4B.
Yeah, an F-4S Late would be the ideal option for top Navy Phantom.
I remember that F-4E-53 post. I kinda hope they rename it to F-4E/L (/L instead of Late because it looks nicer) because most stuff doesn’t use block numbers anymore to my knowledge. Still sad that it never got upgraded radar like some of the other F-4Es though.
On a side note, I’m not sure about the N, but it could be premium (maybe replacing the current S) and the F-4S/L should be foldered with the B and J. Or N and J. The N is just a refurbished B so in essence they’re the same, it just depends what armament they decide to give it.
In my eyes the F-4E/L would basically be the US version of the MiG-21bis, and the F-4S/L would be the US version of a MiG-23. I’m not really sure how well it competes with the ML/MLA/MLD because I haven’t played in a while, so I can’t really speak there, but I think that in broad terms the F-4J is an equivalent to the MiG-23M/MF.
I was thinking about remaking/reposting that F-4E/L post on the new forum and I still might do it, now that I have somewhat updated information and write suggestions a bit better. We’ll see.
In the meantime, I do want to see the F-4D but I’m not sure if it would be wise to implement it as essentially a gunless version of the F-4E, unless it can get something that sets it apart from the F-4E itself. I believe F-4Ds in Vietnam were equipped with Pave Tack or Pave Knife, and F-4Es didn’t get Pave Spike until the early 1980s, which happens to also be the time period for the F-4E/L. So I guess the F-4D could get laser guidance at the BR of the original F-4E and that would be it’s differentiating feature from the F-4E, and then the F-4E/L could get better laser guidance afterwards at a higher BR.
Yeah that is my mistake, hadn’t read the 4N suggestion post in a while and forgot that it wasn’t as heavily upgraded over the 4B as I assumed it was
Shame, I get why they do that for a little bit of balancing flexibility in loadouts but I would prefer they go back to numbering everything by block
Pave-Knife (AN/AVQ-10) was used by the F-4D in the Vietnam War (as well as the A-6A… please give us TT Intruders Gaijin…) but Pave-Tack (AN/AVQ-26) entered service in the early 80’s with the F-4E and F-111F.
The recent implementation of split ARB/GRB battle ratings actually makes it possible to reasonably balance an F-4D with A2A capability in between that of the 4C and 4E for ARB progression’s sake, while also giving the 4D that first-gen LGB capability (ie BOLT-117 and Paveway I family) that would give it a higher BR in GRB thanks to that capability.
I like this idea
+1!
Absolutely, though I would like to consider the possibility of an F-4D w/ BRAZO AIM-7E-2, as was tested at BRATFAC in 1977. The following image is most likely for the F-4B that was tested though, as I’ve interpreted from the same BRATFAC report.
Updated and corrected F-4D’s specs; added diagrams.
Check out what I found an extremely rare pod while I was looking for additional sources for the F-4D specs:
This was the Pave Fire pod mounted on the F-4D of the 13 TFS based at Udorn in April 1971, which was pretty long and big. It’s a low-light TV laser scanner used to aid F-4s with toss bombing outside the range of hostile flak guns. However, the combat trials concluded the pod to be a failure, and consequently, the pod was abandoned. The F-4D was the only aircraft that had carried this type of pod.
Hello gang. Please put this in the tree thanks. If you want a squadron version make it of a specific unit or something
By 1990, ANG (well, I assume ANG) F-4Cs and F-4Ds were equipped with AIM-9M and AIM-7E-3 missiles as well.
as a event vehicle maybe or in a same box with f-4e (to make tech tree shorter)
by 1990??
werent the F4C and D model far, far in retirement at that point?
oh ye nvm, just found that the D was used till '92, my bad. still, the 9M is a tad of an iffy one as only the F4E was still in more regular service for that one’s introduction
I should probably state that the most recent change to that manual I got that from is from 1990. The original print is from 1984, and everything indicates that every missile listed was in the print prior to 1990. So I guess it would be more accurate for me to say that these missiles were equipped on F-4Cs and F-4Ds by 1984 or 1989.
That does not surprise me at all
It seems a lot of old planes still in service by the mid-late 80s got at least AIM-9L/M (I sadly still don’t have full confirmation for the A-4M or AV-8A/C, as none of the updated manuals I’ve been able to find for either contain armament sheets)
