McDonnell Douglas F-4D Phantom II (In Air National Guard Configuration)

All for it, +1. Its an excellent 10.3 stop gap to fill the mediocrity of the F-4C. I would love to see this, along with another naval Phantom (F-4B) and an actual Vietnam war-spec F-4E (and give the current F-4E its late 1970’s ANG-service kit with more guided munitions and all-aspects)

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Yes, it is necessary to add the second most built variant to the game and as a early variant.

-1 for the Iranian design. +1 for the F-4D Phantom II. Most likely it would be ether BR 10.3 or 10.7. I also don’t think they would add the Iranian camouflage because US doesn’t like them I’d say a Iranian F-4 Phantom II for China perhaps.

I kind of agree, OP used a picture of an IRIAF (post-revolution) F-4D camo, when it should actually be the pre-revolution IIAF (pre-revolution) instead, as Iran used to be a US ally back then:

No, that is just worthless copy-paste. China has no gaps at that tier that can’t be filled by domestic models

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Oh yea, there’s also the Korean one if a tree for that country comes around ))))))

F-4C Phantom II is now 10.7, and I think it is urgent to add the necessary F-4D with better missiles and countermeasures as a substitution since the F-4C is struggling in current meta of air RB.

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Maybe an modified/upgraded Iranian F-4D that uses Iranian, Chinese and Russian weapons and/or systems otherwise no

+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

Screenshot 2024-07-16 223042

Screenshot 2024-07-16 223134

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

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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.

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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.

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Putting the 4N after the 4J is a strange choice considering that the former is basically just a warmed over 4B.

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Yeah, an F-4S Late would be the ideal option for top Navy Phantom.

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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.

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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

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Early laser designator unit AN/AVQ-10 Pave Knife

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+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.

Spoiler

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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.

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Hello gang. Please put this in the tree thanks. If you want a squadron version make it of a specific unit or something

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