Panavia Tornado (UK versions) - Technical data and discussion

I think that is a bit of a stretch,

Im disapointed by the lack of “placeholder” FnF on the Brimstones, but they should be fairly usable sometimes.

I hold some reservations about other choices for the Gr4, like will it have BOL and if not why not? Also Litening II instead of the correct Litening III?

But…

ePaveways look really interesting.
The MAWS is going to be really handy.
FLIR should be useful
AIm-9M + HMD is going to be handy
and cant forget hte better engine

For me in Sim at least ,especially as 11.7 is unplayable, this is a straight upgrade over the GR4. I just fear its at 12.7 or something stupid like that

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And hundreds more CM’s, MAWS, Paveway IV (SAL+GPS), E-Paveway 3 (SAL+GPS)?

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BOL? or just the TERMA?

Report is in for the BOL, but yes TERMA, each pod carries MAWS and 8 ALE-47 bins.

Yep, though 240 CMs is more flares available but overall less CMs than the BOZ, so just wanted to confirm.

Better thermals
Better IR missile
the same engines on the German Tornado?

I did forget about Paveway 4. In game what benefits will these have over Paveway 3?

These are all probably great for Sim in ground or mixed battles they don’t equate to enough of a boon to justify it’s BR especially when this will be Britain’s top last of the line strike fighter and will be at the same BR level as the F-15E and Su-34.

Again I don’t play sim, it would have been nice to have a real potent aircraft.

GPS/INS which means they can function like JDAMs and hit precise point (non-mobile) targets without lasing.

Paveway IV specifically is a 500lb bomb though so its capability is an improved GBU-12 (IRL it’s more complex though and has a variety of pilot-selectable fuze settings and terminal approach profiles for different target types).
But the devblog states there’s an Enhanced Paveway III as well, which offers the same GPS/INS improvement on the existing Paveway III 2000lb bombs.

Sadly there is no mention of Enhanced Paveway II which would have again provided the same enhanced GPS/INS capability for the current UK 1000lb bomb.

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Right so it can select GPS/Laser guidance. Do we set that before we launch it? Or do you pick the version in the hanger?

This is going to be a long time coming buff for us, TIALD being limited to Gen 1 is really annoying. Hoping Litening III actually gets modeled as Gen 3 not Gen 2 which would be really good, not just for VID in Sim but also for maintaining those long range locks wiht Brimstone

Considering in GRB the Gr1 faces ARH slingers all day long regardless of anything else (heck the recent “decompress” screwed it over quite badly), so going from 2x Aim-9L to 2x Aim-9M is actually quite a big boost, even if you flew it with the same loadout and in the same manner as the GR1. HMD should also be handy in the right situation.

Yes… Though this is no idle buff either though. Should be decently felt I think.

With the compression, they were never going to be a massive upgrade, Gr9A or Typhoon would always be the stronger addiitons for that anyway, but at the very least this is going to be a fairly clean upgrade over the GR1.

I do hope that Gaijin might buff the Brimstone a little, maybe 0 drift IOG, or maybe INS?

I do hope to see the GR4 get BOL for 320 additional CMs

I do hope for Gen 3 tpod over Gen 2

I do hope for maybe long range, GPS Guided, stand-off weapons like Storm Shadow (in the near-ish future)

Maybe also additions like radar (A2A and A2G)

I think its going to be good, but a tad shame that its another British weapon system limited due to “balance” but Id rather take it than not. Should be fun for me in sim at least and at least britain does have other CAS options to call upon

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I dont think we know yet, guess we’ll have to wait for the dev stream / dev server

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now if only they would finaly freaking fix the bol countermeasure being so uneffective

All good points, as British players we always get the short end when it comes to things we could have and how they are ultimately integrated into the game.

I’m excited for the Tornado the GR.4 is the last of them (in RAF) service and that makes it a special aircraft. It’s just unfortunate that it’s signature weapon system has been so heavily nerfed.
I think we will have a passable top tier CAS aircraft I just dont think it will excel like it should :(

I was never expecting them to be at full strength, the ripple mode would be OP.

I was also expecting the count max, with no wing hardpoint missiles and the hard requirement for a tpod to cap it at 9.

But yeah, I was hoping for placeholder IIR guidance or something, just to give it a FnF ability like the AGM-65 or KH-38. But alas, nope.

But I guess we’ll just have to see how usable they are in combat.

It so strange that the devs aren’t/ haven’t thought about just giving brimstone a placeholder f&f mode even just the spikes are mavericks f&f mode just temporarily until the game gets to the stage were brimstone could get its irl f&f mode !!

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Yeah… also similar with their comments regarding AGM-114L. I guess no FnF missiles for our helis for a LONG time, instead of AGM-114L with a spike seeker as a placeholder

I agree, i honestly think the devs are completely wrong in there reason for not giving both of them there f&f mode’s they could absolutely easily give them a placeholder f&f mode just until the game gets to a point were they could receive there irl f&f mode’s. I think there just making us suffer because we’re not allowed to have anything good !!😐

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What is flir gonna add? if its the same as the gr 7 then its just good for sim but its too much of a pain in the ass to use in flight half the time? Will it work like irst for us in any way?

100% identical to the DMT on the Harrier Gr7 but cant be used instead of the Tpod.

But if running a bomb run loadout in Sim (and assuming im running no tpod) then it gives some limited look out ability. Rarely useful, but very useful when you can. So for now, yes mostly a niche thing for sim. (unless night battles get added)

Couldnt it be linked to the hud and give a outline on jets ahead of you? think i heard about it in the gr 7 thread. If so then it would make playing sim a whole lot more fun in these jets as it would be a shitty version of the a10s iff but just showing everything and not just friendlies.

I have no idea.

But I dont think so. It was mostly used for poor weather/night time navigation I think