Questionable inconsistency between the F-16 OCU’s

Dev Server "Tusk Force" General Discussion - Dev Server
1

To be quite frank, with the addition of a second F-16 OCU to the game and the way it was added, I think it is worth highlighting the bizarre nature of the F-16 OCU as it has been in this game, or rather the Thai F-16 OCU.

For those who don’t understand the issue around it, one of the biggest and most well known issues with the plane has been the presence of the aim-120 which in real life the F-16 OCU has never been compatible with as the avionics required for them is what makes it into an F-16 MLU, something which the Thai F-16 is most certainly not.

With the Belgian F-16 being added this absurdity in my view has gotten even worse beyond the point of reason, as this time they managed to avoiding giving it AIM-120’s it could never use and put it at a lower br that the original F-16 OCU where it actually stands a better chance of being competitive (imo). Despite this nothing has changed on the Thai F-16 and while I don’t believe them to be the same in every regard since I highly doubt Thailand has used the Magic 2 or AS-30 nord off their F-16’s (as far as I know), but what sense does it make to keep the aim-120 on the Thai F-16 any longer.

This is not even mentioning other oddities though such as why the new Belgian F-16 OCU still has 60 countermeasures despite the visual model on it showing the same 15 large and 30 normal caliber countermeasures as on all the other early F-16’s, or well to be quite frank the possibility of other things the Thai F-16 OCU has which is probably should or should not have, but my point being is that while the dev server just came out and their is time to address it and try fix the Thai F-16 OCU by removing the aim-120’s from it and moving it to a lower be where it would be more competitive, and I believe it should be brought up again rather than forgotten. I believe it’s also worth mentioning that it can also easily be replaced as well, as Thailand does operate F-16’s that have been upgraded to MLU standards meaning they do have F-16’s with the means to use the Aim-120 and fill any theoretical gap if any might be concerned of any detriment from moving it down in br.

Also one last thing, it’s also already known that the F-16 OCU shouldn’t have the aim-120 as a preexisting bug report was made and accepted 9 months ago which has still not been addressed, which is the primary reason I make this post now.

https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/NnRq30I2LJ7T

Should gaijin remove the aim-120 from the Thai F-16 OCU and lower its br?
  • Yes, remove the ahistorical missile from the plane and move it to a suitable br.
  • No, it doesn’t matter it has the missile it cannot use in real life, it is fine as is.
0 voters
2

The Thai OCU is a weird mix of the regular OCU with OCU 2 inspired armaments (even though it should be 120C not 120A/B)

3

The Squadron F-16A OCU also confused me. I wondered why this version couldn’t carry any air-to-ground weapons except AS.30L.The Operational Capability Upgrade didn’t deprive F-16A Block 15 of the ability to use air-to-ground weapons.

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The Belgian F-16A block 15AA OCU in-game is called the F-16AM. That one does carry all of its ordinance.

The specific squadron vehicle, although not labeled as such, is actually a trial aircraft of SABCA:

It was also the trial aircraft for which they trialed other air-to-air munitions for the eventual full OCU upgrade packages which the Belgian F-16’s would get. But the modern air-to-ground munitions and eventually the AIM-120’s weren’t trialed by SABCA afaik. They were trialed and also used on the F-16AM we already have in-game.

This aircraft was specifically loaned from the BAF to undergo the trials for the magic and other missiles. There are no sources naming any ground ordinance outside of the AS-30L Nords.

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Ugh, the Gaijin logic for the Gripen was “Mavericks are ok cuz they could fire 'em”, but for other planes they have to have an operational history with their munitions.

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