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Hello everyone, and welcome to this new suggestion!
Today I’m going to introduce you to an interesting piece of equipment used on a number of French aircraft: the LCQ or LLQ.
The LCQ/LLQ (which stands for “Tail Countermeasure Launcher” or “Tail Decoy Launcher”) is a countermeasure deployment system that replaces the aircraft’s parachute. This system comes in several versions and has been installed on many different aircraft types.
To understand why French aircraft were equipped with such systems, we need to look at the history of military aviation, and more specifically, the history of the integration of countermeasures into aircraft. While French aircraft are generally very modern and feature innovative technologies, for a long time it was considered unnecessary to add countermeasures. Most aircraft therefore received them later through upgrades in the 80s; for example, the Mirage III, Jaguar, Mirage F1, and Super Étendard initially lacked such systems and had to be modified to incorporate them. The first French combat aircraft designed to include these systems from the outset was the Mirage 2000.
Several solutions were devised for the tail-mounted countermeasures dispensers, often conceived by weapons specialists and squadron pilots, who then passed the ideas on to manufacturers for development and production. The Super Étendard aircraft, for example, had a system with three rows of five countermeasures dispensers, while the Jaguar had a single row of 18 dispensers; these systems were sized according to the dimensions of the parachute used. While these ideas were revolutionary for French aircraft of that era, they were ultimately abandoned with the introduction of dedicated countermeasures pods, such as the Corail system for the Mirage F1 or the Alkan 5020 for the Jaguar.
In the game, this addition wouldn’t be a game-changer for the vehicles that receive it, as they already all have countermeasures; however, it would add an original and historically accurate feature, making these vehicles even more interesting.
