Let me clarify this, cause i was the first one raising a tickets. It has been discussed about the wrong weaopn loadouts of several Swiss Airforce aircrafts. For me pretty annoying since I was in service in the Swiss Air force from 1989 to around 2007.
While for some aircrafts, reports were „accepted“, for the premium F-18C ist was not. Regardsless of if there is a plane with RB99 offered as premium or not, the Swiss F-18C GJ calls it early, I call it 1997, for balancing issues, thats the offcial response, it would not receive, AIM-9P5 nor AIM-120B which we acquired with the Rüstungsprogram 1992. It was for GJ irrelevant was the Swiss Government documents from 1992 say.
With regards to A/G capabilities, its a mixed bag. Swiss Air Force did not buy ammunition, but in opposite of the Finnish Air Force early purchase, we never removed the capabilties to use it for A/G. More, on the Upgrade21 we purchased ATFLIR. There were discussion to purchase ammunition for the F-18C but rejected for the Rüstungsprogram, since the replacement of the Tigers and F-18C was all of a sudden on the table. As a result of this we never got A/G ammunition for our F-18C.
With regards to the F-5E, some of the late models were indeed equipped with air to ground ammunition such as maveriks, but never in use. That upgrade was stopped when the Tiger Teilersatz TTE came on the table.
Answer from GJ, is that it is up to developers to decide if the add weapons which IRL were never used, if the aircraft by itself has the ability to use them. This indeed does apply to the Swiss F-18C early and late and this is why we see a/g ammunition.
That is why Gaijin’s ‘historical accuracy’ is bullshit nowadays and nothing but filled with double standards and contradictions. :/
France’s F-100D can’t fire Bullpup and AIM-9E because they didn’t use them.
The British can’t use AIM-7F because they didn’t buy it.
Even though the British had the right to use napalm, and our planes were capable of, we couldn’t get napalm because we didn’t keep the stockpile.
Finnish F-18C were unable to use anti-ground munitions because they weren’t able to.
But at the same time
USAF’s F-5C is equipped with a countermeasure pod, which they failed to equip in their timeline.
Germany’s MiG-29 got R-27ER, which they never bought.
Swiss’s Early version of F-18C can be equipped with anti-ground weaponry and AIM-7P.
Because of nothing but in the name of ‘compatibility’.
“Exported version succeeded in equipping”
“original version equipped”
Someone can, others can’t. Gaijin decides.
That is why I am tired of all of this. :/
Well… Gaijin’s standards fence about adding weaponry are getting lower and lower recently, though.
Worst thing is id be perfectly fine with the planes getting weapons they are compatible with but the operator country never procured (of course with exceptions like F-4F not getting sparrows due to missing wiring) if gaijin just came out and said “yeah we know it might nit be historically accurate but its balancing decision” and used the same meter for everyone.
I can live well with the F/A-18C early having the weapons options it currently has, as there is the late in the tech tree that is more representative for our actual Hornets in Switzerland.
Where I still struggle way more is that we get Mirage IIIS C.70 and F-5E, which in WT nomenclature could be called “late”, but which carry only armament of their “early” state.
unilke the Finns every Swiss source on that is Classified and thus cannot be used
there are articles from the Swiss Press talking about them not being able to equip the Hornets with A2G Ordnance because modifying the Hornets would be too expensive to allow the Use of such weapons
but even tho these statements come directly from the Swiss government they did not get accepted by Gaijin
So far all the people I’ve talked to all confirm technically our Hornets were not modified in a way that would not allow carrying those weapons.
As to “too expensive to use”, that still may actually be true, considering carrying and using such weapons not only depends on the technical capability of the aircraft, but also logistics and training has to be taken into account here. So it’s not necessarily “too expensive to modify the aircraft to use those weapons”, but “too expensive to purchase, store and train to use those weapons” - especially in a political environment where the Swiss Army as a whole is constantly under attack and danger of getting reduced or even abolished…
Sooo…
long story short, Swiss hornet historically can’t use A2G weaponry 'not’ because it received heavily modified/downgraded
(which is similar to German F-4F, which cannot physically use Sparrow at all)
But because Swiss Army didn’t buy enough advanced A2G weaponry because they were way too expensive.
(which is similar to the British napalm problem, which they just didn’t keep a stockpile of napalm)
Then it still might be unhistorical, but managed to meet the Gaijin’s new standard, and can be considered as semi-historical.
right?
Theeenn… Sounds like the easiest way of solving the double standard will be ‘update these outdated and restricted legacy loadouts of others’
In 2008, Swiss Air Force evaluated, as part of the Tiger Teilersatz (TTE), the strike capabilties and compared it directly to a modification of the Hornet fleet, meaning, to use the Hornets as strike aircrafts while the new aircraft, replacing the tiger would be air superiority as the mission essential tasks. The gripen was considered inferior to a Hornet in terms of a/g ordenance as a task, therefor the recommendation, if the choice is gripen, the F-18C would have been modified with a/g armament.
The report overall conclusion outcome however was, that the Rafale is the candidate of choice which fullfills all mission essential task, defined for the evaluation. Strike being one of it.
The decision, and we all know that, was to keep the F-18, replace the F5E with Gripen and this was presented to the Swiss public for voting in 2014.
Fact is that the Upgrade for the F-18C/D would have been done through the regular Rüstungsplan (RP) and no vote would have been needed.
After the rejection of the swiss people in 2014, the situation on the F-18 front changed. With the aging aircraft, the decision was taken to start a new evaluation under the aspect of not only get rid of F-5E but also the F-18C/D which will fullfill all mission essential tasks and have a single aircraft. At that point no further upgrade of a F-18 was considered. Would be too expensive. We now got F-35A order with a/g ammunition.
I don’t think you understand, The Premium Swiss hornet is literally a copy of the F/A-18C late minus the AIM-120s and HMD.
Meanwhile the US Premium F/A-18C “Early” is heavily downgraded by comparison and sports actual “Early” equipment as it lacks a number of components that the Premium Swiss hornet and the actual F/A-18C “Late” sport.
Once again you miss my point, people are using the term “Early” when referring to the Premium Swiss hornet equating it to be the same exact pack as the US Premium “Early” hornet but in the German tree, its not.
Its an inaccurate use of the term “Early” and its being thrown around here and on the reddit as fact, I seek to stop such use of the term.
To that same end, the first Swiss built F/A-18Cs, namely J-5002, would be far more in line with the actual “Early” US F/A-18C as it’s equipment would be nearly identical minus the upgraded engines, yet, such is not the case in game.
Even putting (1996) next to it’s name would not be properly indicative as the Swiss Premium hornet sports equipment from the second batch post 1999, which is far more accurately related to the “Late” hornets in game.
