Aussie_Mantis

Your point about ground clutter was interesting and I did a little digging. In theory the F-4E's radar should be worse, but I can't actually find any sources apart from War Thunder, the likely least historical game in existence, that discuss whether the F-4J or F-4E radars were better. My hunch is that seeing as it's an older radar, the F-4J's PD isn't really that good, though it does do an alright job at filtering out ground clutter. From what I understand, early F-4J radars weren't that much better than the F-4E, which seems to hint that: 1. The F-4E radar isn't that good at filtering clutter out. It can, like the MiG-21bis, be equipped with filters that filter the output, but it isn't as good as having a pulse-doppler mode outright. 2. The radar doesn't usually work at low altitudes. Israeli pilots almost never used the sparrow down low, neither did US ones- I take it that's probably because trying to get a lock below ~5000 feet is about as reliable as that one guy in the friend group who never makes good on their promises. Also, at that point, the radar isn't the problem- it's the missile. Even if you achieve a lock, the Sparrow will probably decide that going to disneyland is a safer bet than thwacking a MiG and dive into the ground looking for pennies for the rides. 3. The radar is at least somewhat useable down low, but it'd only really be utilized for SEAM (Sidewinder Extended Acquisition Mode) shots. Even then, the AIM-9P and AIM-9J aren't really the best for high-aspect off-boresight shots, since they're limited to 40 degrees off boresight total, but prior to launch can only manage about 10. Seems in line with what was in the 2023 and beyond flick. No TISEO at all. The specific block for '71 is block 48 and above, i.e. serials 71-235 and above- aircraft on the ass end of Block 48 recieved TISEO, as well as all the blocks that came after (49-63, covering production FYs 71, 72, 73, 74 and 75. Block 49 and 50 included ass-end of '71 production.) As a sidenote, the early F-4E appears to have the antenna fairings for either an AP/APR-25 or AN/APR-36 set. The differences are minimal, it's just that the Dash-36 is all-digital while the 25 is not.

No worries man, I make typos like a broken typewriter with the keys flubbed around. HUDs won't come to any F-4 variants intended to be added, since US variants generally do not have Heads-up displays. They really skimped out. Fortunately, the cockpits should be relatively easy to navigate. I would personally like a later F-4E upgrade- preferably the Greek or Israeli ones- but if that doesn't come about, then I don't really mind. The F-4E is what I personally think is the coolest Phantom, so I certainly don't have any quarrel or need to wait years for another carrier-based variant. Though I do agree they might be cool with VTAS and PD, there's something about the USAF ones that just gets me. Well, that and the many hours of Strike Fighters 2. Call me biased, I probably am.

The F-4E in that game isn't even an F-4E. It's lacking god knows how much performance and the cockpit is a copypaste from the F-4C. The F-4E had a different cockpit and gunsight entirely from the C, not to mention performing far better than in that game.

Seeing as ED has been extremely quiet on the F-4E front, I think it's safe to say that we shouldn't expect anything any time soon. Maybe wait until this summer's release window or later at the end of the year. Initiate blood sacrifices of white goats and children while uttering the Sacred Texts from the Book of Phantards. Heatblur craves the blood of innocents and we must give them the blood of virgins so that they may slake their thirst.

Hi there, Please read what I posted instead of rejecting it out of hand due to a preconception. I have clearly stated both my opinions and whether or not it is up for debate inside the spoiler and do not feel like repeating myself again in an unrelated thread. Sincerely yours, Mantis.

I used to write stuff about the F-4- could pop a few here maybe.

While you guys are going all out for air assets, I'd argue ground assets are equally important. We'd need, at minimum: 1. US Infantry '65-'72, with M16 or M60 2. US/PAVN Mortar Teams 3. Soviet/PAVN Infantry 4. D-30/M777 Howitzers to hit 5. Early M109 6. PT-76 & T-54/55 (early) 7. M48 Patton III 8. Early airfield tractors and stuff that wouldn't be out of place on Tanh Sonh Nhut!

F-4s have internal IFF interrogator systems. It'll probably be a Jester system.

Yep, F-4Cs. Real old birds. They got them in 1973, if you'd believe it, and didn't get them replaced until '78! I still can't believe that they had their old F-102s finally replaced with F-4Cs when the Navy was about to get F-14s and the USAF was tinkering about with the F-15 and F-16. A lot of the time, USN F-4s removed the IRST bump. They didn't even need it anyway- the USAF put RWR sensors in their bumps back then, the USN didn't actually do much of anything with it from what I remember.

Please provide actual, non-anecdotal proof of USMC aviators doing so. It's your claim. I'm not obligated to provide proof of it. Can you provide proof of your claims? Otherwise, it would be hypocritical.As for proof of the second- I'll put it here, since it's not the main point of the thread. This is about HUDs, not @$&*ing on the F-4E, or talking about F-4 myths. Excellent points here. The F-4E cockpit is probably one of the better ones- certainly better than the early Air Force and later Navy F-4 phantoms in terms of overall layout. A lot of it, especially in the front cockpit, is optimised for dogfighting. Also handy is the fact that the F-4E, unlike all other F-4 variants, will have a dogfight override pinky switch that lets us switch from guns to sparrows to sidewinder, as well as an easy A2G/A2A override. No messing around with a dial. Slap one button on the side of your throttle to switch to Air to Air, then use a pinky switch to switch from one system to another. Surprising for a plane that some people would claim is "weighed down" with air to ground hardware. The aircraft has a lot of the control schemes that you'd associate with more modern planes already, like ECM Pods, Targeting pods like Pave Tack that have a thermal channel, datalink between bomb and plane, self-designation for paveways, a POV switch on the main stick to steer maverick locks, split workload between the forwards and rear cockpit, and unlike USN models, isn't limited mostly to the air to air roleset thanks to high integration of almost any and all piece of technology the US Air Arms fielded from 1963 to 1987. You can plink tanks with Mavericks, bomb bridges with GBU-24 paveway IIIs- whatever you want. It's almost like it's not, and remained a highly effective and potent fighter for the air to air arena that saw the US through to generation 4. I'm honestly excited to see slatted F-4Es as our first Phantom and I'm looking forwards to flying it. My only misgiving is that I'm going to have to get used to not having a HMD or a HUD! As for counter-MiG tactics- it's going to be fun. The F-4E rates very well compared to unslatted phantoms and even compared to a lot of MiG-21 variants. The MiG-21, from what I hear, is a tough fight, but it'll be fun to figure out how to kill it. in my honest opinion, I therefore conclude that the F-4E will be a really important plane- a bridge that connects older/simpler Generation 3s like the F-5 to more modern aircraft like the F-15, just like the Mirage F1C.

What I find funniest is that the probes are literally just ripped off of A-4s and slapped onto F-4s. Very funny. 10/10.

"The F-4E was a considerably deadly tool in air to air warfare, and always has been. I'm looking forwards to taking off in my land-based multirole phantom and doing both air to air and air to ground after taking off from a land airfield, and I think that the F-4E is possibly the deadliest variant of the Phantom and of its time period and generation, far surpassing the other aircraft and particularly the inferior naval variants, which scored less kills over Vietnam and had the fatal flaw of being unable to be multirole aircraft. In fact, I think the F-4J and the F-4S should not be added. They'd detract from the F-4's rich history." ... said nobody ever. But if I replace the F-4E with the US Navy ones and switch around the other stuff, as well as replacing the schpeel about multirole aircraft with your opinion that the solely air to air aircraft is better than a multirole one- something that historically has repeatedly been proved to be wrong- I like the F-4E. I also like the F-4J. But I like the F-4E more. I see the potential of the international exports where it saw combat service prior to upgrades, such as in the Turkish-Greek border conflicts, the Iran-Iraq War, and the Arab-Israeli conflicts. I'm very excited to see the F-4 coming into the game, and believe that in terms of definitiveness- the F-4E is the Phantom for many people around the world, including myself, but that doesn't mean we somehow don't acknowledge the US Navy or their Phantoms, or British Phantoms- something that you have trouble comprehending and applying, since you seem to ignore any and all international F-4 use prior to upgrade programs and have what comes off as a superiority/god-complex about US Naval Phantoms, to the point of regurgitating myths such as the fact that the F-4J and USMC aviators could "hit mortar-tube sized targets" while the US Air Force somehow could not, or of higher US Navy Kill Rates when all evidence points to the contrary. The US AIr Force had more planes in theatre at any given time and hogged most of the air to air kills over Vietnam, and did most of that with their short-nose, doppler-less F-4s, most often without a gun pod. None of us see the need to blatantly rub the F-4E in your face as superior to your short-nosed naval variants, and this forum is for the F-4E being released by heatblur, at least until the naval F-4s start coming into the game- so why do you see the need to constantly derail threads on it? Please leave us alone. I'm- if you'll excuse the pun- exhausted of seeing your comments on threads- most often not on the content that you write, since they at times have merit to them, such as about USN training versus USAF training- but more because of how you phrase them and put them. You've made your hate for the F-4E clear. Can you please not bring that into F-4E threads? You're not the only one waiting for a naval phantom, but most people are patient enough not to say anything about a plane they're never going to buy, and instead make other threads about the ones they do want to buy. I think you might be able to have a more constructive discussion if you perhaps created threads about USN phantoms and discussed those there. ----------------------------------------------- On the topic of HUDs, @1130 in my opinion, despite some people believing that adding a HUD would detract from the aircraft, I think it might be interesting. Historically, towards the end of their service life in air forces globally, usually when the F-4s were transitioning from predominantly multirole or air-to-air roles to the air-to-ground role, upgrade packages that integrated many modern weapon systems also integrated the HUD systems of modern aircraft of the time, as well as MFDs. Interesting aircraft like the Kurnass 2000, the F-4EJ Kai and the F-4E(H), as well as the Simsek and Terminator 2020 F-4 upgrade programs, might see use as mods, but I don't think any of them would merit a full part of a module- but they'd certainly be interesting being added later on as variants to the F-4E, like the F-14A and F-14B will be. I've been trying planes without HUDs recently and find that the HUD really helps you visualise a lot of important things in a quick and easy fashion- the most important thing being your velocity/lift vector. Actually being able to see where that is pointing is extremely important for knowing the tempo of a fight, as well as for figuring out in what kind of state your plane's flying, and I'm going to miss that with the F-4E.

> Near mach 1 Excuse me? I thought it was a glide bomb...

Not necessarily. AIM-9L was introduced around '78 into the fleet. Could have been from a rotation around then?

Well, seeing as it's the Marines, and the marines get the arse end of any US Procurement program... and seeing as the F-4S entered widespread USMC service in the late 80s... some USMC units had the F-4J. I don't think they would have used them. In addition to that, it'd have been a pain in the ass having VTAS sets for F-4J/S squadrons but not the F-4B/N squadrons that were most of USMC's numbers at any given point.

Kill a tank/penetrate... how? With kinetic force, or a shaped charge like a Maverick?

Since they clearly don't stand for Sugma Dick Boiiii, what is the Small Diameter Bomb exactly and how would they be employed? Are they literally just small GPS-guided bombs that the F-15E happens to be able to carry 20-28 of? What kind of change does this make to the Eagle's lethality? According to half the people I've asked, the SDB is the second coming of Precision Jesus Himself.

My friends took one look at this thread, and they told me they weren't worried about me. Why? I asked. "You're in good hands. They're just like you."

Silly Grunt! The F-4E is the worst Phantom ever built!!! Don't you know that the USAF F-4E could only carry bombs? It's true! The F-4E was weighed down by its bombing gear! And the USMC was so much more accurate than USAF pilots that they could hit targets the size of a mortar tube with iron sights while clearly F-4E pilots with actual A2G equipment could not with, you know, CCIP, bombing computers, and all the things that were put in specifically because they're more accurate than bombing sights! Remember, the F-4E is solely a bomber (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) (Real) (Big if True)

Funny, I know I haven't been waiting for one. Nice to see that I'm being represented by someone else's blanket statement again. Heard from a navy pilot that he preferred to just *not* use the VTAS system because it felt like he was trying to give himself neck sprain and early onset arthritis. That set weighed a ton. TrackIR with a heavy headset can get taxing for some people, so I don't think flicking around a 3-5kg helmet around with a doo-dad in front of your eye would be terribly good. ANy reports you ahve from ACEVAL/AIMVAL?

Mansoura, '73. maybe the biggest air attack the Phantom ever saw. A hundred and sixty Phantoms and skyhawks leapt into the air that day.

Hi guys! Regarding the windshield, I was actually doing some searching on the internet a few months ago on this very topic! They appear to be from McDonnell Douglas, installed purely as upgrades to preexisting Phantoms- mostly ANG F-4Es or F-4G Wild Weasel squadrons. From what I've heard from its pilots the increased visibility is almost like a godsend. There was a bit of a debate as to whether they were ripped off F/A-18 Hornets due to the similarity but I think that's probably unlikely. They were never implemented fleet-wide because F-4 production was ramping down at the time (really late 70s-early/mid 80s) and most phantoms have the older windshield design since rolling out what was seen as a non-essential upgrade to an already obsolete (F-4 was thought of as obsolete in the early-mid-60s for all intents and purposes due to the existence of TFX/VFX, though this was pushed back due to dismal performance in A2A and later became Eagle/F-14, and by the eighties, well... self-explanatory. Try dogfighting a MiG-29 in an F-4E.) Some of these single-piece windshield phantoms were later sold from Boneyard stocks to Turkey and Greece, which is why you see both countries owning small quantities (less than 10) of these each.

They were common-ish. VTAS-I was exclusive to the F-4J and S. I'm not sure about the N-model ones (Model B Phantom retrofits). They synced up the AIM-9G and the radar together, much like how soviet designs sync up with the IRST slew, and that allows the radar and/or the AIM-9 to be locked. The story of HMDs is a funny one- ironically enough, it wasn't one of the big powers, but actually South Africa that put them into service over Angola first. The US only really started using them in 1969 and I'm not sure if they had them in combat duty over Vietnam or not. Combined with SEAM and the AIM-9G's higher allowance for off-boresight shots than the AIM-9J, it's honestly not surprising that the USAF never pursued it. What puzzles me more, honestly, is that the F-14 and F-15 were slated to use it and both tested with it at ACEVAL '74 with the improved VTAS-II, but neither actually ended up using it. Not sure if it was because VTAS itself was bad or because the USAF/USN saw it as unnecessary, or if Congress took a fat L from Vietnam and decided that further defence spending bad, humminah humminah, awoogah.

Hi guys, I'm trying to figure out what settings to use as well as solve a few issues, so I'll just be brief and list them here. 1. My Mi-24, upon disengaging wheel brakes in the tutorial, is completely uncontrollable in the yaw axis and the pedals keep going full left or full right. I can't control it. Why? 2. I have a Gunfighter HOTAS and a Warthog throttle, along with TFRP rudder pedals. Are these the correct settings to be using for the trimmer and the like? 3. What deadzones should I use, if any? 4. When I go into the hover test part, why does the helicopter yaw immediately force me into keeling over like it does on the taxiway? 5. Why is it that when I use autostart instead of following the tutorial instructions. the aforementioned yaw issues don't occur???

The two games that allow F-4Es to carry walleyes are Strike Fighters 2 and War Thunder. I assume you played one or the other? The AGM-62 is a USN weapon and you'd have the GBU-8 or GBU-9 HOBOS, which are TV guided seekers mounted on a 2000lbs or 3000lbs GP Bomb warhead. Alternatively you could carry the GBU-15, which is a 2000lbs improved TV-guided bomb with large wings like the ones on Walleye II or Walleye-ER. Israel allegedly used Walleyes on F-4Es but we don't have israeli F-4E ingame.