Is it too many JSOW's

[Blinky.ben]

Hello all

 

I have been using the AGM'154's a lot lately which has sparked interest for me to read up on the weapon on the internet. as usual I got side tracked and noticed on the website that it said the F-18 can only carry 4x JSOW's. Now I know the website I was on more then likely had no actual fact to its information so I began looking for Pictures of other websites showing or stating that the F-18 can in fact carry 8x JSOW's like we can in DCS. however no matter what website I went to or what pictures I could find I came up with absolutely nothing showing the F-18 can carry more then 4. I found a photo showing a copy of a diagram from what looks to be like a formal military manual with a loadout list showing they can only be carried in singles not Dual rack but this could also be outdated as it was a hard copy.

 

can anyone lead me in the right direction showing the F-18 carrying more then 4 JSOW's?

[Notso]

According to Wiki (I know, not always the most reliable source) it says the super hornet E/F carries 4xJSOW. So I can't imagine the smaller C model could carry more.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_F/A-18E/F_Super_Hornet#Specifications_(F/A-18E/F)

[Raisuli]

The C only carried 10 AMRAAMs once that I'm aware of (not that I'm aware of everything).

 

 

 

ED giveth, and ED taketh away. Enjoy your 8 JSOWs and don't think too hard about where they came from.

[Tholozor]

The BRU-55 (and eventually the BRU-57 for the F-16) is capable of loading two JSOWs. We know the legacy Hornet (and the Super) is completely capable of loading the BRU-55, there's plenty of visual evidence that supports it. The main reason why you don't really see dual-racked JSOWs is mostly due to the cost and therefore availability of racks.

 

According to a 1995 USAF research paper regarding the capability of smart weapons on fighters (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235070032_A_Review_of_Fighter_Aircraft_Capability_for_Smart_Bombs):

it is not feasible that every F-15E, F-16, and F/A-18 have a smart bomb rack, because some of the missions the aircraft perform are not compatible with a smart bomb rack.

 

To the Hornet's advantage, however, the procurement of BRU-55s was determined to be less of a factor over the F-15E and F-16 due to the ability to convert pre-existing BRU-33 dumb racks into BRU-55s, which significantly lowered the projected cost for legacy Hornets, and even brought the projected cost of racks for the Super in line with Block 40 F-16s. There's a lot more the document goes into, and there are probably other factors involved, given the time frame in which smart weapons and smart racks were being developed.

 

At the end of the day; is it possible to load that many JSOWs? By all technicality, yes, there's nothing that would stop you from doing so. Is it a feasible payload? Not really, no. The cost and availability of the weapons and racks would probably prevent that from happening unless under special circumstances (e.g. that one Super that went to Syria with 10x GBU-32s back in 2017: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/11355/this-syria-bound-super-hornet-is-carrying-a-uniquely-massive-bomb-load).

[Blinky.ben]

The BRU-55 (and eventually the BRU-57 for the F-16) is capable of loading two JSOWs. We know the legacy Hornet (and the Super) is completely capable of loading the BRU-55, there's plenty of visual evidence that supports it. The main reason why you don't really see dual-racked JSOWs is mostly due to the cost and therefore availability of racks.

 

According to a 1995 USAF research paper regarding the capability of smart weapons on fighters (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235070032_A_Review_of_Fighter_Aircraft_Capability_for_Smart_Bombs):

 

 

To the Hornet's advantage, however, the procurement of BRU-55s was determined to be less of a factor over the F-15E and F-16 due to the ability to convert pre-existing BRU-33 dumb racks into BRU-55s, which significantly lowered the projected cost for legacy Hornets, and even brought the projected cost of racks for the Super in line with Block 40 F-16s. There's a lot more the document goes into, and there are probably other factors involved, given the time frame in which smart weapons and smart racks were being developed.

 

At the end of the day; is it possible to load that many JSOWs? By all technicality, yes, there's nothing that would stop you from doing so. Is it a feasible payload? Not really, no. The cost and availability of the weapons and racks would probably prevent that from happening unless under special circumstances (e.g. that one Super that went to Syria with 10x GBU-32s back in 2017: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/11355/this-syria-bound-super-hornet-is-carrying-a-uniquely-massive-bomb-load).

 

 

Sweet thanks for the reply. You mentioned the F-16, do we know if ED is going to equip the F-16 with 8x JSOW’s also?

[Fri13]

Hardware to mount X number of weapons is one thing, but software to lose X number of weapons is another.

And then there is third option, can you safely release X number of weapons from the physical loadout?

 

And then there is fourth thing, politics. Does someone allow missions designers to load such expensive loadouts or just absurdly heavy setups, and does it matter in DCS?