Empty/Partially-loaded weapons pylons

[Raptor9]

Very rarely do Apaches fly around with no rocket or Hellfire launchers on the wings, despite having no live ordnance loaded.  Also, rarely do they fly around with every rocket tube and missile rail occupied with ordnance.  With helicopters in particular, having the ability to fine tune how much weight you are carrying between weapons and fuel is important to ensure you are balancing endurance, firepower, and your power-to-weight ratio over the battlefield.

 

Hoping we will have the ability to load empty rocket pods and empty Hellfire launchers, as well as the choice to load 1x, 2x, 3x, or 4x Hellfires per launcher, whether that be a laser-guided model or the radar-guided AGM-114L.  Additionally, since the rocket pods have multiple zones allowing for multiple different warhead selections, it would be nice to not only zone load for different warheads but carry empty zones to achieve partial rocket loads if desired.

 

Specifically, these are the proposed options:
1) With each M299 Hellfire launcher able to carry 4 AGM-114 missiles of any model, rearm/refuel menu "AG missile" options would equate to 15 options total, which is less than some of the drop-down rearm/refuel menu munition lists for other aircraft modules, like the A-10C. (Empty rack, 1/2/3/4 AGM-114K, 1/2/3/4 AGM-114L, and the final 6 options being various mixes of K (laser) and L (radar) Hellfire variants).

2) With each M261 launcher able to carry 19 rockets of up to 3 warhead types in 3 zones, I imagine that partially loading less than a zone would be impractical.  Piecemealing 19 rockets one at a time, especially given the various warhead types in DCS (HE, WP, Illumination, etc, any others they might release in the future), seems very impractical from a development standpoint.  As for how this would be managed in the rearm/refuel menu, not too sure.

(It's something I wish we had more control over with the DCS Black Shark as well, like partial Vikhr or rocket loads, but that's another wishlist for another day)

Edited January 30, 2021 by Raptor9
Formatting

[kreisch]

+1 This feature would be great!

[Whirley]

+1 for Hellfires at least.

Edited January 18, 2021 by Whirley

[Raptor9]

Edited the OP to be a little more explicit with the wishlist item.

[1stBEAST]

+1 for this request

[NRG-Vampire]

FYI guys: moreover: "Very rarely do Apaches fly around" with no wings ! 
...but I would rather say that: "without"

[VTJS17_Fire]

+1 for that idea

[phantom0gritz]

OP is right in his wanting this.  The apaches load out is extremely versatile.  You would often see multiples mixed load outs in the rocket pods.  A combination of Illumes, flechette, and HE among others. The different hellfire loads are the same in that different missiles were leaded based on the mission.  Also it's not uncommon to see one using the outboard pylons only with a rocket pod on one side and a hellfire rack on the other.  Controlling and managing all this on the weapons page is an integral part of flying this aircraft. So yeah I support this idea whole heartedly.