SUU-25 for the F-4E?

[Bestandskraft]

Since I haven't found anything on the forums or Discord:

Will the Heatblur F-4E come with the option to equip SUU-25 for carrying and releasing LUU-2/B / MK 24 parachute flares and/or LUU-1/B, 5/B, 6B target markers?

[Whirley]

+1 Illumination flares would be nice.

Edited November 27, 2023 by Whirley

[Bestandskraft]

To elaborate a bit, since it is unlikely we’ll get NVGs at least initially

and since the Pave Spike is day only, without illumination flares we won’t be able to use the early F-4E in night air-to-ground combat organically (at least I cannot see how at this point). I doubt most online servers will have provisions for script generated flares.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Bestandskraft

[Omega417]

Gonna have to coordinate sorties. Ive been thinking about that a bit, should make for an interesting flight. The opening chapter of "War For the Hell of it" describes just that.

Flight lead drops flares on a known river crossing, and his -2 follows several seconds behind and deletes anything the flare illuminates.

[Kalasnkova74]

11 hours ago, Omega417 said:

Gonna have to coordinate sorties. Ive been thinking about that a bit, should make for an interesting flight. The opening chapter of "War For the Hell of it" describes just that.

Flight lead drops flares on a known river crossing, and his -2 follows several seconds behind and deletes anything the flare illuminates.

The opening chapter also described what happened to the unfortunate wingman when they did that. 

[Omega417]

12 hours ago, Kalasnkova74 said:

The opening chapter also described what happened to the unfortunate wingman when they did that. 

Not really relevant to this discussion.

[Bestandskraft]

Now that the manual is out we can safely say that there will be neither paraflares nor NVGs initially (at least neither are mentioned).

Any suggestions on how to use the F-4E for night A-G combat except script/AI-generated flares or a wingman flying a different aircraft type dropping them?

Edited February 4, 2024 by Bestandskraft

[=475FG= Dawger]

23 minutes ago, Bestandskraft said:

Now that the manual is out we can safely say that there will be neither paraflares nor NVGs initially (at least neither are mentioned).

Any suggestions on how to use the F-4E for night A-G combat except script/AI-generated flares or a wingman flying a different aircraft type dropping them?

 

Drop on the muzzle flashes. 

[Zabuzard]

Coming with the good news, I guess. We have added the flares recently. See the manual:
https://f4.manuals.heatblur.se/stores/air_to_ground/bombs/conventional_bombs.html#suu-25-target-marker-flares



As for NVG, our SMEs confirmed that, at least for the timeframe our Phantom represents, they were not a thing yet. To my understanding, only very late Phantoms would have ever seen NVGs.

[LanceCriminal86]

18 minutes ago, Zabuzard said:

Coming with the good news, I guess. We have added the flares recently. See the manual:
https://f4.manuals.heatblur.se/stores/air_to_ground/bombs/conventional_bombs.html#suu-25-target-marker-flares



As for NVG, our SMEs confirmed that, at least for the timeframe our Phantom represents, they were not a thing yet. To my understanding, only very late Phantoms would have ever seen NVGs.

That's been my research as well, unlike the Navy the AF wasn't working with NV in the 80s, at least not in any way that made it to F-4 squadrons. NVGs would only apply to the Terminator or AUP Phantoms as I don't even think Japan or the ROKAF have been seen with NVGs.

[Gunfreak]

2 hours ago, LanceCriminal86 said:

That's been my research as well, unlike the Navy the AF wasn't working with NV in the 80s, at least not in any way that made it to F-4 squadrons. NVGs would only apply to the Terminator or AUP Phantoms as I don't even think Japan or the ROKAF have been seen with NVGs.

Doesn't seen like AF jets used NVGs in Desert Storm, so that's 1991.