Dan109 -> RE: Effective use of F-35A/B/C? (5/19/2017 7:04:14 PM)
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Just played my first modern scerario(brass drum) after just getting full command and having had NI, playing that campaign a few times through. Wow, the navy is gonna love the F-35! I used it for AEW take downs, flying single plane missions. I then bombed fringe targets with the JDAMs on the way back (not enough time to reload for AAW specific mission). The internally only loaded F-35 has huge range advantages over the F-18, and very fuel efficient to be able to scream back to base at m1.6 (or if spotted which I never was). However, this further proves to me that f-35 needs external fuel tanks that it can manually drop once in dangerous airspace and can get refueled on the way back. This would definitely increase the range of such deep penetration missions (and it would have been smarter if scenario editor kept the AEW behind the land radar net). I know there isn't a lot of public material discussing the need for external fuel tanks except one picture of a supposed LM design of a stealth fuel tank (no way to know if this was real or not). But Command definitely is a tool to show that such a config is viable. Also disappointed with light load outs for external missions. If not desiring stealth, f-35 can carry more than f-18 or 16, or a-6. Don't see any load out for the f-35 carrying or than 4 a/g weapons, even more than 4 mk82s (Same goes for f-18 in that regard, max of 4 JDAMs, even 500 LBers) The lesson learned was going up against fairly modern Sam defenses, SA-300 and 400s. Having 2 300s and one 400 in close overlap plus a few sa-2/6s, was very daunting after seeing a single earlier s-300 completely destroy a flight of 12 tomahawks. Looks like decoys is the proper a cheaper way to go, just very surprised that there are no 8 ITALD/MALD payloads on the f-18 (or an aircraft in command besides thes b-52). With carrying a max of 4, it took 3 full squadrons to alpha strike that radar net. These decoys are lighter than mk82s. It's great that decoys cost LESS than the smart munitions to be SAM bait, but I think another huge part of the concept is that many more decoys can be carried compared to normal standoff weapons....therefore it might only take a squadron to take down a radar net rather than almost a full carrier wing. And in the alpha strike I used the f-35s as supplementary jammers, which is be a super nice flexibility the navy will have as sometimes the one squadron of ea-18s wont be enough jamming for the most modern Sam nets. Heh, half of my ITALDs survived ;)
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