Weapons Question

[KiwiSteve]

Hey guys, I need alittle bit of help with these pics of kiwi A-4s, I know the blue missile is a sidewinder the captive type and the white ones mavericks, but what I need help with are the three pods under the centreline of the aircraft. Any help would be greatly appreciated

[Stephen]

They look like 7 shot rocket pods to me but I could be wrong.

Stephen

[entlim]

Nah, more like dummy laser guided bombs

[Phil @ Flory Models]

I would say 7 shot rocket pods with front and rear fairings

Looks like a TER rack, it's to small for a Mav rack

I could be wrong thou

Edited July 15, 2007 by Phil_flory

[hatchet]

Looks like 7-shot rocket pods to me, too.

[spike7451]

They're rocket pods fitted with a frangable nose car that shatters when the rockets fired.

[Phil]

Right well your mostly close, spike is the closest yet (as you'd expect)....

They are LAU-5002 6 shot launchers for the CRV-7 rockets. They are carried on a TER.

The 'Mavericks' are in fact TGM-65B training missiles, not AGMs. The 'sidewinders' are CATM-9Ls, unusually fitted with fins and wings, only for the photos. At all other times, CATMs were flown without fins or wings, and only on one station (two were only carried for photos, same with the TGM-65s).

Any other Kiwi A4 questions please feel free to ask,

Phil

(ex-75 SQN gunnie)

[wellzy]

I would say 7- shot rocket pods too

wellzy

[KiwiSteve]

Right well your mostly close, spike is the closest yet (as you'd expect)....

They are LAU-5002 6 shot launchers for the CRV-7 rockets. They are carried on a TER.

The 'Mavericks' are in fact TGM-65B training missiles, not AGMs. The 'sidewinders' are CATM-9Ls, unusually fitted with fins and wings, only for the photos. At all other times, CATMs were flown without fins or wings, and only on one station (two were only carried for photos, same with the TGM-65s).

Any other Kiwi A4 questions please feel free to ask,

Phil

(ex-75 SQN gunnie)

Cheers Phil

[Phil]

Note that the TGM65s do not have the steering fins at the rear, if you want to fit TGMs (bearing in mind that as far as I am aware AGMs were only fired, or even carried in flight, once) then you will need to remove the steering fins.

Wellzy - The RNZAF did not use 7 shot pods, we used 6 shot pods, refer my post above. We also used on occasion the LAU 5003 19 shot launcher, but these were one use items (the tubes are cardboard) and 19 rockets are expensive, so they were saved for special events like Fire power demos and the like.

[KiwiSteve]

Hey Phil, what where the olive drab painted mavericks where they Inert weapons??

The 'Mavericks' are in fact TGM-65B training missiles, not AGMs. The 'sidewinders' are CATM-9Ls, unusually fitted with fins and wings, only for the photos. At all other times, CATMs were flown without fins or wings, and only on one station (two were only carried for photos, same with the TGM-65s).

Is this what you ment about the CATMs

Edited August 17, 2007 by KiwiSteve

[Phil]

The green ones in the pic above are TGM-65G infra red TV Mavericks. By the mid '90s I think all our TGM mavericks were either grey or green. As for the live shots I'm pretty sure they were light grey or white. You can tell the TGMs by the lack of steering fins and the blue stripes. You can tell the difference between the -Bs and the -Gs by the fact the -Bs have a clear dome and the -Gs have a sandy yellow opaque dome.

The white ones are the original TGM-65Bs, I'm pretty sure these were repainted I can't recall loading any white TGMs by the mid 90s when I served on 75sqn, although we still have a white -B model maintenance trainer lying around. I have plenty of fond memories of testing the -Gs, we always ended up taking ages as the IR image was very interesting and locking up things in the distance (cars on the road outside base, people walking around etc) was an interesting diversion too.

A point to note, the LAU-117 launchers are a much more olive colour than either of the greens used on the A4K.

That is not a CATM as far as I can tell. It actually looks like an ACMI pod (which the RNZAF never owned). I'd say that photo was possibly taken on exercise Vanguard 99.

When we went to Asia, or sometimes Australia, we borrowed the local's (Singaporean or possibly Thai if memory serves me correctly) AMCI pods to allow us to work on the ACMI range. That photo is not in NZ.

Our CATMs were never painted that dark shade of blue. Ours, especially by the time 01 wore the overall green scheme were much lighter and matt. (they were all repainted in 98-99 from gloss blue to matt blue).

Edited August 17, 2007 by Phil

[KiwiSteve]

Cheers once again phil, If I'm going to make a model of a A-4K what would a typical weapons load for the skyhawk

[Phil]

Different loads each week, depending on the role. Some examples:

Maritime strike - all three tanks (300gal on station 2 and 4, 400 al on station 3), CATM on stn 1 TGM on stn 5.

Another common load out was practice bombing with a PMBR on any one of the stations, but unfortunately you can't get PMBRs so that's a bit irrelevant!

That also causes a few problems if you want to arm it up with HE bombs, as they almost always carried a PMBR on stn1 or 5 while carrying HE on various other stations, but you can get away without one.

But for HE a realistic load would be any of the following:

400 gal on stn3, single MK82 on stn 2 and stn 4.

TER of Mk82s or MK83s on 3 (usually a PMBR was carried on 1, but not always - you could leave it off). Note that while Mk 82 could either have a conical, Mk15 or more commonly BSU-86 high drag tails, The Mk83 was only used with the low drag conical tail. Fuzing was either FMU139 electric tail Fuze, or sometime M904E nose Fuze. This means you can have the mechanical Fuze showing, or have the bombs with an ogive nose plug. 300 gal tanks on 2 and 4 would be OK for this too.

A cool load out would be a fully loaded TER on 3, and a TER on 2 and 4 with two bombs each (only loaded on the TER centre and outboard station - no bomb was carried on the TER inboard stations on stn 2 or 4 because of the gear doors.)

If the GBU16 LGB was carried it was most always carried on STN3, but could be fitted to 2 and 4. Note that if you show an LGB under 2 you'd need to put one under 4 as well to even things out. The outboard wing stations could not carry the Mk83 1000lbers (which were also the warhead of the GBU16).

For ACM, no tanks, one CATM, or 400 gal on stn 3 and one CATM. CATMs were mostly loaded on STN1. They could be carried on 1,2,4,5 (3 didn't have the wiring) but the outboard wing stations were almost always used.

Chaff/Flare was not often loaded from the mid 90s onwards, but could be loaded for maritime strike and ACM. When not loaded there were blanks fitted over the bucket holes that were just flat plates.

PM inbound with more info.