Regardless of air to air performance, HMS definitely have an air to ground application. The Jaguar GR.3A can use the TIALD targeting pod from low altitude, and US ones are being used in Iraq.
I thought it also covers gun pods?
I’ve ordered a copy, which is due ‘sometime’ this month. I’d be happy to answer any questions when I get it in a couple of months 🙂
The future RAF CAS weapon is the Brimstone which is supposed to enter service in March 2005 on Tornado GR.4 and later on the Harrier GR.9.
Eurofighter (it hasn’t been called ‘EF 2000’ for some time) can supercruise at Mach 1.2 at 36,000 feet, at least according to:
http://www.airpower.at/flugzeuge/eurofighter/daten.htm
The F/A-22 is supposed to be Mach 1.7 supercruise. Eurofighter would only be with air to air weapons.
The last batch of RAF Tranche 1 will receive Litening III and Enhanced Paveway II laser gudied bombs from mid-2006 or 2007. Everything else is (or was) mid-2008. The RAF still has the Tornado GR.4 and Harrier GR.7 (soon GR.9), Germany is updating her Tornado, as is Italy (along with AMX), Spain has the F-18.
What is the Rafale supercruise?
Last I heard the Rafale F2 isn’t due to enter service till 2005 with the Air Force with AASM/GBU-12, SCALP, Mica IR and air to ground radar modes.
Eurofighter already has a SAR mode tested with Tranche 2 to have a 0.5 m resolution. All have the gun (ISTR the RAF has reversed a decision to delete this?), PIRATE is supposedly pretty good and can provide an image of the target. It has the HMS, pretty impressive ECM.
I doubt either could supercruise with full air to ground weapons load.
UK has CPU-123 Paveway II(UK) – 547 kg (Mk 13/18 1000 lb) and GBU-24 Paveway III ~1070 kg laser guided bombs only. It might be the CPU-123.
The weapons chart (pdf) has an ‘A’ next to certain loadouts which is ‘Carriage at reduced laod factor’ – less agility with these loadouts carried.
The UK GR.7 has the TIALD targeting pod on one of the unused gunpod positions. I guess the AV-8B Litening position is similar to the A-10 lashup with Litening – added to Maverick pylon (I think one of the recent AFM said something like ‘The A-10 avionics was fooled into thinking the Litening pod was a Maverick’).
Centreline position on all Harrier versions is said to be awkward to load. Actually makes sense, the centreline pylon usually carries either nothing or the ECM pod. Placing the Litening on the centre means no ECM pod….
Click on this link for teh AV-8B weapons and stations:
http://www.history.navy.mil/planes/av-8b.pdf