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Old January 29th, 2012, 02:41 PM
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Marcello Marcello is offline
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Default Re: Fixes for the iraqi OOB

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pibwl View Post
150 Su-7BMK - earliest date of delivery found in Internet is 1968 (now 1/67), however according to a Polish monograph article on Su-7 [nTW 2/1997], first were delivered in 1972. It could carry 4 x500 kg bombs (now 4x250 kg). Better icon is 2158 - Iraqi Su-7 wore a camouflage (pictures http://wp.scn.ru/en/ww3/a/271/19/0 )
Perhaps it could carry that much but 4 x 250 is more sensible, as there is question of under what loadout configuration and operational range such 4 x 500 load was possible. If they had to give up the underbelly fuel tanks then it was a non start for most practical applications. Were the outer wing hardpoints rated for 500kg bombs? I vaguely recall this not being the case but I will have to check.


Quote:
152 Su-17MK-4 - should be named Su-22M4 (export version of Soviet Su-17M4). In addition to guided missiles, it can carry 2-4 bombs 250 kg.
As far as I have read bombs were probably not carried together with Kh-29. The actual load was something like one kh-29, an ECM pod, a drop tank and UB-32 rocket pod used as counterweight of sort.

Quote:
156 Su-22M-4 - now available from 1/74 - it should be in fact earlier model Su-22M (production of Su-22M-4 started in 1983). I don't know when Iraq received Su-22M, but they were produced and exported from 1979, so 1/79 should be earliest date. In addition to missiles it could carry eg. 2x250kg bombs
Same as above except that the missile in question was used operationally very few times, perhaps just once.

Quote:
Iraq could also use Su-22M with 1 Kh-28 ARM (weapon #209 in Russian oob), used from some 1984 to some 1997.
This would in fact be the most correct decision as the Kh-28 was pretty much the only ARM used by the iraqi air force for dedicated SEAD missions, even if some others types were on stock. It is however a bit more complicated than that, because of the shortage of weapon slots. I would suggest something along the lines of this:

1) Weapon n. 217 ARMAT ARM overwritten with weapon n. 216 Kh-28 ARM from Russian OOB

2) Unit 167 MIrage F-1EQ overwritten with a clone of unit 156 SU-22M-4 suitably reclassed as class 214 SEAD Aircraft and armed with one Kh-28. It could be renamed SU-22M3 and have vision reduced to zero.

3)Formation 139 SEAD Plane
To be deleted as it currently uses a F-16 armed ARMAT.
The US has been willing to sell Iraq only a fairly limited range of air to ground ordnance: only Maverick missiles, Paveway LGBs, Mk 82 and Mk 84 bombs have been offered/sold. It is a good bet that SEAD weapons are not probably going to be in the cards before 2020

Formation n. 138 is available from 1/1979 to 4/2003. This might warrant some tweaking in the future but it should be good enough for the time being, unless someone has better info.
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