Austrian OOB - J35 Draken OSD

[Marcello]

"Air-to-Ground weaponry (other than internal gun) will not be fitted for a few years yet."

Could they carry dumb bombs, at least in a pinch?

[JohnHale]

Probably not, Marcello. The Austrians are going through a strong pacifist phase, and their Typhoons cannot even carry underwing fuel tanks: this prevents them being used "offensively".

[mr_clark]

As far as I know gfrom reading a few editiosn of Air FOrces Monthly the tier one Eurofighters can't carry any bombs. It seems the hardpoints are not the right sort.
Plus they don't even have software to launch bombs (Impact Marker on HUD and stuff), so the pilot would drop the things without any referencee marks, which wouldn't be so effective after all I think, and we don't really need a Typhoon 'bomber' unit in game

[JohnHale]

Mr Clark,

That is arguably the case for Germany, Italy & Spain. However, with the continuing delays to the project and the Jaguar's rapidly approaching OSD, the RAF insisted on early integration of an air to ground capability by BAe. Thus, the later production machines within Tranche 1 for the RAF can drop bombs etc.

[mr_clark]

The RAF aircraft will be immdeately overhauled to tranche 2 or later on even tranche 3 standard before being actually delivered to the RAF. (at least thats what AFM states)
It's unique for the RAF as they buy one of the largest numbers of EFs, for the moment only Germany is looking into a similar deal, the other customers want their planes fast first of all, so Austrian AF Typhoons will not quickly be AG capable.

[AMX]

mr_clark said:
The RAF aircraft will be immdeately overhauled to tranche 2 or later on even tranche 3 standard before being actually delivered to the RAF. (at least thats what AFM states)
It's unique for the RAF as they buy one of the largest numbers of EFs, for the moment only Germany is looking into a similar deal, the other customers want their planes fast first of all, so Austrian AF Typhoons will not quickly be AG capable.

Actually, last I checked 2/3rds of the Austrian Typhoons will be Tranche 2 aircraft (since the production run coincides with the switch), and the first 6 shall be updated to the same standard (since we ordered 18 identical aircraft).
So theoretical AG capability should arrive sometime in 2008.
(Incidentally, I can't seem to find an actual in-service date, only the delivery schedule of 4 in '07, 12 in '08 and 2 in '09. Hope that's not completely useless.)


On the bomb issue, I have to side with DRG - we may not actually have any IRL, but
a) it's not like we couldn't get them if we wanted, and
b) useful aircraft are kinda necessary for game balance.


edit: 4-12-2, not 6-10-2. My mistake.

Also, June '07 seems to be pretty much impossible as an in-service date, since the defense ministry is trying to delay the first delivery until November, due to a bureaucratic screw-up.