ATGM on fighters

[Karagin]

Okay so I was playing around with one of the OOBs and I put ATGMs on a fighter. Ran a playtest and the fighter never used the ATGMs.

Now if I put an aircraft weapon of a ground vehicle I get an error message telling me NOT to do this, yet I can put ATGMs on fighters and get nothing.

Is there a reason a fighter can't use the ATGMs?

[Suhiir]

Well ... ATGMs are typically very slow, the fighter would run into it's own missile. If you want anti-tank capability on a fighter use something like a Maverick.

Additionally weapons have a "Weapon Class", this determines several things about the weapon, aircraft and helos usually don't use the same "Weapon Class" as ground units. Thus a weapon with a ground unit "Weapon Class" won't work on an aircraft/helo any more then putting say bombs on a tank would allow it to use them.

[Karagin]

Yes, I do understand bombs won't work on a tank. Thank you for pointing that out for me to further clear it up. And again, weapon class is great, but I can put the cannons and MGs that are Weapon Classed for aircraft on to tanks and other vehicles. Also, many of the same ATGMs are used on both Helicopters as well as a ground attack vehicle like oh..so a BMP.

The idea was to go with something different and not have the standoff attacking being the only attack fighters with Marerick style weapons do. Which is why I wanted to try the ATGM on them instead. Right as I have seen it, the fighter comes in, either it gets a lock and fires or it does and flies off, regardless of the other ordnance it's carrying. The only time I have seen them use the other weapons is when their LG missiles or bombs are gone and then it still tries to lock on and is very helpful in tell you it failed to get a lock on its target. Almost as if it wants to abort and fly away.

[Mobhack]

The only valid missiles and weapons for fixed wing air are the ones that are specific air weapon classes. One reason being that aircraft use the AP ammo number as the weapon (cannon) multiplier and do not use the HEAT slot either. So air guns have to have a larger HE PEN than usual if they are anti-tank guns. Air missiles with HEAT values use the HEAT pen on directly hitting a target IIRC, HE PEN otherwise including any collateral damage hits.

None of that really matters if you put the weapon on a ground vehicle, though it likely will not work for e.g. an over long minimum range for ground use. About the only air weapon that is used is sometimes an HNG for air is used on a light tank (though that may have been fixed in the OOBS, IIRC seeing it on some Italian WW2 tankette years ago?).

If the plane has a missile and can do a stand-off attack then it attempts that and only comes on for a direct attack once the stand-off weapons are expended (usually, I have seen them come on map after failing to get a solution). That could mean that a wild weasel aborts if it cannot find AA weapons with a radar to launch on, but at least you then know that there are no radar aimed AAA or SAM.