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From: newave!john@uunet.UU.NET (John A. Weeks III)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: why F-4's as Wild Weasels?
Keywords: radar suppression, F-4, airframe
Message-ID: <1991Feb6.033632.23174@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 6 Feb 91 03:36:32 GMT
References: <1991Feb4.072034.23521@cbnews.att.com>
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From: newave!john@uunet.UU.NET (John A. Weeks III)

From: clements@cs.utexas.edu (Paul C. Clements)

>(1) "The F-4 makes an ideal aircraft to carry out the
>    Wild Weasel mission, compared to other a/c in the USAF
>    inventory, because _____________________."

Because the F-105s are all retired?  The F-4 fills the roll,
and it is currently not cost-effective to replace the F-4s.
The desired quality of a Wild Weasel plane is that it should
be a hot fighter, be able to carry a wide variety of arms,
be able to absorb moderate amounts of damage, and have at 
least two crew positions.

More fatalistly, Wild Weasels might experience higher than
average losses, and the F-4 is the least costly plane that
fits the roll.

>(2) "The F-117 ___________________ (would, would not) make a
>    good Wild Weasel platform."   (If not, why not?)

The F-117 carries only 2 2000lb laser guided bombs.  These are not
good Wild Weasel weapons.  You would want a radar seeking missile
of some type.  The other reason is that stealth is actually a
problem in the Wild Weasel.  You want to get attention to make the
enemy turn on its radar so you know where to strike.  With the
F-117, the enemy would not be able to play its end of the game because
they would never know that the F-117 was in the area.

>(3) (If answer to #2 is "would", then:  
>    "USAF doesn't use the F-117 for the Wild Weasel mission
>    because _________________________."

The F-117 is quite expensive because of its primary roll, stealthieness.
You want to use the plane where it has the highest return on investment.
The F-117 is very good at taking out high value targets in heavily
defended areas.  No other plane can do this as well.  So, the F-117 are
busy doing this job.

-john-

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