That is the question that seems to have been decided by Hasegawa in thier kits, as they leave them clean and you buy a weapons set or two to load it out if you wish.
However, it seems Revell is getting in on the act as well, my F-18E and F-15E are lacking as well. The Strike Eagle is not so bad as it has a few items to hang on her, but the Super Hornet is downright barren.
A basic plane with empty racks, and I dont have a clue as to which are the proper sets to buy in order to load it out. Any thoughts on set number(s) for the Hornet?
The Eagle I could live with if someone sent me a dozen MK20s.[whstl]
Do a Google search for Hornet or F/A-18 and you will find lots of web sites and pictures. Many of the pictures have various loadouts for the legacy Hornet and the Super Hornet.
The lack of weapons in the Revell F-15E is why I bought an Academy F-15E. It wasn’t as good of a kit, and it needed some help (resin seats for starters), but at least it came with weapons. I did end up stealing decals out of a Revell F-15E too.
I happen to be building the Revell F-18E as well. Luckly, I am building an Italeri F-16D as well, which has enough weapons in the box to load up 5 fighters.
The fact is many of us will never see a loaded fighter in person, unless your at a base or aboard a ship in the capacity of your duties. Even at airshows, the military doesn’t display much if anything (even training ordinance) on their aircraft.
As far as weaponry being included in the kits…Trumpeter devotes more than half of their sprues to weapons, most which are not even used on the subject their included with. Accuracy of said weapons is also been questioned. I’d rather have the option of purchasing the weapons sets separately than spending more for a kit with them included, especially if it means they cost half as much because the weapons aren’t included. Its just my personal choice, I rarely fiddle with adding such stuff. Thus I have quite an extensive collection of weapons sprues in my spares stash. When I do need and want to load’em up, I can easily source the weapons I need.
Besides, the best weapons are best sourced from aftermarket suppliers, that is if you want accuracy and not just some lump of plastic that looks like a missile, bomb or pod.
Also please remember when you’re loading out your model to take enough time to align all those bombs, tanks and missles. I just judged at a recent contest and you’d be surprised how many excellent models got pushed to the back of the pack because ordinance was not mounted properly. IPMS judging rules are heavily slanted towards craftsmanship including alignment of ordinance. My suggestion would be that if you’re not going to take the time to get this right then just leave them off.
Are you sure the Revell F-18E doesn’t have weapons? I have both the F-18E and F-18F and mine have both bombs and missiles as well as drop tanks. I don’t know if you are building the Revell of Germany F-18E or not though as that is probably a shared mold with Hasegawa.
BTW only ordinance going out on aircraft these days that are bombs are GBU-24’s and JDAMS I don’t think aircraft go out with cluster bombs anymore.
All that was in the F-18E kit was a centerline tank, a pair of AMRAAMs and a pair of Sidewinders. It also had an ECM pod and a laser designator pod included.
One release of Revell’s Strike Eagle came with some air to ground ordinance, and one only came with fuel tanks and some Sidewinders. The Super Hornet kit also came with full weapons load out. At least for the ones I bought. I much prefer that the company provides weapons in the kit and allows the builder to choose rather than going the Hasegawa route of separate weapons sets. And yes, a Strike Eagle full of CBUs a la Desert Storm just looks right. I just prefer the more commonly used CBU-87s rather than Mk 20s… For some reason most kit makers seem to ignore that piece of ordinance. Hasegawa did not make any until their JASDF weapons set…[8o|] And only Italeri and Kinetic include them on their F-16 kits in 1/48.
Give me styrene ordinance over resin any day.[8-|]
The Hornet kit is the R-M kit #85-5850, and has a centerline tank, an AN/ASQ-228, two AIM-120Cs, and two AIM-9Xs as the load. The rest of the pylons are empty, which really wont look so bad, I’m just used to the Monogram of old where the F4C-Phantom was so loaded it was a wonder she would get off the ground.
The decals are for a craft based at NAS LeMoore, California June '05.
As for the Eagle, Revell kit #85-5511, it’s load consists of two Lantirn pods, two underwing tanks (not counting the conformals), and 4 AIM-9Ms. The centerline position and all 12 racks on the conformal tanks are empty OOB. I just want some air-to ground[bgr] is why I asked if anyone new any ordinance kit numbers.
The decals in the kit can be for either of two planes: one is for the 335th TFS, 4th fighter wing during Desert Storm in 1991.
The other set is for a bird of the 391st FS, 366th FW based at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho Air Combat Command, exact time frame not given, so I think MK20s would be acceptable for either aircraft…
Thanks for the interest in this topic, and I hope letting you know the kits contents, and the Eagle’s estimated time frame will help y’all help me make a good decision. Thanks SO much
I am fine with going the buy a different box for my weapons route… But the kit better be under $50… Which the F-18 was. And more manufacturers need to get on the ball with making weapons sets. The Hasegawa sets seem to be the only game in town, and sometimes they can get tough to come by. Also, they have a ton of crap in them that NOBODY will EVER use. Also, it would be nice if they had a few more MERs and TERs in them.
I didn’t realize that there were different releases of the 1:48 RM F/A-18E. I’ve got both the -E and -F with the weapons. The only thing I would have added to either kit would be some AGM-65 Mavericks and their launchers.
In RM’s defense, their recent F-14B and F-14D releases both had lots of ordinance included along with optional configurations for the shoulder pylons.
As far as the subjects of loadouts, I think modelers often tend to overload their models by hanging something on every available hardpoint when that isn’t representative of the real-world.
In the first place, there’s the weight tradeoff. Doesn’t do any good to carry a lot of bombs if that keep you from carrying enought gas to get to the target and back.
That’s particularly true of carrier aircraft that also have to be under a max trap weight when coming back aboard. If the ordinance isn’t expended on targets, you don’t want to have to jettison it order to get back aboard, particularly in these days of expensive JADMs and other smart ordinance. That’s why you never saw F-14’s launching from a carrier with more than four Phoenix missles even though they could carry six. Unless they were going to actually fire them (unlikely), they’d have to dump two of them to get back aboard. Not very cost effective at nearly $1 million each.
I guess I tend to come down on the side of historical accuracy and always try to have some actual reference data for what I’m modeling.
Hasegawa’s Aircraft Weapon Set 7 comes with JSOWs, and the Super Hornet can take two of these on each BRU twin ejector rack (you can get resin ones). This set also has 2000lb JDAMs. Skunk Models recently released a NATO weapons set, with JSOWs, Harpoon, SLAM, SLAM-ERs & smaller JDAMs (as well as Small Diameter Bombs). But if you put a SLAM-ER on, you will need to add a datalink pod.
For whatever reason, Revell released the F/A-18E a couple of times with different weapons. I have the VFA-14 version (kit 5519), which includes GBU-31 JDAMS and MK-83’s along with the AMRAAM’s, AIM-9X’s, AN/ASQ-228 pod and centerline tank.
People also need to remember that in the age of smart weapons, it’s quality over quantity and you don’t see the dump truck load outs of MER’s much anymore. Particularly with carrier aircraft who don’t want to be forced to jettison unexpended expensive smart bombs to get down to trap weight.
I agree. The days of sending a squadron of aircraft loaded with a freight train load of dumb bombs to destroy a target is long gone. Today a flight of two aircraft each loaded with two smart bombs can destroy a target which would have taken two flights of four.
Also, more bomb weight means less range. A small bomb load would enable the attacking aircraft to carry more fuel tanks for longer range. I have heard the comment that the aircraft have IFR capability, true, but tanker aircraft stay in friendly air space. A strike force will IFR and then enter enemy airspace, so many times the distance to ther target could be beyond range without extra fuel tanks. With added fuel tanks and every station loaded to the max with bombs (dumb or smart) cuts down on range distance. It doesn’t do any good if you run out of fuel trying to get back.
This is why I don’t load up planes. Unless the airframe looks odd without it I don’t use it as I don’t have the patience for it, get in a hurry, and do sloppy work. Ofcourse it don’t help that I drill holes and add wire reenforcments to the attaching points for strength. My builds stopped dropping ord accidentally long ago.