These came with the Corsair II. According to the instructions, they are not needed but would be nice to know what are they. The bigger one looks like it is missing some nose part but there is nothing in the kit that would fit there. The smaller looks like a gravity bomb of some kind. Is the bigger thing a bomb or a missile? Did the Corsair II carry these?
Thanks
I think the big one is a Hobos TV guided bomb, the little one is a Rockeye cluster bomb.
Real G - good call, the first one is indeed a GBU-8 TV/IR guided bomb. The missing piece is the glass window for the camera. It’s a mean looking weapon for sure!
Good luck with your build and have a nice day
Paweł
It was capable of carrying either one, but the GBU-8 wasn’t carried in combat. Rockeyes on the other hand, it did carry in combat.
Purely out of curiousity, why wasn’t the TV/IR munition carried in combat?
By that particular aircraft?
Bill
Eagle, I believe the GBU8 was evaluated in 1969 and was used on F4s dropping about 700 on NV targets.
Yup, got it PJ, but I was referring to the question in the context of its employment from A-7s. [;)]
[Y]
Bill, just that particular aircraft. High/medium altitude, precision bombing just wasn’t something the A-7 was used for. It was the master of pop-up bombing. It could get in, in the weeds…pop up, kill its target, and be gone in the weeds before the enemy even knew what had just happened. It was an amazing thing to see first-hand.
Another weird way of a quoted post.[^o)]
I used to watch the A-7s doing bombing runs at the Navy Range in Ocala National Forest. They had an observation tower on the perimeter road that put you above the trees. The A-7s would come in hot at around 300ft. circle the target, head out on a vector to the southwest for about 3 miles, turn and come back on the NW heading at about 400 kts. About a mile out, they would pull up in a 45 angle, roll over on the top to find the target, and roll back on the dive down, releasing practice bombs or firing their 20 mm cannon. Totally cool!
Plastic?
I do apologise, I just couldn’t resist. Like you, If an aircraft carried the scudders I would want the right ones too. There’s just so many different types now.
The A7 is my favorite plane of all time. Just about to start my Hasegawa kit for the gulf war group build. It will be loaded up with MK20 Rockeyes (the other bomb in the pic)
[Y]
Hey KD I picked that Hase kit at a show a couple of years back and it’s a gorgeous one.
Thank you all [Y]
The GBU-8 HOBOs was a USAF weapon. It was carried in combat by F-4’s in Vietnam during the Linebacker campaign. The USN used their equivalent, the AGM-62 Walleye, carried by A-4s, A-6s, and A-7s, in Vietnam, and lather thru the 90s in the Middle East.
Well, which A-7 matters, as USAF carried different ordnance than USN (as Carlos correctly points out).
I believe there was another issue in that the A-7 was already a crowded & complicated single seater, so putting the tv display monitor was like to block the view for important things.
The notion of using, say, the Maverick targeting system as a poor man’s night vision had not yet occurred, too.
The weapon in the photo posted by the OP is a GBU-8, the other is a Mk20. I was only referring to the ordnance in the picture posted by the OP as to employment in combat. The Navy AGM-62 could never be mistaken for a GBU-8. [H]
No, but they fill the same role- a bolt on kit to turn a dumb bomb into an electro optical (military parlance for TV) guided bomb using a camera in the nose and a set of wings for stand off drop capability. The crosshairs of the weapon are locked on to a visual high contrast aiming point on the target and then the bomb is released to glide to target while the carrying aircraft is free to take evasive action. Obviously only usable in daylight clear weather conditions. The USAF later developed an imaging infra red version, the GBU-15, that has a similar wing configuration to the Walleye, but also has small canards on the seeekr head. It is longer ranged and can be employed in darkness or cloudy weather due to the IR guidance system.
While the USN A-7s won’t carry the GBU-8 HOBOs, I’m pretty sure that the USAF A-7D was cleared to carry the GBU-8, along with the AGM-65 Maverick.