Early german Eagles

[ValAstur]

At the end of the 1970's, the german air force (Luftwaffe) became more and more worried about the capabilities of the soviet aircraft, with the MiG-21 and 23 already being very manouverable fighters, capable of beating the Phan in a dogfight. Since the Luftwaffe did not use BVR-armament, the focus lied on manouverable and capable aircraft for air superiority achievement. The Tornado was not suitable for this task. The appearance of the MiG-29, though being in a prototype state of development, shocked the western allies. Germany, being the first line of defense in Europe, asked for the possibility of acquiring the F-15A for the primary role of air defense with a secondary focus on ground attack.

After ten months of negotiations with SecDef Harold Brown of the Carter Administration, the Luftwaffe received the first aircraft in 1978. The Sparrow stations at the belly got reworked by Dornier (with the permission of MDD), enabling the possibility of using them with lighter bombs for a higher tactical field value. The adaptable clamp system, developed and outfitted by Dornier, made it possible to load several bomb types incl. LGB. For security reasons, top speed and G-Load had to be reduced as long as the weapons were attached to the fuselage. This measure had to be adopted after an accident, where a modified Eagle lost a GBU-12B during a High-G-Turn on a test flight. The impacting LGB was not armed and did not cause major damage since it went down in a landscape with dense forest, but showed the limits of the modification.

The F-15A got handed over to the Luftwaffe after modification in 1979, renamed F-15F.

 

McDonnell Douglas F-15F Eagle, Jagdbombergeschwader 32, 1979

 

With a CAS-loadout

 

With a possible loadout for striking missions

 

Credits go to Geary for the templates I used and to ravenclaw for some of the stencils applied to this skin.

[kirk66]

excellent ! great work !

 

[daddyairplanes]

im conflicted 

great back story. pretty sure it will get expanded with an ICE upgrade allowing AIM-120s (like a certain RL McAir product)

but gawd, i thought Euro 1 on an Eagle was bad

you couldt do at least Norm 81 instead?

(note, if i got it wrong im sure someone will correct me. but pretty sure this is Norm 81)

other note, not sure why they went to they trouble with the bombs on sparrow stations. the Eagle could always carry bombs on teh wing pylons (a fact the Israelis put to use bombing Tunis in 1985) as your pics show . and give the Luftwaffe would have been concerned with the Inner German Border area in the 80s, at most you only need the belly tanks. definately not the wing tanks.  even with TERs, 6 bombs vs the displayed 4

putting a designator  on center pylon is pretty smart tho. self designating, unlik alot of NATO in the 80s

just a couple pennies from me. feel free to use or toss as always

 

[Gepard]

The Luftwaffe always took the wrong plane. The F-15A would have been an excellent choice. But i doubt, that they would have integrated air to ground weapons. For mud moving they had the Tornado. So a german F-15A would have followed the rule "no pound for air to ground". And stupid as the german military bureaucracy was, i think they would have removed the Sparrows.

[randomspinoff]

On 2/17/2026 at 2:49 AM, ValAstur said:

Since the Luftwaffe did not use BVR-armament

4th and (especially) the 5th picture looks amazing.

If I may ask, why didn't they use BVR ? I'm assuming it's something to do like the US in Vietnam with inadequate IFF.

[MigBuster]

15 hours ago, randomspinoff said:

If I may ask, why didn't they use BVR ? I'm assuming it's something to do like the US in Vietnam with inadequate IFF.

Good question and would have been one of two things:

 

1. The US or NATO didn't want West Germany to have that capability at the time (This has often been the stock answer given over the years)

Or

2. From what I have seen West Germany had no requirement for AIM-7 capability on F-4F..........whether that was for saving cost, or due to #1 above not sure.

 

Someone may have more on the F-4F program politics howeever.

 

 

 

[daddyairplanes]

6 hours ago, MigBuster said:

1. The US or NATO didn't want West Germany to have that capability at the time (This has often been the stock answer given over the years)

Or

2. From what I have seen West Germany had no requirement for AIM-7 capability on F-4F..........whether that was for saving cost, or due to #1 above not sure.

i think one is the more likely answer. there was less incentive to have BVR capability going into teh 90s and yet the AMRAAM portion of the ICE upgrade went forward

yes, i know that started on paper in teh 80s, but look at how much got cancelled or scaled back when the Bear went into hibernation.......

[Gepard]

To the german Phantoms. The first german idea was to get a special version of the F-4E with only one pilot and the radar system of the F-104G.

Then they decided, that the AIM-7 Sparrow had a bad performance during Vietnam War. Thatswhy they were not willing to pay money for it. So they bought the F-4F, nickname Poor Mans Aircraft. It was intended to be a gap filler till a single piloted fighter version of the MRCA Tornado would arrive. This Tarnodao version never came to live. So it was intended to wait till the Jäger 90 (EFA / Eurofighter) would enter the service. This was awaited for the early 1990th. When the EFA program was delayed in the 1980th it was decided to make the F-4 ICE upgrade.