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Kittyhawks and Coconuts - RNZAF in the PTO
By
dtmdragon, in Thirdwire: Strike Fighters 2 Series - World War II Forum
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Similar Content
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By dtmdragon
F-4E-41 Phantom II (69) RNZAF
- Initial delivery batch of 11 Block 41 F-4E Phantom delivered in 1969 (first batch of a five year 16 aircraft order.)
- Serial # NZ6201 to NZ6211.
- Standard SEA camouflage and USAF stencils of the day.
- Fitted "for but not with ECM" so RWR antenna, wiring and cockpit displays fitted but no computer to make it function.
- Weapons procured includes Mk-80 series slick/ retarded bombs, AIM-9E, AIM-7E, LAU-10/A, and LAU-3/A
First flight off the St. Louis assembly line.
Early RNZAF Fern Leaf roundels - not popular!
F-4E-41 Phantom II (72) RNZAF
- Above aircraft after MIDAS4 gun muzzle modification in 1972 and instillation of low-voltage formation lights.
- Decision for follow up purchase of RWR equipment deferred permanently so cockpit RWR displays removed.
F-4E-41 Phantom II (74) RNZAF
- Above aircraft with maneuvering slats fitted in 1974 via kit-sets procured with the second batch of Phantoms (Block 60) delivered below.
F-4E-60 Phantom II (74) RNZAF
- Second and final batch of 5 Block 60 F-4E Phantoms delivered in 1974.
- Serial # NZ6212 to NZ6216.
- Standard SEA camouflage and USAF stencils of the day (slightly different to the Block 41 aircraft as five years newer).
- Fitted "for but not with ECM" so RWR antenna and wiring fitted but no computer to make it function. Cockpit RWR displays removed in RNZAF service.
1979ish, lower 'Camouflage Grey' color replaced with 'Light Gull Grey' as used on the RNZAF's P-3 Orion (this was done in real life on the RNZAF A-4K Skyhawks).
1984, F-4E fleet repainted in Euro 1 which better suits the New Zealand environment.
F-4E-ARN Phantom II (84) RNZAF
- 6 attrition replacements purchased and delivered in 1984 from current USAF F-4E fleet in preparation for RNZAF F-4E fleet avionics/ capability upgrade.
- Serial # NZ6251 to NZ6256.
- Standard SEA wraparound camouflage and USAF stencils of the day.
- Full current USAF F-4E fleet RWR/ countermeasure (flare/ chaff) capability.
- Aircraft equipped with TISEO and AN/ARN-101 Digital Avionics Modular System (ARN-101 provides for a CCIP bombing mode).
F-4E-41/60 'Kahu' Phantom II (88) RNZAF
- Comprehensive $140 million upgrade program: project 'Kahu'. First upgraded aircraft operational in 1988.
- AN/APG-66(NZ) multi-mode radar.
- Modernized cockpit with glass displays, HOTAS and a Ferranti wide-angle HUD.
- ALR-66 RWR
- ALE-40 countermeasure dispensers.
- MIL-STD 1553B databus
- Litton Industries LN-93 inertial navigation system.
- Airframe and engines completely stripped down and given a life extension.
- Aircraft wiring replaced.
- Engine smoke abatement system.
- Modern weapons procured include GBU-10 LGB kits, AIM-9L, AIM-7M, CRV-7, AGM-65B/G.
- F-15 600 gallon HPC tanks as on USAF Phantoms.
1997 onwards all green camouflage.
2004, All RNZAF aircraft repainted 'Medium Grey'. Previous 'urgent operational requirement' program adds targeting pod (Litening), GPS navigation, GBU-12 and JDAM capability for OEF deployment.
Background (all factual):
In mid 1964 Operational Requirement No. 5/Air called for a tactical combat aircraft to replace the Canberra. Specifically a long range aircraft with the primary role of counter-air/interdiction and secondary roles of close air support and air defense.
In June 1965 The Chief of Air Staff, Air Vice-Marshal (AVM) Morrison was quoted as wanting 18 F-111 aircraft for the RNZAF at a cost of £1.5 million per aircraft. The public and media supported the idea but the Chief of Defense Staff (who was a Naval Officer) and the acting Prime Minister publicly opposed the purchase.
In August 1965 the Chiefs of Staff Committee rejected the idea of acquiring long-range interdiction aircraft and in September agreed that close air support should be the primary role of the new combat aircraft.
In December came Air Staff Requirement No. 12 with the following requirements of the new combat aircraft:
- Ability to provide effective air support to ground forces.
- Highly reliable and robust
- Self defense capability to evade or counter supersonic interceptors and surface-to-air missiles.
- Long range.
- Ability to operate closely with American and Australian forces.
By May 1966 the RNZAF had finished evaluating six candidate aircraft:
- F-4C Phantom II
- A-7A Corsair II
- Mirage IIIO
- F-5A Freedom Fighter
- F-104G Starfighter
- A-4E Skyhawk
In August 1966 the RNZAF officially asked the government to purchase 16 F-4 Phantoms at a total cost of £19 million.
Now remember AVM Morrison making it known he wanted the F-111? He would later go on to admit he never wanted the F-111 he had wanted the F-4 all along but given the cost of the F-4 he wanted to make it look more attractive (cost wise) by putting it next to the F-111.
The minister of Defense then announced the final stage of the evaluation had been reached and a decision was a few weeks away. The purchase of the F-4 seemed to be all but done...
BUT the Treasury department now intervened and recommended purchasing the F-5! The RNZAF High Command was furious! But ultimately powerless to halt the path to purchasing the A-4 Skyhwak that had just begun.
Over the next year the RNZAF, Cabinet Defense Committee, Treasury, the Finance Minister and the Chief of Defense wrangled over purchasing the F-4 or an alternative (F-5 or A-4). Then at the end of 1967 the New Zealand Currency was devalued and a squadron of F-4 Phantoms was now instantly out of New Zealand’s price range. It was either 11 Phantoms or 16 Skyhawks. So the Skyhawk it was.
So if the Treasury Department hadn't intervened in the procurement process towards the end of 1966 it seems entirely likely that New Zealand would have placed and order for the F-4 Phantom II at the end of that year. Or once the NZ dollar devalued in 1967 the option of an initial 11 F-4E order followed by another 5 in 5 years was considered, which I have gone for here.
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By Menrva
View File Timor, North Oceania (1950-2018)
Timor, North Oceania (1950-2018) Terrain
August 13th, 2018 (1st Release)
by Menrva
>For Strike Fighters 2: Vietnam, Recommended Full-5 Merged
This is a complete remake of the Modern Darwin terrain made by Wrench.
A better and more complete tileset has been added, improving the looks of Northern Australia with the introduction of desert and barren valleys. Various rivers and lakes have been hand-tiled and mimic Real World courses. Numerous target areas, such as emergency airstrips and civilian airports, have been added in order to expand playability, targets of opportunity and year span. Now the island of Timor has a lot of bases to take-off from.
This terrain features a fresh new 250m resolution heightmap (instead of the stock 500m resolution), allowing for greater details and precision in elevation changes; overall it provides the whole terrain with a better look.
The terrain spans from August 17, 1950 (when President Sukarno proclaimed a single unitary Republic of Indonesia) to December 31, 2018; it is designed for fictional clashes between ANZUS/SEATO forces (namely Australia and New Zealand) and a random pool of Red Side countries (namely Indonesia and China).
Targets reflect Real World events as accurately as possible; for instance, some airfields will appear only after a certain year, according to historic changes. If you have SF2NA, naval fleets might spawn in the Timor Sea. Also, Off Map Airbases have been added and long range AI flights can be generated from them. All main targets have been placed accurately in their Real World locations.
Ground Objects are not included. You can obtain the most needed from Wrench's original Modern Darwin terrain release.
>Credits (in no particular order):
-Wrench, for he had the idea of recreating such a scenario in the Strike Fighters world.
-swambast, who provided me with invaluable help in tracking and fixing common and uncommon bugs.
-gerwin, whose TFDtool has proved to be essential in today's terrain making. If the terrain is pretty accurate to RL it's also because of him. I included his very nice Airfield 7+8 Addon Pack, too.
-mue, for the improved shaders he made, which I have included and reworked for the terrain, and for the tools he made for SF2 modding.
-luk1978, for the waternormal bitmap he shared at the SF2 screenshots thread. Your mods are very interesting!
-MigBuster, I have included some of his great hi-res textures for runways.
-Stary, for the hi-res PTO tileset he made, which I have reworked and expanded.
-Brain32, for the gorgeous VietnamSEA tileset repaint he made, from which I borrowed a few tiles.
-Centurion-1, Spudknocker and tiopilotos, for the impressive tileset they made for the Angola terrain, from which I borrowed some tiles.
-Gepard, for his great tutorials about terrain making, in the SF1 Knowledge Base at CombatACE. It's a gold mine!
-RussoUK, for the fixed Pit LOD he made, which solved a shadow bug from the original TW's LOD.
-krfrge, who has produced a tutorial for recreating SF2-like planning maps, which prompted me to work on templates and my own high quality planning maps. Thank you very much!
-comrpnt, for his Approach and Airfield Lighting Pack mod packages for SF1 series, which I reworked and included.
Because the original terrain was made and tweaked numerous times by Wrench, I included the ReadMe files from his original packages, to the end of giving proper credit to everyone involved directly or not.
>Disclaimer:
This is a freeware; yet it can be redistributed ONLY in other CombatACE mods/mod packages.
Any changes to the terrain package's files and/or any copy-and-paste attempts of their contents are NOT authorized if you plan to release them in other mods. But permission might be granted to those who request it to me at CombatACE.
This terrain may NOT in any way, shape or form be used in any payware additions.
>My Other Releases:
Ecuador, Northwest South America (1981-1998)
Texas, American South Central (1968-2018)
Sweden, Baltic Rim (2004-2018)
Sweden, Baltic Rim (1952-1994)
Libya, Central Mediterranean (1980-2011)
Madagascar, Southeast Africa (1977-2018)
Iraq, Western Asia (2003-2018)
Alaska, Bering Strait (1955-2018)
Iraq, Western Asia (1980-2003)
Submitter Menrva Submitted 08/12/2018 Category Full Terrains
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By Menrva
Timor, North Oceania (1950-2018) Terrain
August 13th, 2018 (1st Release)
by Menrva
>For Strike Fighters 2: Vietnam, Recommended Full-5 Merged
This is a complete remake of the Modern Darwin terrain made by Wrench.
A better and more complete tileset has been added, improving the looks of Northern Australia with the introduction of desert and barren valleys. Various rivers and lakes have been hand-tiled and mimic Real World courses. Numerous target areas, such as emergency airstrips and civilian airports, have been added in order to expand playability, targets of opportunity and year span. Now the island of Timor has a lot of bases to take-off from.
This terrain features a fresh new 250m resolution heightmap (instead of the stock 500m resolution), allowing for greater details and precision in elevation changes; overall it provides the whole terrain with a better look.
The terrain spans from August 17, 1950 (when President Sukarno proclaimed a single unitary Republic of Indonesia) to December 31, 2018; it is designed for fictional clashes between ANZUS/SEATO forces (namely Australia and New Zealand) and a random pool of Red Side countries (namely Indonesia and China).
Targets reflect Real World events as accurately as possible; for instance, some airfields will appear only after a certain year, according to historic changes. If you have SF2NA, naval fleets might spawn in the Timor Sea. Also, Off Map Airbases have been added and long range AI flights can be generated from them. All main targets have been placed accurately in their Real World locations.
Ground Objects are not included. You can obtain the most needed from Wrench's original Modern Darwin terrain release.
>Credits (in no particular order):
-Wrench, for he had the idea of recreating such a scenario in the Strike Fighters world.
-swambast, who provided me with invaluable help in tracking and fixing common and uncommon bugs.
-gerwin, whose TFDtool has proved to be essential in today's terrain making. If the terrain is pretty accurate to RL it's also because of him. I included his very nice Airfield 7+8 Addon Pack, too.
-mue, for the improved shaders he made, which I have included and reworked for the terrain, and for the tools he made for SF2 modding.
-luk1978, for the waternormal bitmap he shared at the SF2 screenshots thread. Your mods are very interesting!
-MigBuster, I have included some of his great hi-res textures for runways.
-Stary, for the hi-res PTO tileset he made, which I have reworked and expanded.
-Brain32, for the gorgeous VietnamSEA tileset repaint he made, from which I borrowed a few tiles.
-Centurion-1, Spudknocker and tiopilotos, for the impressive tileset they made for the Angola terrain, from which I borrowed some tiles.
-Gepard, for his great tutorials about terrain making, in the SF1 Knowledge Base at CombatACE. It's a gold mine!
-RussoUK, for the fixed Pit LOD he made, which solved a shadow bug from the original TW's LOD.
-krfrge, who has produced a tutorial for recreating SF2-like planning maps, which prompted me to work on templates and my own high quality planning maps. Thank you very much!
-comrpnt, for his Approach and Airfield Lighting Pack mod packages for SF1 series, which I reworked and included.
Because the original terrain was made and tweaked numerous times by Wrench, I included the ReadMe files from his original packages, to the end of giving proper credit to everyone involved directly or not.
>Disclaimer:
This is a freeware; yet it can be redistributed ONLY in other CombatACE mods/mod packages.
Any changes to the terrain package's files and/or any copy-and-paste attempts of their contents are NOT authorized if you plan to release them in other mods. But permission might be granted to those who request it to me at CombatACE.
This terrain may NOT in any way, shape or form be used in any payware additions.
>My Other Releases:
Ecuador, Northwest South America (1981-1998)
Texas, American South Central (1968-2018)
Sweden, Baltic Rim (2004-2018)
Sweden, Baltic Rim (1952-1994)
Libya, Central Mediterranean (1980-2011)
Madagascar, Southeast Africa (1977-2018)
Iraq, Western Asia (2003-2018)
Alaska, Bering Strait (1955-2018)
Iraq, Western Asia (1980-2003)
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By dtmdragon
Here is how close New Zealand came to deploying a Squadron of its A-4K Skyhaws to the Gulf War in the 90's, remember they had just been through an upgrade program equipping them with the APG-66 radar, glass cockpit with HUD, MIL-STD 1553B databus, laser INS and ALR-66 RWR. They were cleared to use the AIM-9L, AGM-65B/G, GBU-16C/B, Mk-81/82/83/84 low and high drag bombs. The following is a post by an A-4K avionics tech in the RNZAF 1984-2001 and author of the book SKYHAWKS: The History of the RNZAF Skyhawk. https://books.google.co.nz/books/about/Skyhawks.html?id=N7NCngEACAAJ&redir_esc=y
"It was also an interesting time at Ohakea. 75 Sqn was in training to go to war, 2 Sqn were about to be deployed to Nowra and there was talk that the Nowra deployment would go on hold as all our A-4s and personnel would be needed to support 75 Sqn. The paint shop were all geared up to repaint the aircraft in desert camo, the deployment route to the Gulf had been worked out and everyone was being lined up at Medical for their jabs. The 75 Squadron Gulf War happy hour was very memorable - Sadam Husain even put in an appearance!
Sadly nothing happened and 75 Sqn went to Williamtown as planned for a WILLOH Exercise at the end of January and 2 Sqn deployed to Nowra as planned at the beginning of February. Oh what might have been eh, had our politicians had some balls! Had we deployed the A-4s they would have been one of the most sophisticated ground attack aircraft in theatre with their then brand new Kahu avionics. We would most likey have been based alongside the Kuwaiti A-4s as they had had to leave all of their ground equipment, ground crew and spares in Kuwait when they evacuated to Saudi.
A great opportunity was lost to demonstrate the value in having an Air Combat Force, something we would pay dearly for 10 years later under HC and Co."
and:
Question: "Was that a genuine plan to operate with the Kuwaiti Air Force? Would the A-K's not have come under RAF command as part of Operation Granby, and operated alongside the Tornadoes and Buccaneers?"
Answer: "The US were looking for a fast and easy way to get the Kuwaiti A-4s back in the fight. All they had were their 20 odd aircraft, the pilots who flew them and the clothes they were wearing! They had to leave everything else behind when they left Kuwait. Deploying us along side of them would have solved their logistics and ground crew problem (and the Saudi's/Kuwaiti's would have paid NZ handsomely!). But instead they employed civilian contractors (mercenaries), all former USN/USMC guys. The USMC were still actively flying A-4Ms at that time and had just started disbanding squadrons, so sending over all of the weapons, spares and support equipment they needed wasn't really a problem (they just raided the boneyard).
We probably would have come under the RAF command Dave but would have been used in a close air support role (what the A-4 was best at) rather than the longer range tactical strike the Tornados were doing. If we had gone I'm picking we would have fired a LOT of Mavericks...
All pie in the sky stuff now but at the time these were the things various people in the RNZAF were seriously thinking about.
Had we deployed the A-4s there were a few "fast track" mods we would have had to do to the aircraft (the first four we subsequently did to the aircraft anyway):
1. Fit and test the KY-58 secure radio kit to all aircraft - Kahu had installed the wiring etc. but it was not yet tested in 1991 (secret squirrel stuff).
2. Fit and test the Mode 4 IFF kit (same deal as above).
3. Programme the radar warning system with the threat and friendly radars
4. Update the weapon inventory software for any additional weapons were would be carrying
5. Uprate the engines (basically run the engine hotter to produce more thrust at full power - can be done but reduces engine life)
6. Repaint the aircraft "
And so I give you No.75 Squadron, Royal New Zealand Airforce, A-4K Skyhawk, Joint New Zealand/ Kuwait Skyhawk Wing, Operation Desert Storm 1992, King Abdul Aziz Air Base, Dhahran.
Expanding on the "fast track' mods Dom mentions above the CBU-87/B has been added to the Kiwi Skyhawk's inventory to enable medium altitude area attacks (as done for the RAF Jaguar's). ALQ-119(V)17 ECM pods are borrowed from the USAF and always carried operationally like most allied aircraft. Finally a handful of AN/ASQ-153 Pave Spike pods are also borrowed from the USAF enabling precision daylight strikes to be carried out without a 'buddy' aircraft to designate the target. The MIL-STD 1553B databus intalled during the project 'Kahu' upgrade is key to enabling the quick addition of additional ordnance and EW pods. Once the air threat had subsided the Kiwi Skyhaws stopped carrying a single AIM-9L and replaced it on most missions with an AGM-65B that the pilots used more as a substitute targeting pod to enable magnified target identification before attacking with bombs etc
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