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A-6e tram intruder weapons loads


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Hello,

I am in the middle of building the hobby boss a-6e tram intruder. Probably going to model a VA-195 aircraft from around 1996.

 

Any ideas on a cool weapons load? I have MK82s, cluster bombs, gbu-12s, harms and even an an/alq 167 bullwinkle pod lying around. 

 

Wondering if it would be accurate to have an an/alq167, one harm and two MERs with cluster bombs. Or in 1996 would it more likely have been gbu-12s. 

 

All ideas welcome.

 

Cheers

Tom

 

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Back in the day the A-6's (TRAM's) flew a lot of Mk 82's, Clusters and GBU-12's (along with a heck of a lot of blue death (Mk 76 practice bombs)). They rarely flew HARM (they left that to the A-7 and F-18's guys), even more rarely did I see Bullwinkle loaded.

 

If you want a cool load out that will get people to stop and stare, put Sidewinders on the outboard stations (ADU-209 / LAU-7 / AIM-9M Sidewinder), I've seen VA-35 on the Nimitz and Saratoga do that a few times (funny as heck watching a bunch of A-6 ordies try to load a Sidewinder, it was like two monkeys and a football.........and the football was winning). The inboard station would have MER's and your choice of Mk 82's or MK 20 Rockeye's (leave forward inboard station empty). Centerline station would have a drop tank.

 

hth

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Only saw VA-35 load a Skipper once, in fact, I only loaded that damn thing once (when I was in VA-82). The engineers in China Lake who thought up that POS should have  been taken out behind the ordnance shop and beaten with their slide rulers!

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VA-195?  Did you mean VA-115?

 

We still had A-6's, and I I flew next to VA-115 off of CV-62 1996-97 before the were DECOM'd and replaced by VFA-27 in AirWing 5.

 

Since we were not on a war-footing, CVW5 really never loaded up our A-6's for a big push.  We used to all go out bombing near Guam (FDM island) and you would see them carrying the MK-80 series (500/1000/2000-slick) on a TER (but never fully loaded front to back 3x3).  We had a few SWIP birds so they might carry a AGM-65F IR Maverick, or you might see an AGM-84 SLAM CATM carried for practice (not SLAM-ER, wasn't in the fleet yet).  Mine wise we all loaded up with MK-60 series Quickstrike (MK-50 mines for the S-3's as well).  We even put some Quickstrike on our VFA-154 F-14's.....we never did that again :-O.  GBU-12's were sometimes carried and VA-115 would drop those.  AGM-123 Skipper was LOOOONG gone for the reasons GW mentions above).  Never saw them with the ALQ-167 pod.  HARM CATMs were flown as well.

 

So your proposed TER with ROCKEYE and a HARM is perfectly good if that's the direction you want to go.  Put a centerline pod on there...all the Intruders (from what I can remember) carried a centerline tank....unless they were carrying the centerline buddy store for air-refueling.  

 

Cheers

Collin

 

 

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Hi colin,

Thanks for the info! I actually meant to type va-196. Its either that or a va-165 jet

 

I found this photo of an intruder carrying a Gbu-12, 3 x mk20, centerline tank, harpoon, wing tank. Any idea what this load was used for? Looks  pretty cool.

A-6E Intruders Forever, Intruder carrying Harpoon, CBUs, LGB

 

Cheers!

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6 hours ago, tomthegrom said:

Hi colin,

Thanks for the info! I actually meant to type va-196. Its either that or a va-165 jet

 

I found this photo of an intruder carrying a Gbu-12, 3 x mk20, centerline tank, harpoon, wing tank. Any idea what this load was used for? Looks  pretty cool.

A-6E Intruders Forever, Intruder carrying Harpoon, CBUs, LGB

 

Cheers!

Looks to be a SU-CAP Alert load for the gulf.

 

SU-CAP = Surface Unit Combat Air Patrol

 

Edit, also, I believe Collin meant MER's and not TER's in his post (never saw an A-6 carry a TER) and when he stated Mk 80 Series Bomb slicks, the slick means conical fin, all bombs would be thermally protected when they were aboard ship.

Edited by GW8345
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7 hours ago, tomthegrom said:

Hi colin,

Thanks for the info! I actually meant to type va-196. Its either that or a va-165 jet

 

I found this photo of an intruder carrying a Gbu-12, 3 x mk20, centerline tank, harpoon, wing tank. Any idea what this load was used for? Looks  pretty cool.

A-6E Intruders Forever, Intruder carrying Harpoon, CBUs, LGB

 

Cheers!

That’s on if my favorite loads for an Intruder….

 

Darn it…yeah, I meant MER 😔

 

As GW stated, that’s a SuCAP load from GW1. Pretty much ready for any contingency with that load out. 
 

Cheers

Collin

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10 hours ago, GW8345 said:

Looks to be a SU-CAP Alert load for the gulf.

 

SU-CAP = Surface Unit Combat Air Patrol

 

Edit, also, I believe Collin meant MER's and not TER's in his post (never saw an A-6 carry a TER) and when he stated Mk 80 Series Bomb slicks, the slick means conical fin, all bombs would be thermally protected when they were aboard ship.

Thank you for the superb info as always. 

Do you think they would ever take that SU-CAP loadout with the harpoon, rockeyes and Gbu12 and instead of the wing mounted external tank, slap an aim-9 on instead? I think that's what I would like to load my a-6 with. 

 

Thank you again. Because of your knowledge over the years a lot of my navy models have accurate weapons loads. 

 

Tom 

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1 hour ago, tomthegrom said:

Thank you for the superb info as always. 

Do you think they would ever take that SU-CAP loadout with the harpoon, rockeyes and Gbu12 and instead of the wing mounted external tank, slap an aim-9 on instead? I think that's what I would like to load my a-6 with. 

 

Thank you again. Because of your knowledge over the years a lot of my navy models have accurate weapons loads. 

 

Tom 

I think that would be legal , and look cool.  They carried AIM-9 off of Libya during those Ops.  FINN's picture above is in that configuration...except that it has a empty MER in place of where you would want to put a GBU-12.  

 

Cheers

Collin

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52 minutes ago, hemspilot said:

I am jumpin in to ask whether 500 lbs GBUs where ever carried on a TER on the outboard pylons.

That’s GW’s territory. The only aircraft I saw was our S-3’s that carried TERs and we didn’t have GBU-12. Harriers might be a different story since they could legally load -12’s. USAF F-16’s with their TER equalivant could carry -12’s, typically slant loaded outboard/lower. 
 

Most folks these days are using dual rack BRU systems for the GBU-38/54 series. 
 

Cheers

Collin

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6 hours ago, hemspilot said:

I am jumpin in to ask whether 500 lbs GBUs where ever carried on a TER on the outboard pylons.

It was legal to carry two GBU-12's on a TER on the outboard stations, the GBU-12's would be loaded on the shoulder stations and the centerline station would be empty.

 

However, I NEVER saw an A-6 use a TER for anything, I did four cruises with A-6's on deck (VA-35 on the Nimitz and Saratoga) and was stationed at NAS Ocean for the last 10 years of the A-6's service, never saw them use a TER, ever. The A-6E TacMan does authorize certain loads with TER's, I just never saw (or heard) of an A-6 squadron using a TER though.

 

(For TER loaded GBU-12's on inboard and centerline station (yes, you can carry a TER on the centerline), one GBU-12 was authorized to be loaded on the centerline (bottom) station of the TER).

 

As Collin stated, the AV-8B's are authorized to carry three GBU-12's on a TER, they are the only USN/USMC platform that I know of that could carry 3 x GBU-12 on TER's (not even the A-7's were authorized to do it).

 

hth

GW

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10 hours ago, tomthegrom said:

Thank you for the superb info as always. 

Do you think they would ever take that SU-CAP loadout with the harpoon, rockeyes and Gbu12 and instead of the wing mounted external tank, slap an aim-9 on instead? I think that's what I would like to load my a-6 with. 

 

Thank you again. Because of your knowledge over the years a lot of my navy models have accurate weapons loads. 

 

Tom 

I'm sure at one point they did the load you are asking about, the A-6 guys did some "unusual" SUCAP Alert loads at times.

 

And as always, glad to be of service. 🙂

GW

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18 hours ago, tomthegrom said:

Thank you for the superb info as always. 

Do you think they would ever take that SU-CAP loadout with the harpoon, rockeyes and Gbu12 and instead of the wing mounted external tank, slap an aim-9 on instead? I think that's what I would like to load my a-6 with. 

 

Thank you again. Because of your knowledge over the years a lot of my navy models have accurate weapons loads. 

 

Tom 

 

You can.  I remember once having one loaded and me and the guy I was flying with joking that it was a really bad day if we needed it.  I think we may have even questioned if we actually knew how to use it but I digress...

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On 1/16/2022 at 8:07 PM, tomthegrom said:

Hi colin,

Thanks for the info! I actually meant to type va-196. Its either that or a va-165 jet

 

I found this photo of an intruder carrying a Gbu-12, 3 x mk20, centerline tank, harpoon, wing tank. Any idea what this load was used for? Looks  pretty cool.

A-6E Intruders Forever, Intruder carrying Harpoon, CBUs, LGB

 

Cheers!

I thought that picture had been taken when the USS Enterprise was taking part in supporting Operations Earnest Will and  Praying Mantis in April 1988.

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20 hours ago, GW8345 said:

However, I NEVER saw an A-6 use a TER for anything, I did four cruises with A-6's on deck (VA-35 on the Nimitz and Saratoga) and was stationed at NAS Ocean for the last 10 years of the A-6's service, never saw them use a TER, ever. The A-6E TacMan does authorize certain loads with TER's, I just never saw (or heard) of an A-6 squadron using a TER though.

 

Not sure about USN but there's some Desert Storm pics showing LAU-10 5" rocket pods on TERs that I can't find right now, from VMA(AW)-224 I believe.

Realize we're talking A-6E, but for general info to show some TERs on A-6, here's some on A-6As, similarly primarily used for rocket pods like in the first/second pic but also the occasional bomb load in third pic:

TER1.jpg

TER3.JPG

TER4.jpg

 

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On 1/18/2022 at 5:29 PM, Spike72 said:

 

You can.  I remember once having one loaded and me and the guy I was flying with joking that it was a really bad day if we needed it.  I think we may have even questioned if we actually knew how to use it but I digress...

 Ha that is some good comedy! Thank you for the info. I will slap an aim9 on. 

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Not Navy, but an interesting load on a Marine Intruder at Sheik Isa during ODS. Starboard side was also a TER with two slant loaded LAU-10 (outboard) and a GBU-12 (inboard), based on the note I received from the Marine that sent to the photo.

 

83017799-10157215673504125-5318200605246

 

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3 hours ago, Dave Roof said:

Not Navy, but an interesting load on a Marine Intruder at Sheik Isa during ODS. Starboard side was also a TER with two slant loaded LAU-10 (outboard) and a GBU-12 (inboard), based on the note I received from the Marine that sent to the photo.

 

83017799-10157215673504125-5318200605246

 

Sorry, I have nothing to contribute directly to the discussion relating to the A-6E, but I was wondering if anyone can describe the different warheads on those Zunis? 
 

Thanks!

-Ryan

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1 hour ago, BN7149 said:

Sorry, I have nothing to contribute directly to the discussion relating to the A-6E, but I was wondering if anyone can describe the different warheads on those Zunis? 
 

Thanks!

-Ryan

Bottom pod (Sta 1 of the TER) has Mk 24 GP Warheads with Mk 93 Proximity Fuzes, shoulder pod (Sta 2 of the TER) has Mk 32 AT/APERS warheads with Mk 188 Impact PD fuzes.

 

The Mk 24's are just general purpose high explosive warheads, the Mk 32's are anti-tank, anti-personnel warheads. The Mk 93 Prox Fuze gives the Mk 24's an airburst capability while the Mk 188 Impact Point Detonating fuze makes the Mk 32's effective against heavy armor.

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6 hours ago, Dave Roof said:

Not Navy, but an interesting load on a Marine Intruder at Sheik Isa during ODS. Starboard side was also a TER with two slant loaded LAU-10 (outboard) and a GBU-12 (inboard), based on the note I received from the Marine that sent to the photo.

 

83017799-10157215673504125-5318200605246

 

Great photo. I like how these threads take a life of their own and pics/info like this starts to flow.  My guess is that’s at the start of ODS based on the AIM-9?  Like the Harriers up in Kuwait, I’m sure they downloaded (free up a station) them after the kick-off and the air threat went to basically zero…again, a guess on my part there. 
BTW:  Isa still there. The folks I work with that fly out of there say it’s still not the nicest place to be. 
 

Cheers All

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