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| Science & Technology |
| F-16s With Larger Laser-Guided Rocket Loads, Drone Kill Marking Emerge Over Middle East |
| 2025-02-21 |
| [TWZ] US Air Force F-16s are expanding their ability to engage enemy drones with low-cost guided rockets. New pictures show U.S. Air Force F-16C Viper fighters on patrol in and around the Middle East with loadouts that include two seven-shot 70mm rocket pods, and both on the same pylon, rather than just one as has been seen previously. The same images also show an F-16C armed with a mix of AIM-120 AMRAAM and AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and sporting a drone kill marking. TWZ first reported last month that Air Force Vipers have been using laser-guided 70mm Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) rockets, originally designed as air-to-ground munitions, as a lower-cost way to down Houthi drones. The U.S. Air Forces Central (AFCENT), the service’s top command for operations in the Middle East, released two sets of pictures of F-16s flying in the region earlier today. The photographs were all taken earlier this month. The image sets show pairs of F-16Cs flying together and, in both cases, one of the Vipers has a pair of seven-round 70mm rocket pods on a single pylon under its right wing with the help of a triple ejector rack (TER), as seen below. Each of the rocket-armed jets also are seen carrying two AIM-9X Sidewinders, two AIM-120s, a LITENING targeting pod, a HARM Targeting System (HTS) pod, and two drop tanks. As noted, pictures AFCENT has previously released have shown F-16s with one rocket pod instead of two, but otherwise similar load-outs. A version of the single rocket pod loadout has also been observed on Vipers forward-deployed in Japan. The other Vipers seen in the new pictures are armed with four Sidewinders each – a mixture of AIM-9M and AIM-9X variants – and two AIM-120s, as well as the same array of pods and drop tanks. One of these jets also has a drone kill marking, as well as six others that are silhouettes of a revolver, on the left side of the fuselage right under the forward end of the cockpit canopy. What the revolvers signify is unknown, but they might reflect the destruction of targets with the jet’s 20mm M61 Vulcan cannon, a six-barrel Gatling-type design. This particular aircraft also has three large rows of badly worn air-to-ground mission marks. Other U.S. military combat jets, as well as American and other foreign warships, have previously emerged with drone and missile kill markings in relation to operations against the Houthis in and around the Red Sea. A Navy EA-18G Growler electronic warfare jet also now has a silhouette of a Hind attack helicopter painted on its fuselage after blowing one up on the ground in Yemen with an AGM-88E Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM), which TWZ was first to confirm. The appearance of F-16s in the Middle East with larger rocket loads is not surprising. As TWZ highlighted in January in our first report on the use of APKWS II in the air-to-air role, even a single seven-shot pod of the laser-guided rockets dramatically increases the Viper’s total magazine depth. As seen again in the newly released pictures, an F-16 with a more typical air-to-air loadout carries just six missiles. |
| Posted by:Skidmark |