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Aircraft ordnance
Aircraft ordnance or ordnance (in the context of military aviation) is any expendable weaponry (e.g. bombs, missiles, rockets and gun ammunition) used by military aircraft. According to Wiki, the term is often used when describing the payload of air-to-ground weaponry that can be carried by the aircraft or the weight that has been dropped in combat. Aircraft ordnance also includes air-to-air, anti-ship and anti-submarine weapons.
Do fighter pilots decide what weapons to carry on their aircraft or is the decision made by their superiors?
Adam Daymude, former US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler pilot, explains on Quora;
‘You bet we did! First off, get rid of the notion that “superiors” determine tactics. That’s not really a thing. The person that determines what an aircraft carries is the mission commander. See, we have a task. That task varies based on mission requirements, the aircraft involved, and the threat.
The fighter pilot and the loadout for his aircraft
‘That EA-18G loadout should strike fear into any air defense system. First off, the jamming pods are going to render nearly every aircraft it supports as stealth. SAM’s will have a monstrously hard time finding planes we support. Then we have anti-radiation missiles to take out shooters (There weren’t a lot of pre-staged anti-radiation missiles in the Middle East because they weren’t needed. We had to have a really good reason to request one to get one. Until Libya erupted. Then we were like kids in a candy store. I’ll take some of that, some of that, a handful of that…).
‘The things on the wingtips and various other sensors locate and then pass along where mobile SAMs are. Send an aircraft up to take us out and we’ll take you down, at range, with our AMRAAM. Or we pass along our targeting information to other fighters for them to swat down. That is the Growler beast mode and it’s not to be trifled with. As an EA (electronic attack) mission commander, I would actually dictate to the strike package what their ingress will be; we were one of the first ones that had to have our plan in place so the strike package could then plan their own missions.
Beast mode
‘That’s all well and good but I went beast mode exactly 3 times. After we’ve squashed the threats to our air forces, we pivot. We still hide the strikers so no one knows when they’re coming or where they’re coming from but that requires a different loadout of jamming pods. The mission commander tells our maintenance department what we need and they load up the aircraft as we request.’
Daymude concludes;
‘Mission commanders determine what is needed to accomplish their task.
‘I never ran into a situation in modern times where we didn’t choose our loadout. The big wig strategy people tell us what the effects are they’re looking for and then we take that, develop the tactical response required, and then tell our AOs and ATs what we need to get it done (to those that aren’t familiar, AOs are aviation ordnanceman that load up bombs and missiles and ATs are aviation electronics technicians that load up our jamming pods).’
Photo credit: U.S. Navy
