plawolf
Lieutenant General
Well, I think the main issue isn't whether 42 SBD is possible, of course it's possible, but rather, whether it is needed. I am really scratching my head to think of scenarios where there would ever be a need to hit so many targets in one sortie that would not be better served by deploying a small number of air dropped sensor fused weapons.
The only scenario I can think of where so many SBDs would be needed is if you were targeting an enemy airfield that has lots of planes parked on it and which is protected by short range SAMs and land based CIWS like the LD2000, where you need to saturate the defences. A few air dropped sensor fused weapons would do the job just as well, but there would be a much greater chance SAMs or CIWS might shoot them down before they can deploy. But that really is a very specialised niche scenario, and I wonder if it is worth while pursing such an overkill capability just for the off chance such an opportunity presents itself. After all, if a target has such strong point defence capabilities, odds are it would also have medium and long range SAM coverage, so it is questionable if a J16 could even expect to get close enough to use SDBs.
The only scenario I can think of where so many SBDs would be needed is if you were targeting an enemy airfield that has lots of planes parked on it and which is protected by short range SAMs and land based CIWS like the LD2000, where you need to saturate the defences. A few air dropped sensor fused weapons would do the job just as well, but there would be a much greater chance SAMs or CIWS might shoot them down before they can deploy. But that really is a very specialised niche scenario, and I wonder if it is worth while pursing such an overkill capability just for the off chance such an opportunity presents itself. After all, if a target has such strong point defence capabilities, odds are it would also have medium and long range SAM coverage, so it is questionable if a J16 could even expect to get close enough to use SDBs.
