"why ef111 raven not carry harm missiles?" Topic

the ef111 raven (soft killed) jammed enemy radar as they flew over supporting the strike package ,which meant they had to do it over and over, why did they not carry harm missiles for(hard kill)

Arguably not necessary.

If the radars are jammed, they won't be able to achieve lock on. Any firing they do is blind firing, against which HARM is ueseless.

They had F-4Gs and then F-16CJs for active Destruction of Enemy Air Defence.

It didn't carry any weapons. Likely all the electronics for weapons use was stripped out to make room for the EW gear. It was a late 70s design and electronics were still very bulky.

And as Deadone said they already had Wild Weasel aircraft. The point of the EF-111 was to stop any AD that had gone silent to hide from the Weasels.

I'm not sure how the EW capacity of the EF-111 compared to the EA-6B (which did carry weapons).

A "Spark 'Vark" would only be able to carry 4 HARMs (or Standard ARMs), and each HARM would mean one fewer fuel tank or supplementary jammer pod.

It is also likely meant to keep the crew on task and not divert their attention from the mundane but vitally necessary task at hand to the 'flashier' task of blowing stuff up.

Because the HARM's range isn't all that long when compared to the standoff jamming distance of the EF-111. The EF-111 does not escort the strike aircraft to the target and needs to fly a racetrack pattern to maintain effective jamming. The turn in let the HARM acquire and launch it would disrupt that.

Also, HARMs aren't terribly lethal, especially against vaguely competent SAM crews.