Strike Command: Wait, is that a fucking laser?

power crystals: Jun 6, 2007; Who wants a belly rub??

So I'm a big fan of dropping laser-guided bombs on things. Our Phantoms are pretty good at this, but we could do better. How much better? I decided to do some research. Let's take a look at what I found.
I'm going to ignore any aircraft that are hypotheticals or are some kind of strategic bomber or similar that we're very unlikely to get, at least for a long time, because that's basically just noise.

The GBU-24 is a 2,000lb laser-guided bomb that is an upgrade of the GBU-10. The 24 has a longer range (8nm vs 4) and can be launched at a much lower altitude if for some reason you wanted to do that instead of not daring every rear end in a top hat with an Igla to frag your expensive jet. They're otherwise fairly similar as far as I can tell. If you want more than the 2 of these our Phantoms can haul, your choices are:

F-15E (5x GBU-10 / 4x GBU-24): hell if I know how that 5th -10 gets mounted that the -24 can't be there.
A-10C (4x GBU-10)
A-6E (4x GBU-24)
F/A-18E / F/A-18F (4x GBU-24)
F-111C (4x GBU-10): almost all F-111s in reality have been destroyed post-decommissioning, which would make acquiring one somewhat difficult, but maybe this LP's world is different?
F-111F (4x GBU-24): see previous
F-15SA (4x GBU-24)
A whole bunch of F-16 variants, including some Greek ones (4x GBU-24)

Of these, if they're actually available, I'd vote the F-111Fs. They're probably only moderately priced and they're also brutalist as hell which appeals to me immensely. A-6s are probably also cheap but they're slow and vulnerable. Warthogs dropping GBU-10s is an amusing comedy option for everybody who wants to see them do gun runs but they're even slower than the A-6s. F-15s and Superhornets are pretty generically 'good' but also crazy expensive.

Can we do better?
The GBU-28 is a 5,000lb bunker-buster. Meaning it's utter overkill against anything we've seen so far. But that's what we're here for, right?

F-111F (x2)
F-15E / F-15I / F-15K (x1)

Once again, Aardvark supremacy, but not exactly many choices otherwise.

Sadly going smaller doesn't help much. The GBU-12, a 500lb bomb, can only be mounted at most at x8 (F-15E / F-15K / F-15S / F-15SA) or x6 (Rafale, making a surprise appearance). Even the SDB, which has "small" in its name (and ok technically isn't laser-guided, so sue me) is only ever mounted with 8 at most, which we already have on the Gripens.

Ok, what if we leave the GBU family?

The AGM-176 Griffin is a modular design that can fit around a couple warheads, including the Mk 84 (2,000lb) and Mk 82 (500lb) seen with the above Paveway kits. I'm going to start ignoring the F-15s and F-16s here because there's so many of the drat things and there's no new capabilities here, so here's some curiosities:

Indian MiG-27M (4x 1000lb warhead)
Colombian Super Tucano (2x 500lb warhead)
Romanian MiG-21 (2x 500lb warhead)

All of these are probably pretty cheap. Also, terrible, but still less likely to get swatted down than the SK-60s*. Haven't you always wanted to own a Romanian Fishbed? No? Me neither. But it'll kill tanks just fine!
*Maybe not the case for the Super Tucanos.

The KAB-1500L is Russia's response to the GBU-24, roughly. It's a ~3,000lb laser-guided weapon. If I'm reading this right (50/50 chance) there's also a bunker-buster variant.

Su-24M (x3)
Su-25T, also a bunch of other variants (x2): hey we already own these
A bunch of Su-30 variants with way too many damned letters (x2)
Su-34 (x2)
Su-35S / Su-35K (x2)

I hope you will keep these notes on "how to best make enemy tank columns disappear without invoking warcrimes" in mind when the next procurement round comes.

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