Hi Rob,
What kind of load-outs did VX-4 have for their Phantoms? I can give
you some insight for the time frame 1968 to 1972. The only unusual
Paint job was the black F-4J that later had the playboy bunny on the
vertical stabilizer. It was painted black in response to a Marine
request to see if all black would be better at night for CAS missions
in South Vietnam. The paint used was a polyurethane and it was hoped
it would give a better, longer lasting corrsion protection than the
acryllic then used. Black proved to be slightly harder to see at
night. Any airplane without lights is hard to see at night and the
black was very visable in daylight. In air combat maneuvering tests
the black plane always gathered the most bad guys behind it. Like a
magnet. The poly paint was much better for anti-corrosion and lasted
several times longer than acryllic. But, the downside was, it cost
severals times as much and was hazardous to the health of appliers. To
my knowledge no other Navy airplane was painted black.

The Navy did not use wing tanks on their F-4's. The normal external
tank configuration was the single centerline tank. The reason was that
wing tanks made the already cumbersome F-4 even harder to turn. Roll
rate was reduced and nose high maneuvers were harder. Normally each
F-4 carried 2 Aim-7 missiles in the under fuselage cavities and four
Aim-9H or G missiles on under wing pylons. Air-to-ground ordnance was
hung in TERs (triple ejector racks) under the wings. MERs (multiple
ejector racks) could be carried but normally weren't. VX-4 Phantoms
tested all varities of these Aim missiles which all looked the same
externally. A very large towed target was also tested. It was towed
with an underwing mounted reel. This target wasn't accepted for
service use. A M-60 gun pod (SU-23) was tested. This pod was about
the size of a centerline fuel tank, fired 20mm bullets and was mainly
tested to get some gun data on the M-60 which was then used exclusively
by the USAF. The Navy did not choose to use these pgun pods but all
internal gun systems in their future airplanes used this M-60 gun.
Another pod was carried when testing the ACMR (air combat maneuvering
range). This pod trnsmitted airplane dat like speed, altitude, angle
of attack, attitude, weapons select and other info needed to
reconstruct real time ACM engagements. Another small centerline pod
was called a "blivet" and carried crews luggage on cross country
flights. This blivet also carried a variety of things, like booze
(pre-PC Navy) animal carcasses from hunting trips, etc.

There were more unusual loads on VX-4 Phantoms but these are a few of
the more common.