Southernbear

I'm not aware of everything Heatblur has posted on the subject so I thought I'd post this to raise awareness and just ask what HB's thoughts going forward were when it comes to some of the weapons the F-14A might have access to. To my knowledge we have yet to have Sparrows earlier then the AIM-7F for any module as of current and for people wanting to use the F-14A for Operation Frequent Wind 1973-74 esk early deployment missions having access to such weapons would be a welcome addition The 2 main weapons I'm talking about is the AIM-7E and early AIM-9s. The Tomcat brought with it an upgrade to the AIM-7 Sparrow being the E-4 Missile with a range of about 44km or about 23.5nmi As for the AIM-9s its a little harder to figure out. Operation Frequent Wind and particularly, the Tomcat's role in it to my knowledge wasn't documented very in depth particularly because the F-14 didn't see any combat during the evacuation from Vietnam and as such (for the most part unless more info can be uncovered) we simply have this one picture to go off. Due to the time frame and Military branch its most likely a AIM-9H attached due to the shape of the canards. But at the same time due to the nature of Operation Frequent Wind it quite possibly could be a AIM-9J or J-1 (AIM-9N) given to the Navy to give the F-14's the best chance of survival if they were to get into combat and because the AIM-9H is old at this point in time (it first saw service in 1965). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is my personal opinion that ED should have created a few of the more important Missile variants more realistically and in a high fidelity fashion so that both AI could use them and then ED or 3rd party Devs could take the missile that best fits the one they want and make changes accordingly such as the AIM-9D, G or H or the AIM-7E given how prevalent AIM-7E models were during the 1960s and through Vietnam but given ED's current status and situation I feel that ship has sailed for now.

Look, I don't have Photoshop and wouldn't be any good even if I did...But I'm BEGGING someone to do a VF-1 or VF-2 Camo for the F-14A! They're so cool and would be really handy if you wanted to do a Vietnam Mission in 1973-74 with F-14As!!!