F/A-18C vs F-14B

[Chewie_77]

I'm already imagining Blue US Navy F/A-18Cs going up against some Red IrAF F-14As on the Persian Gulf map. The F-14A has a speed advantage and a radar that can detect targets at a slightly longer range. It's also possible they might be able to use the AIM-54 Phoenix missile (although it will be restricted on some servers). It'd also be interesting to note how effect the AIM-54 would be against a smaller aircraft like an F/A-18 vs. a larger, less maneuverable bomber aircraft.

 

I'm assuming the Hornet's radar and some long-awaited features will be added by the time the F-14A goes early access.

 

Assuming the AIM-54 is restricted on servers such as DDCS and BlueFlag, armaments should be pretty equal for both sides other than the F-14 missing out on AMRAAMS but possibly making up for it by using AIM-7s + it's higher speed.

 

Looking at the specs alone doesn't often tell the whole story. How do you guys think the F/A-18C will fare against some F-14As? Are we going to need to develop new tactics to fight some Persian Cats?

[ViruzDeath]

you said... F-14? :pilotfly:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/L-4XsDQYDi4

 

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/embed/L-4XsDQYDi4[/YOUTUBE]

Edited October 8, 2018 by ViruzDeath

[Reflected]

Yeah, sure, let's cut the cat's claws and teeth before trying to fight it :P

 

The F-18 is a much more modern plane, even if the Tomcat has Phoenixes. Also, please don't reinforce the "Phoenix= only good against massive lumbering bombers" misconception. It's not a death ray, but it was certainly a capable missile.

[BuzzU]

I'll dazzle them with aerobatics. :)

[Banzaiib]

F-14 radar should be much more vulnerable to the notch... You could just beam the F-14 then launch a 9x. JHMCS sees all! MUHUAHAHAH!!!!

[Chewie_77]

Yeah, sure, let's cut the cat's claws and teeth before trying to fight it :P

 

The F-18 is a much more modern plane, even if the Tomcat has Phoenixes. Also, please don't reinforce the "Phoenix= only good against massive lumbering bombers" misconception. It's not a death ray, but it was certainly a capable missile.

 

I guess the stereotype is reinforced simply because the missile was only once used in aerial combat against fighters by US F-14s in the late 90s without scoring any hits.

 

Since the missile is also launched from farther away it also means there's more time to perform evasive maneuvers to avoid it or break lock assuming your RWR was able to warn you early enough.

 

If I was being locked up at range by an aerial target I could not see on my scope I'd definitely assume F-14 and a Phoenix or 2 were coming my way.

 

The missile does have a big warhead though so even if you were able to avoid a direct hit via maneuvering the warhead might still do some damage at a distance. It'll be interesting for sure and I hope MP servers allow the Phoenix to be used for some time to understand if it's too OP or not for MP.

[KIO1606688872]

I guess the stereotype is reinforced simply because the missile was only once used in aerial combat against fighters by US F-14s in the late 90s without scoring any hits.

 

Since the missile is also launched from farther away it also means there's more time to perform evasive maneuvers to avoid it or break lock assuming your RWR was able to warn you early enough.

 

If I was being locked up at range by an aerial target I could not see on my scope I'd definitely assume F-14 and a Phoenix or 2 were coming my way.

 

The missile does have a big warhead though so even if you were able to avoid a direct hit via maneuvering the warhead might still do some damage at a distance. It'll be interesting for sure and I hope MP servers allow the Phoenix to be used for some time to understand if it's too OP or not for MP.

 

You don't have to launch from far away, just out of range of the amraam is deadly enough as is. Evasive maneuvers at range aren't really usefull, considering you'll likely still be within NEZ if the attacker was smart. It's a bigger stick, it will gain respect quickly.

 

The ones launched in combat were duds, doesn't mean it's a garbage missile, it just means it was a dud. Extremely small test sample in combat, but obviously worked well in testing/training.

 

Iran had success with the Phoenixes provided to them, at least 78 victories on MiG 21s, 23s, 25s, Mirage F-1, Super E, and also including shooting down two anti-ship missiles.

 

It was also the first missile to kill a 6G maneuvering target.

[Vilab]

 

If I was being locked up at range by an aerial target I could not see on my scope I'd definitely assume F-14 and a Phoenix or 2 were coming my way.

.

 

that is the whole point of the AIM-54 being Fox-3, you don't know it is coming untill it goes pittbull

 

your RWR would be unable to tell you whether the F-14 is scanning, but is unable to see you, or is TWS guiding 60kg of explosive to you

[Cik]

i don't expect it will be unduly threatening unless launched at (relatively) close range. but maybe i'm drastically underestimating it's chaff resistance.

 

 

if it's anything like the -ER where it has a theoretically pretty great range but if anyone brushes the chaff button it goes dead immediately.

 

 

 

but maybe it will be the terror of the skies, who knows. just depends on how vulnerable to chaff it is, how allowable meme 6 phoenix loadouts are, and if the C gets banned or not.

 

 

i expect that on most reasonable servers the hornet and tomcat will have to be toned down. in particular, phoenix loadouts will probably be restricted to be operationally realistic (IE, you get 2-4 and not more than that) which limits your ability to deliver mass death from afar while being untouchable and gives the enemy some chance of making it to a zone where you are weak. hornet will probably lose the vast majority of it's ridiculous standoff weapons that could delete entire bases from half the map away- it may even lose HARMs because if they are nearly as capable as they are in falcon they will be SEAD god mode as the AI doesn't really utilize any tactics that can defeat them and will be outranged by them for the most part.

 

 

otherwise it will be just be blue rolling everything off the table forever with no counterplay possible even if red outnumbers blue significantly.

Edited October 8, 2018 by Cik

[Kev2go]

when F18 is out of EA, F18 Drivers will basically have GOds eye view of the battlefield thanks to LINK 16, due to anything with Link16 or Gateway compatibility contributing to Hornet drivers picture.

 

with coordination theyl probably be able to set up ambushes against F14s since they can basically fly with thier radars off. to not blare off thier foes RWR and allow AWACS and another Bait Hornet flight to seek out targets for the ambushers

 

At close range the F14 will be absolutely toast give the Hornets Low alpha, and the fact it will have AIm9x and JHMCS. not to mention the Iranian based F14A's would have the crappy TF30 engines that are underpowered and prone to compressor stalls and not the F110s that the F14B and later versions had.

 

 

TLDR

 

F14A ( and B to a lesser degree) may as well be aircraft from another epoch. The Hornet might not be a fleet defense interceptor or have as long range missiles, or as long Flight endurance but is overall much more modern aircraft.

 

IMo i think things will be much more interesting matchup pitting a Hypthetical F15C Full fidelity Module, since it is Prime Air superiority fighter of the USAF, pitted against the Tomcat.

Edited October 8, 2018 by Kev2go

[OnlyforDCS]

The AIM54A entered service in 1974. Yeah, 1974! the C entered service in 1986.

 

There is no logical, real world reason why the AIM54 would be banned from the servers mentioned in the OP.

[Chewie_77]

that is the whole point of the AIM-54 being Fox-3, you don't know it is coming untill it goes pittbull

 

your RWR would be unable to tell you whether the F-14 is scanning, but is unable to see you, or is TWS guiding 60kg of explosive to you

 

The missile going active at ~11nm does give a few seconds time for immediate evasive maneuvers + countermeasures and then it becomes about how much energy the AIM-54 has left and what your SA is with regards to the missile.

 

I'd expect that the F/A-18 will have TWS by then too + Link-16 should paint a clearer picture for the pilot and result in enhanced SA over the Tomcat.

 

It's going to be a challenge regardless because the F-14 is going to get you to go defensive much earlier in the fight with one AIM-54 while he pushes you for a closer in kill.

 

The AIM54A entered service in 1974. Yeah, 1974! the C entered service in 1986.

 

There is no logical, real world reason why the AIM54 would be banned from the servers mentioned in the OP.

 

DDCS bans all models of the AMRAAM and BlueFlag bans the AIM-120C. I think they do it to keep battles a little closer-in and more dynamic as purely BVR work can get stale for some players, especially in somewhat earlier gen planes.

[Eagle7907]

you said... F-14? :pilotfly:

 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/L-4XsDQYDi4

 

 

 

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/embed/L-4XsDQYDi4[/YOUTUBE]

 

 

 

No, no, no.....

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[backspace340]

The F-14 also has datalink (Link-4 I believe) and will be fed targets from the E-2 and carrier - the Hornet won't have too much of an SA advantage (but it will have some - looks like the Tomcat's view is mainly of the forward hemisphere but the Hornet's is truly 360).

[Tobi1304]

i don't expect it will be unduly threatening unless launched at (relatively) close range. but maybe i'm drastically underestimating it's chaff resistance.

 

 

if it's anything like the -ER where it has a theoretically pretty great range but if anyone brushes the chaff button it goes dead immediately.

 

 

 

but maybe it will be the terror of the skies, who knows. just depends on how vulnerable to chaff it is, how allowable meme 6 phoenix loadouts are, and if the C gets banned or not.

 

 

i expect that on most reasonable servers the hornet and tomcat will have to be toned down. in particular, phoenix loadouts will probably be restricted to be operationally realistic (IE, you get 2-4 and not more than that) which limits your ability to deliver mass death from afar while being untouchable and gives the enemy some chance of making it to a zone where you are weak. hornet will probably lose the vast majority of it's ridiculous standoff weapons that could delete entire bases from half the map away- it may even lose HARMs because if they are nearly as capable as they are in falcon they will be SEAD god mode as the AI doesn't really utilize any tactics that can defeat them and will be outranged by them for the most part.

 

 

otherwise it will be just be blue rolling everything off the table forever with no counterplay possible even if red outnumbers blue significantly.

 

6 Phoenix Missiles are operationally realistic, as long as you don‘t intend to come back with all of them. The reason they mostly carried only two or four is that they would have been to heavy to land and the AIM54 is a bit expensive to be thrown away just to get down.

In an expected fight it would be an absolute logical loadout.

[Pikey]

This fight will fundamentally turn into what the F-18 versus the Mirage is currently optimally played by Mirage pilots, with slightly less SA on both sides.

 

 

That is (in case you are not actually playing and still theorising) that the airframe with the smaller weapon range will attempt to close the difference with a combination of turning, beaming and terrain masking and otherwise lower manouvers in order to get their weapons close enough to equalise the tradeoff.

 

 

It should result in a net lower engagement altitude from the F-18 in order to exploit the F-14's less capable look-down. It might end up like the older PvP with the Su-27 vs the F-15 we did some years back when that's all we had.

 

 

Currently AI is all we have to play against and this doesn't work, because... well DCS... but if you try the Mirage right now versus the F-18C with real pilots, any pilot with an ounce of common sense will be trying to ease into WEZ with a combination of notching, feinting and masking in order to get the last 10nm equalised.

 

 

What server admins will do is see how this reality plays out with popularity and accede to demand, but it's not really relevant to the deeper parts fo the OP's question. There are also other threads on this with more contribution that are worth reading.

[backspace340]

What server admins will do is see how this reality plays out with popularity and accede to demand, but it's not really relevant to the deeper parts fo the OP's question. There are also other threads on this with more contribution that are worth reading.

 

You can be pretty confident DDCS will restrict the Phoenix (and the server owner has already said as much) - the missiles are restricted for gameplay not for historical accuracy. There is a 'Hardcore' server running PG that allows each aircraft to take two Fox 3s (or the ETs/ERs), so people will be able to play the same gameplay with the Phoenix on there.

[Rom_un]

In a SP scenario over Ormuz map, against Iranian F-14 equipped with AIM-54C (or Fakour-90), with no weight carrier landing limit.; what will be the tactic of BVR fight with the F/A-18 ?

 

I’ve tried many that didn’t worked, unable to notch the F-14 radar, and phoenix are better than many missiles in DCS. 4 Vs 4 simulations always give me a 4-0 result.

[Cik]

6 Phoenix Missiles are operationally realistic, as long as you don‘t intend to come back with all of them. The reason they mostly carried only two or four is that they would have been to heavy to land and the AIM54 is a bit expensive to be thrown away just to get down.

In an expected fight it would be an absolute logical loadout.

 

 

nah. if you are flying fleetCAP it's 100% reasonable that even if you are actually in a war you will be flying plenty of milk runs where nobody is actually going to engage you. how many phoenixes are even on your average mid-80s carrier? after a few weeks of flying how many sorties a day will they'll all be in the water?

 

 

now, for alert fighters perhaps the story is different. if you are going to keep them on the deck until the backfires are no shit coming right at you.

 

 

 

6 phoenix is realistically all players are going to fly if given the choice, but that's just because it's optimal in terms of killing power, not because it makes sense operationally.

 

 

it would be better operationally to just put more tomcats up with 2-4 phoenix than a smaller number with 6. if you were in a situation where you thought you weren't going to have enough missiles to protect the fleet, you would just add more carriers or destroyers.

 

 

 

i mean take that with a grain of salt because WWIII never happened in 1980, but you know.

 

 

now there's nothing historically wrong with the hornet's S/O kit, it's just that red has no counter besides REALLY stacking air defenses which means that every non-hornet platform will be made irrelevant and that red has no counterbalance as none of their stuff is modeled. A/A wise, F-14 is likely to be pretty egregious already. red has very little chance even against AMRAAM without significant skill/numbers advantage, F-14 AIM-54 long pole may simply obsolete red fighters entirely, though it depends on how good jester is at actually handling MP environment, and what specific quirks the -54/radar has that can be exploited. i'm sure that after a day/week/month/year of complaining on both sides it'll shake out.

 

 

but i mean maybe not. just because apocalypse hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it will never happen :D

[backspace340]

I think you'll find the F14 being mainly a red aircraft in MP servers (that seems to be the plan for BF & DDCS). It's a good way of balancing capabilities out without being too unrealistic (although with some fudging of A/B variants until the A is out).

[Magot]

when F18 is out of EA, F18 Drivers will basically have GOds eye view of the battlefield thanks to LINK 16, due to anything with Link16 or Gateway compatibility contributing to Hornet drivers picture.

 

with coordination theyl probably be able to set up ambushes against F14s since they can basically fly with thier radars off. to not blare off thier foes RWR and allow AWACS and another Bait Hornet flight to seek out targets for the ambushers

 

At close range the F14 will be absolutely toast give the Hornets Low alpha, and the fact it will have AIm9x and JHMCS. not to mention the Iranian based F14A's would have the crappy TF30 engines that are underpowered and prone to compressor stalls and not the F110s that the F14B and later versions had.

 

 

TLDR

 

F14A ( and B to a lesser degree) may as well be aircraft from another epoch. The Hornet might not be a fleet defense interceptor or have as long range missiles, or as long Flight endurance but is overall much more modern aircraft.

 

IMo i think things will be much more interesting matchup pitting a Hypthetical F15C Full fidelity Module, since it is Prime Air superiority fighter of the USAF, pitted against the Tomcat.

In real situation will be F-18 simple jamming F-14A by advanced ECM, because have much better avionics. No big deal. :)

But in-game we will see, there is no "correct" ECM systems ..

And as you wrote had untrustworthy TFS30 engines.

As next thing AIM-54s are good only against low-maneuvering targets or old soviet fighter planes. Not exactly against advanced fighters like F-18.

But version D with planned amraams was much better ..

Edited October 9, 2018 by Magot

[CarbonFox]

The only discrepancy with the IRL IRIAF F-14A is that they never received the updated Phoenix. They'd still be using the original AIM-54A which I don't think is modeled in DCS. I'm rather curious to see how the F-14B and a fully-functional Hornet could cooperate on Blue-side.

[Banzaiib]

I think you'll find the F14 being mainly a red aircraft in MP servers (that seems to be the plan for BF & DDCS). It's a good way of balancing capabilities out without being too unrealistic (although with some fudging of A/B variants until the A is out).

 

I was thinking this exact thing. I can totaly see DDCS having red only F-14's for balancing out the blue F-18's. They'd be especially good at taking out the AWACS feeding F-18 data links.

 

MP server balance will be an interesting thing as the F-18 develops and the F-14 comes on line. Drex knows what he's going in this regard with the DDCS server. He's not just going to ban the aim-54 and HARM... he's going to make it interesting.

Edited October 9, 2018 by Banzaiib

[Capn kamikaze]

I'm not too worried about the AIM-54, it was never designed to be used against fighters primarily, it was for killing bombers and cruise missiles, which have much more limited ability to evade fire, hence why the F-14 often carried a mix of AIM-9, 7 and 54's.

 

If it's modelled right then there will be little point in the 54 being banned on servers, because I think people will soon learn how to evade them.

[Magot]

They'd still be using the original AIM-54A

No, IIAF received a export version with downgraded ECCM. It was a bit differ.

Not like AIM-54A used US NAVY. Anyway, it was still dangerous weapon.