Question on time frame of the F14B

[Digitalvole]

The last 30 years have been a bit of a military anomaly, good while it lasted but now sadly over, where the west didn’t really have much to worry about when it came to air to air. 

Do you guys think the F14B (and A for that matter) would have been kept around for as long as it was if there was a peer/near-peer air threat to contend with rather than just strike missions?

If not, at what point do you think it would have been getting outclassed by the Russian/Chinese competition and therefore retired?

Basically I’m trying to choose a timeframe for my next Liberation campaign

[near_blind]

Kind of a double edged sword. The B was never intended to be anything but an interim step between the A and the D. The plan was for the entire fleet to be totally replaced with F-14Ds, be they newbuilt or older Tomcats remanufactured into the new standard. 

If the Communist Block had managed to stave off it's rapid decline in the late 80s and the tensions remained high, you might have seen some hypothetical with an all D, or partial D/B fleet equipped with AMRAAM and AIM-152. Then again maybe not. Noted asshole and enemy of the forum, Dick Cheney, hated the Cat 

 

As for when the F-14 is overmatched by the competition. For China, I dunno, we don't have a great representation of the PLA. How many PL-12s are you comfortable fighting?

For Russia? REDFOR likes to complain DCS is unfair because there are no "contemporary competing aircraft". Sad fact of the matter is until about 2010, the Su-27S of 1980s Flanker we have in game was pretty much the best they had in serial production. After 2010 you start seeing fun things like upgraded 27s and 30s, and eventually the 35. Missile wise the Russians never bought into the R-77, really. It was all R-27s until the 77M and later R-77-1 appear in the mid to late 2010s.

 

[DD_Fenrir]

Good Q.

My 2 cents; depends.

By all accounts the AIM-120D is matching/exceeding the AIM-54 in capability so that in itself prompts the big question: why do we need the Cat? 

A big factor was Dick Cheney's hatred for Grumman (earned or otherwise). Even if a peer threat to the fleet existed one suspects he'd have found even a tenuous reason to axe the Cat. (see AIM-120D....)

Cost of keeping the Turkey fleet flying was a big needle in the Navy's budget so...

But.

The F-14Ds were certainly hugely capable and it took a while for the Super Hornet to get the systems necessary to fully replicate them (avionics and mission capability -wise).

There wasn't a budget to upgrade any further A's or B's to D standard so I suspect the A's and B's would not have lasted much longer. The B's maybe 2-5 years beyond the actual 2006 decomm; the D's could have been useful for another 5-10 years maybe?

Hey, we don't have an official Super hornet in game so you can easily make the hypothetical case that the Navy weren't completely happy with the performance or capabilities of the F/A-18E or F as offered in 1995 and asked Boeing to spend a few more years sorting it out (getting pylons that didn't double as airbrakes for a start....!) and ensuring that it matched the capabilities of the F-14D, and this obliged the Navy to hold on to F-14s a bit longer than 2006.

Edited August 2, 2022 by DD_Fenrir

[JupiterJoe]

26 minutes ago, Digitalvole said:

Basically I’m trying to choose a timeframe for my next Liberation campaign

You made a Campaign?  What's it called?  Is it available for purchase?  I'm looking for a new challenge.

[Digitalvole]

6 minutes ago, JupiterJoe said:

You made a Campaign?  What's it called?  Is it available for purchase?  I'm looking for a new challenge.

Oh no dude, starting one in Liberation. Have to choose who’s on each side and what time frame there units will be.

Check out Liberation if you haven’t already, it’s free
 

@near_blind & @DD_Fenrir thanks for the detailed replies! I shall digest them after I’ve made the kiddy winks there dinner

Edited August 2, 2022 by Digitalvole

[RustBelt]

2 hours ago, Digitalvole said:

The last 30 years have been a bit of a military anomaly, good while it lasted but now sadly over, 

Wait, why is it over? The West has shown no evidence that it plans to stop punching down on 5 airframe fleet podunk countries if it feels like it. 
 

It certainly has no intention of engaging with “those other guys” in their current temper tantrum. Nor did they in Syria.

The west will still only pick fights it knows it can win. Meaning things were always going to go this way with the Tomcat. Once the F-22 program got started, a big reflecty muscle-car of a plane had its days numbered. Unlike the A-10, there were reasonable replacements for the interceptor turned strike fighter with the big thirsty engines.

 

The D was supposed to just fill in the gap for the Navy “F-22” that ended up never happening because the Cold War was on hold.

[9thHunt]

Considering that the similar vintage F-15 is still around and going strong, I think the Tomcat would have definitely stuck around if not for a certain politician

[JupiterJoe]

Think of all the spare parts that got scrapped, as well as the air-frames.  Heartbreaking.  Was it simply a case of the carriers being able to hold more F-18's?  

[AH_Solid_Snake]

You also have to consider range. At the moment with no real peer or air threat the CV is content to throw 60 Super Hornets into the fray and accept 1/3 of them will be refuelling the next 1/3 and the other 1/3 will be down getting turned around for the next sortie.

One huge thing thats gone unappreciated in the low end conflicts is the huge legs the F-14s had, see the War on Terror and the distances they were travelling to get over Afghanistan. 
 

 

[Uxi]

The Cheney thing is a meme at this point and not an accurate one.  

Cheney wasn't the main guy in DoD opposed to the F-14D. He was mostly echoing David Chu who's job was to weigh the merits of major weapon systems and argued the low rate production was simply to keep the Grumman line open.  He was right but did want to keep the rebuild program going. This is where Cheney's "job program" comment came from.

The issue was price and heavy maintenance requirement and diminishing  threat (and defense budget)  even before the Soviet Union fell so it would take the USSR getting much more aggressive to counteract that. 

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a282162.pdf

 

 

[IronMike]

1 hour ago, Uxi said:

The Cheney thing is a meme at this point and not an accurate one.  

Cheney wasn't the main guy in DoD opposed to the F-14D. He was mostly echoing David Chu who's job was to weigh the merits of major weapon systems and argued the low rate production was simply to keep the Grumman line open.  He was right but did want to keep the rebuild program going. This is where Cheney's "job program" comment came from.

The issue was price and heavy maintenance requirement and diminishing  threat (and defense budget)  even before the Soviet Union fell so it would take the USSR getting much more aggressive to counteract that. 

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a282162.pdf

 

 

You can still call Cheney Dick though.

To answer the topic though: there is nothing in DCS currently that would be too unrealistic to pit it against.

Edited August 3, 2022 by IronMike

[LanceCriminal86]

There were a few things going on in conjunction with Cheney and Chu, before during and after. In the 80s the light attack role was taken over by the Hornet, with the concept of the multirole strike fighter. You also had the sunsetting of the A-6E and the medium attack role, brought on by both the ending of the cold war, experiences in the Gulf War, and the oncoming Super Hornet program (plus the failure of Grumman's proposed replacement). Somewhere in there was the Air Force's ATF program and I believe considerations for a Naval ATF, and you also had the JSF program. All of which were being touted and pushed to eliminate as many aircraft types from inventory as possible to "keep costs down" and reduce maintenance. Those factors, plus Tailhook, led to a perfect storm situation for those decisions to happen. The senior officers from the fighter community soon found themselves swept up in Tailhook, with brass from the strike fighter community taking their places or so the tale goes. Now you have Hornet guys with all the ammunition they need to usher the Tomcat out the door and hang everything on the Super Hornet. Replace the F-14, F/A-18 A+/Cs, replace the A-6E and KA-6Ds, replace the EA-6B eventually even.

Of course Grumman was going to lose that "war" at that point. Effectively the decision was made further back as said above, but the years after slammed the door shut on that position being reversed, or their lifespan further extended.

I think the only way you'd have seen much different in history, would be 1) Tailhook scandal not happening, and 2) the A2G and particularly LANTIRN program starting further back. If the Tomcat had a precision strike capability during the Gulf War for example and all through Southern Watch and Northern Watch, perhaps it might have lived longer. Arguments could have been made further back that the Tomcat was providing an essential capability even above the Intruder with its speed and loiter time that would have made it worth keeping. Granted, I think even there we'd still have seen it out the door by the time the Super Hornets showed up, maybe a few years longer at the most. The amputation of the spare parts and related contracts meant they were already on borrowed time. Only by some miracle would the mythical "ground up rework" the Tomcat could have used been funded, because again the brass would still have looked at maintenance hours. 

Maybe that's the other thing that should have been pushed more, apparently the D models should have been treated less like the As and Bs. We see anecdotes that during OEF and OIF the D models were getting their maintenance hours down and uptime percentages at or even better than some of the Hornet squadrons they were alongside. It sounded like if that had been better tested and proven in the years before, perhaps Grumman and the Navy could have shown that it would be worth it to upgrade the fleet to the D to reduce maintenance overhead, leaving the Navy with two platforms that could do precision strike, long loiter times, and able to fill the fighter and fleet defense role. I think the latest you see the Tomcat go, even in a fictional alternate history, is 2008 or so. Even with the war in Afghanistan and Iraq still going and the money still flowing through the DOD, by then the Super Hornets would still have taken over. I don't think even a major strategy shift towards the South China Sea region would have changed that.

 

The only thing that saves or drastically extends the Tomcat's life is an earlier push by Grumman to get the maintenance down to the Hornet's level and maybe precision strike in the late 80s/90s when the A+ is introduced.

[Uxi]

That same study indicates the main justification was NATF.  Without that, Super Hornet just can't match the capability and no one signed up to reduce capability.  They did pull a fast one by convincing Congress it was essentially an upgrade when  there was really very little parts commonality. The only way Grumman could have matched that was with ASF-14 which would have been the "Super Hornet version" of the Tomcat where it looked kinda the same but had modern less maintenance intensive internals, access panels, etc.  Even so, the cost factor is the biggest issue and hard to get around even if maintenance is the same.   

That said, SECNAV Lehman is the one who probably started the avalanche, though as he was the one who started the F-14D(R) program and had the initial build cut from 304 to 127 and was later quite critical of Super Hornet as not being a suitable replacement, but his priority was the 600 ship navy... 

Part of the bigger picture is some hadn't forgotten that Grumman had to refuse one of the earlier orders in the 70s claiming they were losing money on each plane and tried to force the government to renegotiate the contract.

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/08/28/archives/troubled-grumman-sees-f14-as-its-key-problem-troubled-grumman-sees.html

https://nytimes.com/1975/01/19/archives/has-grumman-pulled-out-of-its-tailspin-grumman-saga.html

They were projecting a 25-30 year lifespan for new F-14D though, which would have put the full procurement until 2020 or so.  More than enough to see parallel upgrades to F-15E on the radar, LANTIRN and nav pods, etc and if that was done, then almost certainly something like ST-21 as an F-14E.

[Digitalvole]

Lots of food for thought, nice one gents. It’s got me wondering how the F18C/E would have fared. All that refuelling is not a problem if your not being chased down by a fox 3 wielding foe.

Would have to disagree that things are going to carry on as they once did though, be great to be wrong on that mind.

Dick Cheney, haha, has that guy got any friends? I think he had one once but he shot him by mistake(?) on a hunting trip, what a guy!

I clearly need to get better in the Tomcat. It truly is a masterpiece and my favourite jet to jump in and fly but I really struggle in combat. From SA to getting my missiles to hit things, I find it a real challenge (aka I feel pretty useless.)

[DD_Fenrir]

18 minutes ago, Digitalvole said:

I clearly need to get better in the Tomcat. It truly is a masterpiece and my favourite jet to jump in and fly but I really struggle in combat. From SA to getting my missiles to hit things, I find it a real challenge (aka I feel pretty useless.)

Where's your struggles Vole, BVR, WVR or both?

If it's getting Phoenixes to connect at range, then I suggest waiting till the range to target is 40nm or under; those 100nm shots are for lumbering, fat, dumb and happy targets that have no idea you're there and cooperating so hard they must have a death wish. For more dangerous foes make sure you're Mach 1+ at ~30K ft or higher to give your AIM-54s as much energy as you can. Don't forget to crank, and prepared to either turn back in with a follow up shot or go notch defensive if they're launching on you.

Getting toward the WVR envelope (under 20nm) adopt a STT mentality; at this stage I like to go PAL and maybe get a Phoenix in at any target >10nm. 

Sparrows work best at under 7-8nm if the target is hot. If flanking hold that to 3-4nm. If cold, 2nm. Don't forget to use the VDI; the closer you can get the inverted T symbol to the centre of the green circle the best chance you have the missile will hit. Missiles still need lead! The less energy they are obliged to expend to generate the necessary lead to make intercept after they leave your plane, the more they'll have available at the terminal phase to manoeuvre or chase down your target; if you can do that work for them your Pk will increase. 

Sidewinders are good ~5nm head in if you're using Mikes, but if your chasing the target tail on 1-2nm max. SEAM lock is a great tool in the Cat - use it! Again it will provide cueing in the VDI to allow you to do work so the missile doesn't have to.

[Spurts]

The AF equivalent to what the Navy did would be "Hey, the Eagle is expensive so we are going to just use the Viper for every mission until we get enough F-22s to replace the Eagle role.  We don't need air superiority F-15s when an F-16 with an AMRAAM killed a MiG-25.  Get rid of the F-15Es too, they are too costly to operate and F-16s are perfectly adequate strike planes.  You don't need the ability to carry a heavy load far when you have stand off munitions anyway." 

[Uxi]

The F-22 did sort of play out like the F-14D though.  Lowering the initial order increased the price per plane to amortize development. That was done twice with F-22, which made them individually so expensive that it was politically vulnerable.  Like F-14D there was also a political fight to keep it going but the administration shut it down after that.  Like the F-14D there's no peer replacement that has the same capability.

Now they're talking about reducing F-35 orders because of the price which we should know that will only make the remaining order more expensive (and again gets nothing to replace it with).

Edited August 3, 2022 by Uxi

[AH_Solid_Snake]

Its even more bizarre considering how fast the NATF program got shut down.

The AF can at least fall back on the F-15EX but thats less to do with their own foresight and more to do with foreign sales keeping the doors open for 20 years.

[Spurts]

2 hours ago, Uxi said:

Now they're talking about reducing F-35 orders because of the price which we should know that will only make the remaining order more expensive (and again gets nothing to replace it with).

 

The irony being that the F-35A is cheaper to purchase and operate than anything other than the F-16V, and then the difference in purchase price is 10%.  If the US can't afford F-35s then it can't afford anything and should give up on power projection entirely (forcing a treaty break with NATO, S.Korea, and Japan) and consolidate to national defense only.  

[lunaticfringe]

12 hours ago, Uxi said:

Part of the bigger picture is some hadn't forgotten that Grumman had to refuse one of the earlier orders in the 70s claiming they were losing money on each plane and tried to force the government to renegotiate the contract.

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/08/28/archives/troubled-grumman-sees-f14-as-its-key-problem-troubled-grumman-sees.html

https://nytimes.com/1975/01/19/archives/has-grumman-pulled-out-of-its-tailspin-grumman-saga.html

 

Grumman wasn't claiming; they were literally losing millions on every F-14 from the initial fixed price order based on the energy crisis from 1973 forward.  The initial contracted buy covered multiple blocks across years, Navy wouldn't renegotiate, and it was ultimately the sale of airframes to Iran that kept them afloat.

[IronMike]

With upgrades, the F-14D or even a newer iteration, with AMRAAMs, multirole, etc etc could have well extended into the same time frame as the Super Hornet imo. The one thing the Navy sorely misses with the Tomcat is loiter time, which as one can imagine, is very crucial over water. The Tomcat also was the more stable air to ground platform and outperformed the Hornet in that sense, minus lacking the newer bells and whistles. But, it was not to happen, so it is what it is.

As for DCS, everything we have so far, is still well within both a real and fictional timeframe for the -B. Even once the Eurofighter drops, it will be still within or close to those limits.

[LanceCriminal86]

The "LANTIRN" episode of the Tomcast paints a pretty nasty picture of how hard the Hornet Mafia was working to kill the Tomcat, and kill the Intruder, and literally anything else that threatened their budget. If it weren't for quite literally the right people being in the right jobs at the right time, it would never have happened. "The Guy" knowing the back end of the AWG-9 and where and how you could piggyback to listen in on the WCS and INS, the guy knowing that there was a pile of A-12 control sticks, the other guy loaning a LANTIRN pod for testing, and guys like Dave Parsons who had worked on AIM-9X and other projects trying to get digital stuff working with analog jets. All while actively having admirals making threats and stealing every last dollar they could to ensure it couldn't be funded, tested, etc.

Even more sad when you consider the light attack community that became the strike fighter community was mostly the A-7E guys, the "we don't need a RIO/WSO" guys. And when the Intruder went away a lot of those BNs and pilots actually ended up on the Tomcat side, bringing their strike experience to enhance the training for the Tomcat RAG and LANTIRN stuff.

OH, and the PTID was a separate effort from LANTIRN, it just ended up that they went together perfect. PTID was part of separate upgrade programs to replace the old TIDs that you couldn't even read or see anymore. I believe that effort was called the MCAP Mod (Multi-Mission Capable), which was happening on one of the former VF-74 jets in 1995 at VX-9/Pt. Mugu at about the same time that LANTIRN was happening out at Oceana.

[AH_Solid_Snake]

It happens in any organisation thats used to a nigh unlimited budget suddenly having to pull the belt in. Whether its inter-service or inter-platform everyone is fighting over the same limited supply of money.

At that point promises start being made with no real intention to deliver them because once we are the only game in town you don’t have alternatives left.

Famously the Royal Navy lost their aircraft carriers to the RAF budget because the air force moved Australia a few thousand miles on a map to prove land based aircraft could cover the globe. When the Falklands war happened shortly thereafter this was shown to be complete hogwash, but by then the carriers are scrapped.

[SkateZilla]

On 8/2/2022 at 9:28 PM, Uxi said:

The Cheney thing is a meme at this point and not an accurate one.  

Cheney wasn't the main guy in DoD opposed to the F-14D. He was mostly echoing David Chu who's job was to weigh the merits of major weapon systems and argued the low rate production was simply to keep the Grumman line open.  He was right but did want to keep the rebuild program going. This is where Cheney's "job program" comment came from.

The issue was price and heavy maintenance requirement and diminishing  threat (and defense budget)  even before the Soviet Union fell so it would take the USSR getting much more aggressive to counteract that. 

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a282162.pdf

 

 

 

 

The reason there's a Chenney meme and not a Chu meme,
is because when all was said and done, Chenney mentioned it, Constantly... Even decades later... in a question asked about Block III SH's he mentioned the "Jobs Program" again.

On the topic of Tomcats, if the A2A Threat was there, they likely would've only kept D's Flying for the Intercept Role, and used SH for everything else.
D's had tested upgrades that didnt get deployed to Fleet due to the Aircraft being retired, but rest assured had it been pushed back 15 years, the Last D cats likely would've been called 'RaamCats. as I believe I remember a pilot from VX9 Saying they loaded the tomcat up with at least 10 Amraams (8 in underbelly via LAU Prototype, and 2 on the Glove stations), with ability to add 2 more.

However the biggest downfall wasnt congress/Chenney, it was the operating cost, the design was simply put, full of holes.

That being said,
A prototype stealth tomcat for 5th Gen decendantcy (is that even a word) likely would have looked like the F-22N Concept (Naval F-22 w/ Swing Wings) and Lockheed Martin doesnt play when it came down to time on the line per airframe.

 

[LanceCriminal86]

I remember the 90s as a military brat, the budget cuts definitely hit pretty hard. But even before Clinton it sounds like the Tomcat was marked for death. Tailhook and the Clinton budget cuts just helped drive some bigger nails in.