Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Saturday March 10 2018, @12:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the Holy-extended-support-Batman! dept.

On April 9, 1972, Iraq and the Soviet Union signed an historic agreement. The USSR committed to arming the Arab republic with the latest weaponry. In return for sending Baghdad guns, tanks and jet fighters, Moscow got just one thing — influence ... in a region that held most of the world's accessible oil.

[...] In neighboring Iran, news of Iraq's alliance with the Soviets exploded like a bomb.[...] The administration of U.S. president Richard Nixon was all too eager to grant the shah's wish in exchange for Iran's help balancing a rising Soviet Union. Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger visited Tehran in May 1972 — and promptly offered the shah a "blank check." Any weapons the king wanted and could pay for, he would get — regardless of the Pentagon's own reservations and the State Department's stringent export policies.

[...] That's how, starting in the mid-1970s, Iran became the only country besides the United States to operate arguably the most powerful interceptor jet ever built — the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, a swing-wing carrier fighter packing a sophisticated radar and long-range AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missiles.[...]Today Iran's 40 or so surviving F-14s remain some of the best fighters in the Middle East. And since the U.S. Navy retired its last Tomcats in 2006, the ayatollah's Tomcats are the only active Tomcats left in the world.

[...] The F-14 was a product of failure. In the 1960s, the Pentagon hoped to replace thousands of fighters in the U.S. Air Force and Navy with a single design capable of ground attack and air-to-air combat. The result was the General Dynamics F-111 — a two-person, twin-engine marvel of high technology that, in time, became an excellent long-range bomber in Air Force service.

[...] But as a naval fighter, the F-111 was a disaster. [...]In 1968, the Defense Department halted work on the F-111B. Scrambling for a replacement, Grumman took the swing-wing concept, TF-30 engines, AWG-9 radar and long-range AIM-54 missile from the F-111B design and packed them into a smaller, lighter, simpler airframe.

[...] Voila — the F-14.

TFA goes on in some depth both about the historical importance of the F-14 as it flew nearly 50 years ago, as well as the challenges Iran has faced in creating an entirely new supply chain, and eventually new upgrades, to keep a fleet of dedicated interceptors from the last century in service.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2, Informative) by zimluura on Saturday March 10 2018, @07:20AM

    by zimluura (4538) on Saturday March 10 2018, @07:20AM (#650440)

    It's important to make the distinction between the eagle and the strike eagle. The eagle is just air-to-air, the strike eagle, which packs lots more fuel, and is heavier and doesn't have the same maneuverability; is multi-role. After a while, probably related to the retirement of the A-6 intruder, the navy needed a long range bomber and started mounting bombs on the tomcat as part of the "bombcat" program. It performed this additional duty very well, the cat had/has long legs and a really good awg-9 or apg-71 radar. I've heard Iran uses it's cats in a sort-of mini-awacs role.

    On flight-sim forums this kind of thing comes up a lot. Generally it seems accepted that if it's beyond visual range (BVR) a cat with 2-4 phoenixes will make any other aircraft completely miserable. A possible exception is the F-22 with it's low RCS, though no-one is really sure since the US Gov didn't test it and won't tell us anything. Other than that the F-15 can fire the aim-120 aamram, the F-14 can (and has) fired it too, but no US F-14 squadrons were ever deployed with it. So medium range and closer stuff people typically give to the eagle. Can't really be sure still because sometimes the slower maneuvering speeds offered by the cats swing wing might best the eagle, but sometimes the eagles lighter weight might make all the difference.

    As for force projection: The cat was carrier based, and the eagle isn't. But the US has air-bases all over the place. In any case it's sad to see the F-14 go, it was fast, had great range, great radar, and long range missiles that could at the very least harass an opponent as it closed. But it was a difficult on maintenance, and now the navy has almost entirely gone to F-18 platforms, which probably helps them in logistical efforts.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Informative=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   2