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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.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 10 2018, @01:14AM (19 children)
But the F-14's sucked anyway, just like the F-111's did. The more moving parts in an aircraft you have, the more of a maintenance-hog it is, and for obvious reasons.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @01:20AM (8 children)
Considering the lengths the US gov is going through to keep them out of Iran's hands shows what sort of plane it is. The Iranians at any time could have probably bought as many Migs as it wanted. Yet it has not. We only retired them because they are expensive. But the more expensive programs take more precedence.
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Saturday March 10 2018, @02:21AM (7 children)
What the hell are you talking about? We sold them to them in large numbers.
The US isn't going to any lengths at all.
Iran retired most of them because we wouldn't sell them parts any more and they had "parts" out way more than half the fleet trying to keep the other about a third of them flying. This in spite of having no combat activity other than training since the Iran/Iraq war ended. With a working supply chain they would still be flying them in Iran today.
They actually were a better ground based aircraft than carrier based. They weren't retired from our Navy due to service issues, the swing wing never had any significant issues. It had weight issues, and landing gear issues. With Tomcats aboard the carrier air wing was reduced in size because they are much bigger and heavier. They beat up the decks. Wing swing also limited hard point carrying capacity. Bomb/Missiles had to be mounted inboard of the pivot point. Compare that to an FA 18 with stores all the way to the wingtips.
The FA/18 is about 2/3rds of a Tomcat in terms of range and bomb load and weight. It is still a formidable opponent. But since we aren't making parts for them any more its days are numbered.
BTW, the submission by Arik is a reprint of a 2015 story [warisboring.com], which was old news then, and hasn't improved any with age.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @04:25AM
The Iranian gov't changed after the initial sale. The new gov't wants to blow US and Israel up.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday March 10 2018, @04:45AM
The US has gone to great lengths to prevent Iran from procuring replacement parts from us. Many of our old planes are maintained at the 'boneyard' and could still be resurrected if needed, while others have been sold off for other uses. F-14s are an exception. A few parts and pieces have made it to Iran, and the effort to prevent them from getting more led to the pentagon paying a contractor extra to, not salvage, but destroy all the old airframes that one would expect to see at the boneyard, and all the spare parts that could be located were destroyed as well.
Very expensive equipment the taxpayer purchased, maintained, and then paid extra to destroy.
No, we went to no lengths at all, clearly you are correct.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @05:29AM (1 child)
Perhaps you should re-read the submission and its linked article. They are also not flying them off aircraft carriers.
We pretty much tripped over ourselves to sell them in the first place. Now we spend decent amount of time and money making sure they can not fix them. As per the article and legend.
They were decent enough aircraft *for their time*. They have been pretty much been superseded in every way. Including the most important way. Making sure our aircraft companies make boatloads of tax payer money.
I would considering shredding the existing remaining fleet instead of leaving them to sit in the desert sun fairly extraordinary lengths. *very* few of our planes we do that with. Even the 'crappy' f111, f4s, and f18s. There are fleets of them in the desert sun waiting for 'maybe we will use them'.
It had weight issues, and landing gear issues
The f18 and its sister plane the f16 were the f35 of their day. Clunky and bug ridden until years of upgrades and fixes made them worth using. The F-14 was no exception.
Bomb/Missiles had to be mounted inboard of the pivot point.
The f-14 was basically designed around delivering the AIM-54 missile and decent dog fighting capabilities. Thats it. A general one size fits all plane that they have been trying to come up with for years (and still have not) The AIM-54 was a lesson from the Vietnam war where the armed forces no longer wanted to dog fight. They wanted over the horizon shots basically blow them up before they even see you. It was an interesting strategy that we use even today.
The f-18 made a much better air craft carrier plan due to its smaller size and lighter weight and shorter range missile platforms. But as you pointed out the f-14s were not exactly good planes for being near the water. They were however decent air base strike craft which Iran uses them for. The MIGs however eventually outstripped them and the F-15/F-16/F-18 filled in that gap.
Iran retired most of them
If you read the article you will realize they have about half of them still flying. Up from the dozen or so they had about 20 years ago. They are still formidable craft. You should not dismiss it out of hand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @06:02AM
Thank goodiness that the USofA has the F-35, designed to go head to head and toe to toe and penis to penis, with a Soviet MiG! Problem, a F-14 could kick the F-35's ass. Even if, or perhaps especially if, Tome Cruz was flying it. Don't get me started on the "pilot-killer" other US plane.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @10:23AM
Compare with the replacement:
33720 kg for the F-14 D
29937 kg for the F/A-18 E/F
That's about 10% less. It's nothing to get excited about.
Note that the F-35 is not the replacement. That one replaces the F/A-18 A/B/C.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday March 10 2018, @04:07PM (1 child)
What are you talking about? The FA/18 is still in production. You can still buy a brand spanking new one. It'll be flying for decades yet (though perhaps not for the US though). As a matter of fact, Canada is pissed off at us at the moment because we won't sell them new FA/18's anymore after they committed to buying the F-35.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @11:06PM
You can still buy a brand spanking new [F/A-18]
Well, I don't know about that particular weapons system, but here's photographic evidence that you're on the right track.
The Right To Bear Arms [militaryhumor.net]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @01:23AM (3 children)
Don't worry, the new F-35s will replace everything with a sleek, unibody design. Inferior moving parts, like service hatches will be a thing of the past. And it will replace all airframes in all branches-- one design to rule them all! Think of the savings we will have with only one supple chain for all and everyone.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday March 10 2018, @02:11AM
Exactly what they said about the F-111.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @06:03AM
Of course you realize, a supple chain is only as strong as its most supple link.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @10:59PM
inferior moving parts, like service hatches will be a thing of the past
Eliminating edges is a big thing with "stealth" designs.
We previously discussed this aspect of plastic airplanes.
The F-35: A Gold-Plated Turkey [soylentnews.org]
To do something as rudimentary as replace a fuse, you have to cut a hole in the aircraft, do the required maintenance, then patch the hole with some nasty chemicals.
After that, you have to wait a few days for the glue to cure before you can fly the aircraft again.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @01:29AM (2 children)
So by your reasoning, a folded-paper glider is the optimal combat aircraft design.
Or perhaps a helium balloon?
Wizard! The World's Greatest Expert has done it again!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 10 2018, @02:06AM (1 child)
The optimal combat design is the Jew-bomber.
Napalm bombs with hooknose-seeing missiles. The Pope calls it the "peacemaker," but if the Jews found peace how would they convince the rest of the world to do their bidding?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday March 10 2018, @02:14AM
Well if the pederast-in-chief is against you must be doing *something* right.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @02:05AM (1 child)
The F-14 was a damn good plane. It wasn't perfect.
Today we make a different choice regarding the wing, but it wasn't unreasonable. Spreading the swing wing greatly improves the ability to carry a high load at low speeds, which is important for carrier operations. Folding the wing in allows easy below-deck storage, which matters for carrier operations, and of course allows more speed. Disadvantages are that a heavy mechanism is taking up space and will require maintenance. Overall, it isn't bad.
The plane give the navy some serious capability. It had range, speed, good radar, and lots of deadly weapons. It was the only plane that had the cooling supply lines needed to carry the Phoenix missile, which was a damn fine missile.
The F-14 wasn't quite the maintenance hog that the FB-111 was. The FB-111 had hard glassy steel around the swing wing joint. This was compact and lightweight and generally quite strong... but prone to crack propagation. The F-14 didn't have that issue.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday March 10 2018, @02:19AM
Still to this day unequaled, at least in terms of effective range.
Of course at this point I expect they are all clones, the originals would be too old to be reliable even if they survived. Clones with some minor improvements, in fact. So no one really knows for sure how they would perform. But it's a very large, sophisticated missile, designed to be fired from extremely long range and to turn into a gigantic cone of shrapnel at the end, and it would probably still hold up reasonably well.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Funny) by bob_super on Saturday March 10 2018, @02:09AM
We all saw the plane sucked: By the time you raise the seat to the max to accommodate Tom Cruise, the guy behind, who is at least 7 inches taller, ends up with his head in the canopy.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Snotnose on Saturday March 10 2018, @01:40AM
Seems to me the F-18 has the original 1.0 "software" rev, it could shoot pretty much anything out of the sky. Then it got 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc.
Meanwhile, the A10 has a respectable 4.3 rev, and the F-35 is stuck at trying to make 0.1.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @02:15AM (12 children)
Saudis and others have later versions of F-15, superior jet fighter.s.
Who wrote this nonsense? And why is SN so clueless?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @02:32AM
In the 70s, Iran was ruled by the US-installed Shah, of course they would be supplied with the US arms. Don't nobody teach history to the kids any more?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Arik on Saturday March 10 2018, @02:57AM (7 children)
It's far superior to the F-14 at ground attack. But you don't use the F-14 for ground attack.
The real question here is how does it compare at A2A? And at the time, it simply didn't. The F-14s we used to fly could eat the F-15s we started flying alive, no questions asked. However, our F-15s have been improved several times since then, and we aren't sure just how effectively the Iranian program has been at restoring/maintaining/extending the capability of their F-14s.
So if you're comparing the current, flying fleets, then we just don't know. Best case, their F-14s could be considerably better than many if not all currently flying F-15s on several important metrics for A2A. The Phoenix had an operational range of ~100 miles and a very good kill percentage was expected even against difficult targets using ECM chaff and evasive maneuvers. It's a very large missile, but not a crude one, every cubic millimeter was put to good use. It has its own radar and can also receive telemetry from other sources, and it makes a very large cone of shrapnel so it's quite well suited to hitting fuzzy probability fields (i.e. stealth contacts.)
In comparison the F-15 has a good variety of high performance short-range missiles available to it, but nothing comparable at long range.
Like just about anything else, there's no one 'best' here. Which fighter will win, in any future confrontation, will have a lot more to do with the situation (when and how does the situation come to the point someone is authorized to fire?) than with the capabilities of the planes or the pilots.
The article only says that it is 'one of' the best A2A fighters in the Gulf, and by any standard, that is undeniably true.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday March 10 2018, @03:01AM
TLDR even if the F-15 is considered 'better' by applicable standards, that would not contradict the article.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @03:05AM (4 children)
You are full of shit. F-15 was the straight up the top-dog air superiority fighter, F-15E is the later fighter-bomber version. F-14 was straight-up outmatched in a dog fight against F-15.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Arik on Saturday March 10 2018, @04:38AM (3 children)
Am I?
"F-15 was the straight up the top-dog air superiority fighter"
That's what *you* say.
Here's wikipedia. Not the best source but you understand it's widely considered superior to 'AC pulled it out his arse' so it gives a relevant datapoint.
"The McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) F-15E Strike Eagle is an American all-weather multirole strike fighter[4] derived from the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle.[...]"
There IS some reference to a conflict of priorities, with pressure from some quarters for more focus on A2A than the plane it replaced (the F-4 Phantom AKA "Flying Brick" which was extremely successful in a similar role - a light bomber that didn't need escorts against second string opponents) but that's absolutely consistent with the picture I painted. They can definitely fill an A2A role.
But when they entered service, the F-15 relied on the AIM-7 "Sparrow" for it's *longer range* A2A ability. This was a small radar-guided missile with an operational range of less than 7 miles. Compared to the 100 mile operational range of the Phoenix.
"F-14 was straight-up outmatched in a dog fight against F-15."
Yes, that's quite true. The F-14 was not designed to dogfight. It was designed to kill you many miles away from dogfight range.
Look, you have an original F-15, you might have gotten 4 sparrows and 4 sidewinders for your loadout. The F-14 was flying with 4 phoenix and 4 sidewinders. If we start the engagement at long range, I can wait till 50 miles out to fire, guaranteeing that my Phoenix's get their chance even if you turn tail and hit the afterburners the moment they're launched. And they'll hit before anything you are carrying can be launched, even if you hit the afterburners and charge straight at me instead.
1 on 1, starting at long range, with original armaments, the F-14 absolutely outclassed the F-15 and you're a ridiculous idiot to suggest otherwise.
As I said already, respective states of upgrades and actual conditions of the engagement might or might not change that outcome.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @05:34AM (1 child)
Also remember the F-14 was not designed to fight F-15. They were designed to fight MIGs. They would have been deployed differently depending on the different stratagies the USSR would use. Quick blitzkrig like attacks you want something like a F-15 to haul ass in there and get on them. For a slower 'see it coming' attack you pick at them from longer ranges like with the f-14s.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday March 10 2018, @05:50AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @06:04AM
Your own wall-of-text comment contradicts much of your other wall-of-text comment. And go take a dump.
(Score: 2, Informative) by zimluura on Saturday March 10 2018, @07:20AM
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.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday March 10 2018, @03:33PM (1 child)
Why should every editor be an expert on military aircraft, space, genome editing, forensic science, computer hardware, security, the laws applicable in every country in the world, and all of the other topics that we cover? That's right - we are not. So why not give us the benefit of your (superior?) knowledge on this topic rather than make sarcastic comments? Or, better still, make some submissions on this topic yourself then you wouldn't have to ask "Who wrote this nonsense?" - you would only have to defend what you write from others' criticism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 12 2018, @01:50PM
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday March 10 2018, @06:15PM
In context, for example, Libya has about a dozen late-50s early-60s Mig-21 along with a VERY small handful (like two or three of each) of some 60s and 70s Russian jets. Supposedly they have ONE Su-17 from 1970, for example. Now if it can fly or not, who knows.
I looked into this with interest in the sense that you can cheaply make a military simulation board game with one token per actual Libyan aircraft seeing as there's only about 20.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @07:20AM