
Why the Navy Misses the Old F-14 Tomcat, Despite All of the Problems - spking
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-navy-misses-old-f-14-tomcat-despite-all-problems-30367
======
poof131
As a former F-18 pilot, I don’t think v2 of the Tomcat is what we need.
Unmanned missile trucks are the future. The Joint Strike Turd should be the
last manned fighter. The services are bankrupting the country with the current
crop of do-it-all aircraft. Other countries are on a better track adding the
latest tech to older airframes and accepting their expendability. Carriers
themselves should be phased out for smaller more expendable ships that can
launch and recover the missile trucks.

~~~
latch
> The services are bankrupting the country

Superficially, it feels like the crux of the problem is that "supporting the
troops" has been subverted to mean not questioning civilian-driven military
policy. This has given them carte-blanche lest anyone be accused of not
supporting our boys.

(It's possible to be against a war (and the policies and politicians that set
that course) while still honoring/supporting soldiers and their family.)

~~~
FighterMafia
Military policy isn't civilian driven. The Pentagon drives the policy, as well
as the weapons decisions. The surprise is when the civilians actually do exert
some control--such as in preventing the USAF from scrapping the A-10, fighting
the USAF on cancelling the the JSTARs recap, or when they force extra Littoral
Combat Ships on the navy against their will :)

~~~
toomanybeersies
> Military policy isn't civilian driven

Except when a congressman from Ohio decides that they need more tanks so that
he can keep his voters employed [1], despite the army saying they have plenty
and don't know what to do with them. They have literally thousands of tanks
sitting in storage in the desert, and they're rolling tanks straight off the
production line into storage.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lima_Army_Tank_Plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lima_Army_Tank_Plant)

~~~
sbmthakur
I followed the link and came down to 2010s where I couldn't understand the
following sentence:

 _The army did not convince Congress that it did not need more tanks in 2011,
so in 2013, Congress funded an additional tanks to be built at a cost of
~$270M._

Usually, the military provides requirement and the civilian administration
provides the funds. How can the Congress order the Army to make more tanks
when they don't need it? I am not an American, so probably I am missing the
entire context here.

~~~
burfog
One of the troubles is that congress can't trust the army to admit the truth.
Congress must guess.

You see, the army is controlled by the president. The president may be from a
different political party or even be following his own personal agenda. The
army must strictly obey orders according to the chain of command, and the
president is at the top.

If the president dislikes tanks, he can order the army to place tanks into
storage and claim that the tanks are not wanted. Congress is left wondering if
the people in the army are stating their true expert opinions or just
following orders.

Here is a real case that leaked out:

[https://www.military.com/dodbuzz/2015/01/16/general-
praising...](https://www.military.com/dodbuzz/2015/01/16/general-praising-
the-a-10-to-lawmakers-is-treason) [https://www.military.com/daily-
news/2015/01/26/generals-a10-...](https://www.military.com/daily-
news/2015/01/26/generals-a10-treason-comment-sparks-concern-protected-
speech.html)

So yes, the military being ordered to lie to congress is a real thing.

~~~
snowwrestler
What? No. In case anyone wants an update on this case from 2015, that general
was fired. He was not implementing some sort of secret presidential policy
with his remarks.

The A10 is an example of Congress imposing civilian priorities on the
military. Despite its declining military utility, it's a popular plane, so
Congress won't let the military sunset it. It has nothing to do with the
president ordering the military to lie to Congress.

You're not even legally correct... while the president is the commander in
chief, Congress has oversight of military spending under Article I, Section 8.
An order to lie to Congress about spending would be an illegal order, and
military personnel are not compelled to follow illegal orders.

~~~
burfog
He was fired, though that isn't proof he got in trouble for what he was doing
or that he wasn't ordered to do that. He did things in a ham-handed way and it
leaked, causing a PR disaster.

The F22 looks to be a similar case. Here we don't have a crude effort getting
leaked, but that doesn't mean the situation was any more legitimate. It very
much seems that Obama was pushing to kill the F22 and the military marched to
his orders.

------
csharpminor
I'm not sure that a replacement F-14 is thinking big enough here. David Wise's
post in War is Boring, "The U.S. Navy’s Big Mistake — Building Tons of
Supercarriers" ([https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-u-s-navy-s-big-
mistake-...](https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-u-s-navy-s-big-mistake-
building-tons-of-supercarriers-79cb42029b8)) puts forth a strong argument as
to why the U.S. Navy needs a paradigm shift from carrier groups to increased
funding for drones and submarines. Carriers are an extremely costly asset that
are also vulnerable to cruise missiles (and those missiles are getting much
more advanced).

~~~
devoply
When your usual target for a beat down is a third world country that has no
real way to defend themselves against your attacks, strategy matters very
little as does the ability to simply deploy your weapons quickly and easily.

~~~
godzillabrennus
That sort of thinking dismisses the real threats.

We have a maginot line floating at sea.

~~~
prolikewh0a
>That sort of thinking dismisses the real threats.

Does the USA really have any threats that aren't just the USA being on the
offense?

~~~
King-Aaron
China.

It would be a folly to dismiss it.

~~~
lmm
China is massively invested in the US. It's hard to imagine any war scenario
being worth the cost.

~~~
FighterMafia
And its decoupling now. See: Trade War.

------
cyberferret
I am constantly amazed that Iran manages to keep some of their F-14s airworthy
decades after the US stopped supplying spare parts and knowledge.

Seems to me that they have worked out how to manufacture certain parts
themselves, or are getting them on the black market somehow.

For all the F-14s many faults, at least it proved to be a serviceable aircraft
that proved itself in an actual dogfight situation. Our own RAAF is slated to
receive F-35s soon, but I recall last year during an airshow to display their
capabilities to the local crowds, the aircraft could not return to their home
base to land and had to be diverted to an alternate due to... light rain.

Fair enough the aircraft were not certified for flight into inclement weather
yet, but it strikes me (pun intended) that the new generation of aircraft are
far more sensitive to issues like these than the older generation aircraft
that could be flown while held together with sticky tape and chewing gum.

~~~
dgudkov
There was an airshow recently in Toronto and all aircraft (including F35)
stopped flying because of a light rain. I guess it's a common precaution
measure on airshows.

~~~
cyberferret
I understand about not flying a display routine in inclement weather, fog or
low cloud (I am a former pilot).

In this case, then F-35 squadron had done the flyover at the actual airshow in
clear weather and were returning to their temporary airbase several hundred
miles away. They could not land back there due to the light rain over the base
and had to be diverted to a dry base elsewhere.

------
FighterMafia
Top Gun notwithstanding, the F-14 was one of the biggest pieces of garbage the
Navy ever fielded. Incredibly heavy, horrible E-M characteristics, expensive,
crappy swing wing (a wing design that was in-vogue in the 60s but has now been
discredited). Interestingly the Navy wanted to keep buying more and more of
these until the Fighter Mafia foisted the F-16 on the air force, and the Navy
reluctantly took a variant of the F-16 and blew it up in size and renamed it
the F-18 (the F-18 variant was actually the losing contender to be the F-16).
If it wasn't for the Fighter Mafia, the Navy would still be buying pieces of
crap like the F-14.

Interesting that nowhere in this article are the capabilities of the F-35
STOVL variant discussed, a weapon that the Navy is paying $100M+ for. That
they are skipping that discussion and jumping into why they need NGAD is just
disgusting.

Oh well, the Pentagon is just a giant building that buys weapons. Always
looking for the next piece of kit to blow cash on.

And just while I'm on this tirade...there are almost no use cases where you
need an airplane that goes faster than Mach 2. At that speed you are outside
the envelope where you can fire a missile. If you are trying to design a
fighter aircraft as an interceptor, you are doing it wrong...

~~~
poof131
STOVL is the marines, and the shiniest of the Joint Strike Turds. And I think
Boyd and the Fighter Mafia were actually wrong. For BVR air-to-air, I would
have rather had an F-14/F-15 with phased-array radar and AMRAAM, than an
F-16/18\. Although the F22 clubs them all like baby seals. The Vietnam lesson
was only good until missiles improved. Now the war is between missiles and
radar more than planes. And a fast missile truck is better than a slow missile
truck. Mach 2+ would be nice after you’ve shot your load and are running away.

------
sandworm101
FYI, Canada was _very_ close to getting f-14s. (Canada made an offer on the
F-14s sold to Iran.) Had that happened, no doubt Canada would still be flying
them today.

The 14 had range and speed, but using those abilities was very difficult.
Midair refueling is headache on a carrier. The faster and further the 14s had
to go, the more tanker aircraft had to be launched. They were great for fleet
defense, sticking close to home, but were ill suited for escorting bombers on
long ground attack missions. So as cold war battles on the high seas were
replaced by pocket ground wars, the 14 lacked purpose.

The 14s weapon system, the phoenix, would not be acceptable today. It was
meant for downing incoming waves of bombers over open ocean, where the enemy
is clearly identifiable. It wouldn't work well in a mixed environment such as
over Syria. So the 14 would need a new missile/radar to compliment its
speed/range.

~~~
jabl
> The faster and further the 14s had to go, the more tanker aircraft had to be
> launched.

Speaking of crazy refueling, does anything beat the Vulcan raid during the
Falklands war? 13(!) tankers supporting one bomber going from Ascension to
Port Stanley and back. Not only tankers refueling the bomber, but tankers
refueling tankers etc.

Here's a documentary about the raid:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBJ99bIhAVk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBJ99bIhAVk)

All this massive effort, and in the end one single bomb out of 12(24?) managed
to actually hit the runway.

~~~
jabl
Correction to myself, 11 tankers and 21 bombs.

------
Animats
Good article on this subject from Naval Institute Proceedings.[1] Non-carrier
surface combatants with missiles can be more useful than carriers against an
enemy that can fight back. There are just too many long-range weapons an
advanced enemy can shoot at a carrier - cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles,
ballistic missiles, long range torpedoes. Some of those will get through.
China, of course, has been investing heavily in land-based anti-ship missiles.
Those arrive from almost straight up at re-entry speeds, too fast to shoot
down.

[1] [https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2018-09/use-
carri...](https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2018-09/use-carriers-
differently-high-end-fight)

------
freediver
The article misses an important point - the brand. There was never an aircraft
before or after F14 that did so much for the Navy in terms of branding as
Tomcat did. Every kid in 1980s wanted to fly one.

~~~
twic
In the 1980s, i wanted to fly an F-4 Phantom. I suppose i was retro before
that was cool.

~~~
King-Aaron
I still have a real soft-spot for the Phantom, as a kid growing up the RAAF
used them (along with the F-111's). I remember seeing one pass overhead pretty
low while we were out on the boat fishing, and immediately made me want to go
down an air force career.

Then I went blind and decided if I couldn't fly a jet, then meh, I'd do
something different.

------
smacktoward
It sounds like what the Navy misses isn't so much the F-14 as the AIM-54
Phoenix
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-54_Phoenix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-54_Phoenix)),
the long-range air-to-air missile paired with the F-14 that let the Tomcat
knock down airborne threats much further out than the F-18 can.

~~~
cyberferret
Pity the Phoenix was never tested under actual battle conditions. Even the
shoot down of the Sukhois (which inspired the opening scene of Top Gun) was
done with the older AIM-9 Sidewinders.

Interesting proposition, but I don't know how effective BVR air to air
missiles would have been?

~~~
lmm
Isn't the problem that one rarely operates under RoE where BVR missiles would
be permitted? Particularly in these days of mostly-counterterrorism, hitting
the wrong target is worse than not hitting at all.

------
duxup
The F-14 wasn't a multi role plane though right?

I thought that was one of the issues, and would still be an issue today
wouldn't it?

~~~
dingaling
It was single-role for the first half of its life due to Navy policy. From
1992 onwards it was modified for multi-role, see 'Bombcat'.

------
SwingingShips
Because people like being able to hum "Danger Zone" while they are flying

~~~
mothsonasloth
Lanaaaaaaaa!

------
AtlasBarfed
The entire air force and navy are sitting ducks and totally obsolete in the
face of a somewhat modern cheap drone air force and antiship missles, to say
nothing of naval and submersible drones.

~~~
llukas
As long it is not submersible CIWS can shred pretty much anything to pieces:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-
in_weapon_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-in_weapon_system)

~~~
est
Those drones will swarm in with volumes. CIWS may be effective taking out
dozens of them but what if the came in hundreds or thousands?

> the best unclassified study we have suggests that if eight small drones
> attack an Aegis-equipped destroyer - which has various AA missiles as well
> as Phalanx - it would get about five of them. However, this is crucially
> dependent on the exact speed, size and stealthiness of the drones involved >
> [https://calhoun.nps.edu/handle/10945/28669](https://calhoun.nps.edu/handle/10945/28669)

CIWS need to find a way to scale. Maybe a grid?

------
crunchlibrarian
I'm so confused, we already spent how many billions on the F-22 and there is
no carrier capable version that outperforms the F-18? How on earth did that
happen?

~~~
spchampion2
The F-22 is an air superiority fighter that was always intended for exclusive
use by the Air Force. There was never a plan to have a carrier based version
of the F-22.

Perhaps you mean the F-35? There are two carrier based variants - the F-35B
and F-35C. The B is a STOVL and the C is designed for takeoff and landing on
carriers. Both variants are still in testing, and I believe the C is closer to
operational than the B at this point.

------
rustcharm
My first job out of college was as a software developer on the F-14D project,
and the AIM missiles.

It was probably the most interesting job I ever had.

We programmed in CMS-2 and AN/UYK assembly language

~~~
mothsonasloth
Wow, that's cool.

Assuming you are allowed to, could you share some more info?

How did you program AIM missiles for following heat signatures, was it a case
of reading bits from the IR sensor?

Did missiles logic have exceptions e.g. FuelRanOutException,
IRSensorUnresponsive?

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Ricardus
Well DUH.

Two words: TOP GUN.

