Please contribute to Iran's military

[Oberon]

Put me down for a squadron. Oh...and I'll have a few B1s, a OHP FFG, and a batallion of M1A2s.

Anyone up for a regime change in Britain? STEED? Skybird?

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Put me down for a squadron. Oh...and I'll have a few B1s, a OHP FFG, and a batallion of M1A2s.

Anyone up for a regime change in Britain? STEED? Skybird?

You're going to need a helluva lot more equipment than that! The UK is no slouch when it comes to military hardware!

[Oberon]

Yeah, but most of it is in the Middle East, or a breakers yard.

[fatty]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

You're going to need a helluva lot more equipment than that! The UK is no slouch when it comes to military hardware!

Yeah, and article 5 would bring the U.S. and the rest of NATO into it

[Chock]

Take My Breath Away might have been the theme song in Top Gun, but these days the F14A is unlikely to take anyone's breath away in a dogfight. And anyone going up against a modern fighter in an F-14A, really is going to be on a Highway to the Danger Zone.

The F-14 looks impressive in Top Gun, but what you don't see in that movie is that all that turning and burning they do (using the afterburners) uses fuel up so fast that the thing basically has to land minutes later, or the pilots would find themselves swimming home. And it would certainly have to use those 'burners a lot to stay in a turn with a modern fighter plane.

Modern fighter jets use far more efficient supercruise technology to enable them to maintain high speeds with much less use of the afterburner. This also means that they have a smaller heat signature, making them far less likely to find a Sidewinder missile flying up their tailpipe. So in most cases, a modern fighter could win a dogfight against an F-14A by simply turning inside it and waiting for it to fall out of the sky with an empty gas tank.

And it can't rely on engaging stuff at long-range either:

The AIM-54 Phoenix missile which the F-14 carries is impressive on paper (100-plus nautical mile range), but we are basically talking about technology from the Vietnam War era here. Right before the US pulled out of Vietnam, the F-14A was on some carriers off the Vietnam coast (it really has been in service that long). This is why it has been retired from US Navy service, and in its last few years it was even relegated to the role of a bomber rather than a fighter - and that's the more modern variants than Iran has too.

The very old technology of the AIM-54 missile can be quite easily spoofed and jammed by even a basically-equipped aircraft and the far more capable gate-stealing capabilities of modern fighter ECM suites would eat the F-14A's radar capabilities for breakfast. The truth is that the F14A would probably have a hard time shooting down a third-world country's training aircraft these days, let alone something like an F-16 or F-22.

The F14A was a prestige purchase for Iran in the 70s, but that's a long time ago in technology terms, unless you still think that a Spectrum ZX-81 computer would kick your Intel Core Duo's hyperthreading ass.

Chock

[tycho102]

Originally Posted by Chock

The F-14 looks impressive in Top Gun, but what you don't see in that movie is that all that turning and burning they do (using the afterburners) uses fuel up so fast that the thing basically has to land minutes later, or the pilots would find themselves swimming home.

You missed the point.

They made all kind of officer-level quota for several years. Even the guys who washed out of flight school were put to use. The Nav spent maybe $20m for marketing if you include fuel, maintenance, and security. Most of that money was spent doing training that they'd have been doing *anyway* -- traps, flight school excursions. Really, the only "extra" the Navy had to cover was security for all the film crew on base and the carrier. Maybe $50,000 if they just picked up a carrier training run (pilots learning to trap on their new plane type) out of Norfolk or something.


The F-14 is done.

[PeriscopeDepth]

The Iran-Iraq War suggests that the F-14 would certainly be a threat (it's AIM-54A as well) to the F-teen series. And Iranian pilots are very experienced. It certainly wouldn't be so easy against USAF/USN jets and crews, but the F-14A can't be written off as "not a threat" so easily.

http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_205.shtml
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_212.shtml
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_214.shtml

PD

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by PeriscopeDepth

The Iran-Iraq War suggests that the F-14 would certainly be a threat (it's AIM-54A as well) to the F-teen series. And Iranian pilots are very experienced. It certainly wouldn't be so easy against USAF/USN jets and crews, but the F-14A can't be written off as "not a threat" so easily.

http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_205.shtml
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_212.shtml
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_214.shtml

PD

I don't think the AIM-54 was ever given to Iran in the first place. Even if it was, its not a very good missile against another fighter. Its a slow turner that was designed to take out the overwhelming numbers of Soviet Bombers before they could get close to a carrier (Soviet Doctrine was to overwhelm NATO carriers with shear numbers of bombers in the hopes that one bomber would get through to take the carrier out). The only AIM-54's ever fired in the middle of hostilities all missed - and they were fired against Iraqi fighters. One was the vulnerable MiG-25, and I forgot what the others were. One of the Aim-54's was even fired from AMRAAM range of 20 miles and still missed.

ANyway, this is why the F-14 / Aim-54 were retired. I'd go as far as saying that this was the final nail in the coffin for the F-14 in that it couldn't even get a kill with it's Pheonix missile. Sure they tried to sell it as a bomber later on, but it did not do so hot in this role and it was only an attempt to keep F-14's around I think by the people that loved them. Limited usefulness these days. Sure, you might get your kill with your Pheonix, but nothing is going to spoof the good old Aim-120 AMRAAM which is far better at killing its likely target - the fighter aircraft.

-S

[PeriscopeDepth]

The thing that makes the Phoenix a killer is it's speed. You don't know it's coming until it goes active, and by that time it's close and diving at you at Mach 5.

Why don't you think that Iran was ever given the AIM-54 in the first place. I didn't think that had ever been in dispute?

PD

[moose1am]

The movable wings on the F14 fighter gave it the dual ability to have lots of life with the wings out and lots of speed with the wings swung back. The automatic manipulation of the F14's wings gave it better handling close to stall speeds in a dog fight. Today we use fixed wings but the body of the modern F22 rapors helps with lift at slow turning speeds and the new F22's have vectored thrusters which help control the planes stall parameter at slower speeds and higher angle of attack attitudes.

Beside the F14A has the first generation engines that never were powerful enough to push the F14 around. They were bad performing engines that killed a lot of good F14 pilots. And the electronics of these Iranian F14A is .... well older than Moses. Transistors and resistors have a shelf life when the PNP materials are no longer going to function as designed. They rot over time and materials go bad. So the electrons in those electronics will misbehave and foil Iran's plan to use those planes. And the more the train in them the faster they go bad. So they sit there and don't fly them and don't get the flight time necessary to remain proficient. Not to mention the physical G forces that those planes can deal to a pilot in a 6 G turn.

The F14A's were not a good plane. Only with the addition of newer more powerful engines did this plane start to perform right in the 1980's.

Iran will definitely not be controlling it's air space if the USA goes to war with Iran in the Middle East.

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

I don't think the AIM-54 was ever given to Iran in the first place. Even if it was, its not a very good missile against another fighter. Its a slow turner that was designed to take out the overwhelming numbers of Soviet Bombers before they could get close to a carrier (Soviet Doctrine was to overwhelm NATO carriers with shear numbers of bombers in the hopes that one bomber would get through to take the carrier out). The only AIM-54's ever fired in the middle of hostilities all missed - and they were fired against Iraqi fighters. One was the vulnerable MiG-25, and I forgot what the others were. One of the Aim-54's was even fired from AMRAAM range of 20 miles and still missed.

ANyway, this is why the F-14 / Aim-54 were retired. I'd go as far as saying that this was the final nail in the coffin for the F-14 in that it couldn't even get a kill with it's Pheonix missile. Sure they tried to sell it as a bomber later on, but it did not do so hot in this role and it was only an attempt to keep F-14's around I think by the people that loved them. Limited usefulness these days. Sure, you might get your kill with your Pheonix, but nothing is going to spoof the good old Aim-120 AMRAAM which is far better at killing its likely target - the fighter aircraft.

-S

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Chock

Take My Breath Away might have been the theme song in Top Gun, but these days the F14A is unlikely to take anyone's breath away in a dogfight. And anyone going up against a modern fighter in an F-14A, really is going to be on a Highway to the Danger Zone.

Gah! Those are the worst puns that I have ever read on this forum. Ever.

[Rose]

Originally Posted by Chock

Take My Breath Away might have been the theme song in Top Gun, but these days the F14A is unlikely to take anyone's breath away in a dogfight. And anyone going up against a modern fighter in an F-14A, really is going to be on a Highway to the Danger Zone.

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: