Coota0

Captain America, I've got to disagree with your assesment of the closing speed. On the surface you're absolutley right. The one thing you have to take into account with closing speeds and teh AIM-54 is that unlike the most air-to-air missiles (didn't want to say all because I would get my ass jumped if I was wrong) the AIM-54 climbs like 5,000 feet and then dives down on it's target from above. So the missile leaves the rail a certain speed, climbs, the motor cuts, and then the missile dives on it's target. The Soviet tactic to counter the AIM-54 in a fighter was to pull into the vertical, then pull the fighetr either to thr right or the left and caontinue your climb, the AIM-54 was supposed to have trouble hitting you if you did that. Can a Mig-25/31 avoid one that way? I don't know, I can sim it or I guess I can ask one of my instructors. P.S. America I don't want you to think I'm sandbagging you, your logic was sound, it's just that the AIM-54 is quirky.

I saw that discovery channel airpower comparison too, just a few days ago and I serously quetion it. They never say who their experts are or what they do, just that they've gathered the world's aviation expert's together and here's what they said was the best out of the 4-6 fighters we let them caompare. I noticed there was a disturbing trend that the majority of the fighters were all U.S. Air Force Fighters, with a few exceptions: the WWII attacker was the German Stuka (No One else had a dedicated attack aircraft, U.S. torpedo and dive bombers weren't even an option, I didn't see the British Mesquito either) The Aircraft of WWI category picked a German bird too. (but we weren't even involved until 1917, it was eitehr gonna be a french or German aircraft) Finally in the late Vietnam period they picked the F-4 (everybody flew the F-4, how could it not be picked) Anybody else think this show was a little less than expert?

Tow things: 1) Ain't nobody gonna catch a MiG-25/31 travelling at full speed (Max afterburner) in a tail-on intercept. 2) A MiG-25 isn't going to attack your IBCM facilities either it's a pure fighter, soley built to get up to altitude and intereceppt U.S. spy planes, like the U-2 Kust wanted to point that out continue your arguing

If you're curious about late 1970's Naval warfare (Air-to-Sea, not Air-to-Mud) check out Stephen Coont's book The Intruders it's the sequal to Flight of the Intruder. It focuses on training and warfare against the Soviet Navy.

Dobber, F-86's? Like the Saber?

There wer Carriers in bothe the Med and Red Sea, both had fighters flying into Iraq on missions, from the Med, unless you took one hell of a detour, you'd be coming through Northern Iraq. The kill ratio was in favor of the Air Force, because the Air Force was in charge. the Navy put their Tomcats in a position to hit anything thay could, i.e. anything the Air force would let them hit, and the Navy managed to dhaft the Marines (as usual) only one Marine pilot knocked down a MiG and he was on an exchange program with the Air Force flying F-15s. The Air Force wanted the F-15s getting the Air-to-Air action, even the F-16s were being shunned. *To qualify my statement about the Marines, they did have fewer Honrets in theater (only real fighter the Marines have, but AV-8s can carry air-to-air) and the Marine zoomies are typically most concerned about supporting the grunts.

Nor, you're right Tomcats would tear up Zeros, Vals and Kates, but I think the discussion was more of will there be any casualties for the F-14s and how would you go about fighting prop driven planes. U.S pilots aren't taught to combat something that slow. I also think a lot of people were looking at the Tomcats losing a plane or two just to probability, the Japs sent in a laot of aircraft to hit Pearl Harbor, the chances of a colision during combat, or a lucky shot would account for that.

The F-14's radar can lock on and track six tragets on the radar, but this is for use with a self guiding missile like the AMRAAM or Pheonix (in the case of the F-14), but when you fire a Sparrow you narrow the beam and only track one target at a time. On an AMARAAM or Pheonix the missile gets a locatio from the radar before it fires so it knows where to go, but for treminal guidance it turns on it's own radar and tracks the target to a kill, a Sparrow continually gets updates from the F-14's radar all the way to the target. All this means you can fire multiple Pheonix missiles at multiple targets, but you can only fire on one target at a time using a Sparrow.

My reasoning in usng the pheonix is the flightpath they follow. The pheonix pulls up to a high altitude and then dives on it's target. The Zeros don't have an RWR setup, so their only way of seeing the missiles coming is visually, I don't think they're gonna see the AIM-54s. Reason Number 2, sparrows use semi-active homing, this means that the fighters radar must conitually paint the target, the Pheonix has it's own onboard radar, I figured trying to launch 4 sparrows all the way to their targets would be difficult, given the closing speeds, the zeros aren't going to be heading away from the tomcats very fast, besides it was theory

It's a personal opinion, the F-15 has never been shot down and has a massive amount of kills, but that's because a lot of other countries bought F-15s and becaus in a U.S. war the Air Force is in charge of the air war and the Air Froce flies F-15s, so if there is a chance of some air-to-air action the Eagles get sent in. The F-14 was only bought by one other country, Iran, but after the 1979 takeover in Iran an embargo was put in place and the Iranians could no longer get parts or technicians for their F-14s so they pretty much sit on the ground. Only the US Navy flies Tomcats now, I could be wrong but I don't believe an F-14 has ever been shot down either, but they've killed MiGs over the Med and in the Baltics. In Desert Storm an F-14 never even saw an enemy fighter, the only Navy kills came from Hornets, I figure it's probably because the Iraquis wanted to hit the bombers, not the fighters. Warmaker, they have what's called buddy pods, so that Hornets or S-3s can pass gas to other aircraft. I also thing the EA-18 might work pretty well, i like the idea of a Weasel type plain, I'm just not sure if the Hornet is big enough, and if the workload is gonna be too much for basically just a backseater.

I don't see shy the radar wouldn't losk up a zero, it's still gonna get a radar return from it, just like any other aircraft, the modern fighters could launch missiles if they wanted too. I think a missile barrage would be the way to go too, trying to slow down enough to hit a Zero, would be difficuilt if it didn't stall the jets. If I were a Tomcat pilot I would Launch AIM-54s, the Zeros willnever knew what hit them, then follow up with AIM-7s, closure rates may make that difficuilt, a final volley of AIM-9s (assuming a Zero puts off enough heat) then a medium speed (high speed compared to a zero) through the formation guns blazing. If I was a Zero pilot, assuming I survived the missiles, I'd wait for the F-14s to come through the formation, and then take my shots with my cannon on the F-14s as they flew past.

Ideally the F-14 was supposed to use it's AIM-54s to knock down the bombers before they got into range to launch their cruise missiles, but if a missile got off the Tomcat could intercept it and shott it down. Today this isn't a probelm Hornets can engage incoming missiles, but when the F-14 was introduced F-4s and A-7s just didn't have the radar to lock on to a low flying missile, the F-14's radar could. Hope that helps to answer your question.

I think David is right, I thought you could carry (not inclusing air to ground ordanance) 6 pheonixs only, 4 pheonix, 2 sidewinder, and 2 sparrow (my favorite for flight sims) or you could carry 4 sidewinders and 4 sparrows. Anybody know if you can carry 8 Sparrows or 8 Sidewinders?

Since when is the F-14 mor manuverable than either the F/A-18 or the F-35?

If you watch it, take it with a grain of salt, if this is the same episode of modern marvels that thye showed a few months ago, it's got a lot of mistakes in it.

SU-25 was a ground attack bird like the A-10, so that blows your theory

It's amazing what finals week can do to perfectly normal people.

There's no reason to presume that's Greedo, it's just another kid of the same species.

I've played with lone wolf, too. Macrosso, what's your name on there? I'm Woody.

Why are we checking out the halo forum?

The models look great,but I keep wondering how do you stuck in a squadron that the C.O. flies a pink aircraft.

You might want to give these a try instead.

How are you liking it? I've been thinking about getting it, just to fly the F-35.

I'm not saying you couldn't jam the catseye, I'm syaing that the Macross and the Cats Eye are going to be far away from each other Idealy, so you could jam communicatiosn around the macross, but not where the Catseye is.

With teh SV-51's active stealth, and the VF-0s not being able to pick them up, I'd say they had convetional radar. Of Course I could be wrong too.