It’s a view that shared by many industry officials, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force and,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ***even U.S. Marine Corps aviators***.
I don’t know why, but this pleases me. Another glorious moment for the corps. Everyone assumes with the other branches that the BS is deep. To nail the veracity of the others opinions, they make sure you know the Marines agree.
As Yogi said so well: “It’s Deja Vu, all over again!”
Guess that F-35 thing isn’t working out very well huh?
I guess they’ve looked at beefing up the F-22 for sea duty.
I’m not sure of the untility of a pure naval interceptor when the chief threats to a CVN’s existence in a major naval war will be submarines and (increasingly) ballistic missiles.
CVNs are great tools for limited wars and keeping sea lanes open. But if the balloon goes up against a nuclear armed opponent it will be the subs that sweep the seas. If the carriers come out at all it will be to mop up.
If I’m right then the carrier fleet’s only utility is in limited regional wars where there really isn’t an aerial threat requiring a pure interceptor.
Arguing over which variant of yesterday’s technology would best enrich the defense industry. Probably the whole conversation is irrelevant, unless we find ourselves needing to fight a Vietnam-like war against Madagascar.
The romance is over. The future has more payload, performance and endurance. The future is unmanned. No need for SAR either.
Short answer - absolutely. Former F-14 Logistics expert here.
It was called the F-21 Tomcat II. Grumman intentionally built in product improvement into the original F-14.
The big thing about the Tomcat was the Phoenix. IIRC, there was a study about putting lots of Phoenix and half a dozen Weapons Operators in a transport aircraft and use that for Air Superiority. Fighter Jocks didn’t like that idea at all!