So what exactly is a "fleet defender?" I see this term thrown around a lot in reference to the F-14...

no it literally cannot because its drag with even bare weapons pylons is atrocious and it effects its top speed acceleration and range. The Tomcat almost didnt care what it was carrying due to its design and amount of thrust.
read what tomcat and bug drivers say about them and maybe listen to some podcasts with them.

completely different animal

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the hornets have around half the range and make around half the speed of a Tomcat when actually carrying weapons.

>Tu-22M Backfires out looking for your carrier group
No worries, they will fall apart before they attack.

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>when you try to bounce of the runway but forget you aren't in a boeing

This genuinely freaked me out. How is it possible for metal to bend like that?

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Aircraft aren't made of one solid piece of metal.

Not even F-18 pilots call it the F/A-18 you spaz

super hornet can fly with three drop tanks, eight amraam-d's and two sidewinders
block 3 with the cft's allegedly outranges strike eagles

Probably just the airframe living past retirement age and that being the rough landing that broke the camel's back

extremely hard overspeed landing will definitely fuck you up if your plane's been in service for that long and was built in a time when russia's metallurgy skills were even worse than they are today

The F-22 has no mentionworthy range.

I haven't seen it in planes but in construction I've seen even decently thick steel buckle and warp when it got rammed by a bulldozer blade by mistake. It's kinda disconcerting to actually see steel an inch across just warp and bend like it was a twizzler.

Imagine riding around in a 1/16” steel car body.

it's a meaningless term devised to extract more money from stupid taxpayers.

Yes the F/A-18 is marginally worse at fleet defense than the F-14 but fleet defense isn't the F/A-18's only role. It's also a strike aircraft at the same time, a role which the F-14 was barely capable of at all.

man I love the f-14, im still not sure why they axed it, was it just because it was fucking enormous?

The swing wings were very maintenance-heavy, the planes were starting to show their age, and it was hard to justify having a two-person crew when computers were allowing one pilot to handle everything. Grumman had plans to update the F-14 but they were deemed too expensive. Then, sadly, all the ones not meant for museums were scrapped to prevent Iran from somehow getting parts.

>What was the Bombcat?
>What is the LANTIRN?

You need to stop posting, due to your severe retardation

Jet fuel

Don't forget TARPS too.

This. Also, I played the hell out of this game as a kid. Thought I might actually get to fly one, but I lost out on my appointment to Annapolis due to medical disqualification.

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based trips of historical context and truth

During the later stages of the Cold War one of the main soviet vectors to attack NATO shipping were long ranged bombers with standoff missiles.
A "Fleet Defender", such as the Tomcat, was meant as the main weapon to counter such an aerial thread.
The main features being:
1) a large airframe (for a fighter) able to hold many weapons and lots of fuel for long range thus enabling the plane to operate far away from the CSG for a prolonged time
2) a powerful radar
3) The means of achieving high top speeds (F14s top speed was Mach 2.4 afaik) so you can shoot down attackers before they are able to launch their AShMs
4) A very long range A2A Missile - the AIM-54

So the main role of the F14 was to be such a Fleet Defender. It's first and foremost job was to defend a carrier group from supersonic soviet bombers with AshMs. You can see this in the fact that the F14 wasn't as nimble as you'd expect a "true" fighter (meant to counter other fighters its size).
Dont get me wrong, Tomcats were more than able to hold their own against "real" fighters, but thats only a testimony to the good work Grumman's design team had made.

youtube.com/watch?v=N3fjWTyLBPw

Got a copy of that as a kid too, from a computer expo. God those were fucking magical as a kid, piles of (possibly bootleg?) games and shit on cds in jewel cases. before you could just use a search engine to find whatever software you wanted and download it.

A clean F22 has a longer range than an F15E with drop tanks.

Add two tanks to F22 and you can get 850nm combat radius.

>A clean F22 has a longer range than an F15E with drop tanks
Calling bullshit. Dont forget F15E has conformal tanks too

>The swing wings were very maintenance-heavy

50+ MX hours per flight hour. They needed to be replaced, but Cheney shot that down.

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check yo self

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since when is 1,841 (with external fuel tanks) not noteworthy?

was a two person crew really one of the reasons?
the F/A18F and the F15E and numerous F16 variants have two person crews.
and the marines kept the EA6 around until march of this year.

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That is a sexy fuxking plane

Yeah but a clean Strike Eagle has a fuck tonne of drag that a clean raptor doesn’t have to worry about

something about mass and velocity...

>F15E has HLLH profile added
>F22 doesn't specify which profile
>Totally credibly "study" by the company who makes the F22
>F15E is made by their biggest competitor
Suuure buddy, sure.

Yeah, the Backfire threat seemed a lot bigger before they got worn out, fucked up and were never as good as Russian claims had made them out to be.

>F22 has 4 AIMs and a single 1k JDAM
>F15E has 4 AIMS and TWO 2K JDAMS
So you have to send FOUR F22s to deliver the same amount of destruction as a single F15E.
Pretty impressive.

The F-15E is first and foremost a dedicated strike fighter. Although the airframe resembles the original fighter F-15's, it's a completely different plane. The Strike Eagle is a bomber with good air to air capability.
The F22 on the other hand is a fighter with bomber capability.
Might not sound like a huge difference but is a huge one tho.
At a given range the F-15E can haul more ordnance into enemy airspace and deliver it with more precision since the whole targeting systems are made for bombing jobs while those of the F-22 were rigged.

The biggest reason why the F-22 hauls bombs in the first place is because the Air Force wanted to show off to congress they got a "true" multirole plane - while the F-22 is actually a very capable fighter but being single role ain't trendy right now.
tl;dr the F-15E is a much better bomber/strike fighter than the F-22 could ever dream to be

I don't think so? A second crewman could be kept busy with all the electronics available. Especially if they decided to go heavy with EW.

The main issue is that they all needed to be replaced, and a new F-14 would have to be a completely new design. Which is unfortunately expensive.

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what does that even matter?
Cruise Missile/ASM are getting better every year, longer ranges, higher speeds.
the shitty airplane that drops them is never even in danger.

F22 doesn't need a low altitude approach and egress. Thats kind of the point of VLO aircaft.

They aren't getting anywhere in a hurry like that. I don't know how much capacity the CFTs give the hornets, but there's literally no way they can out range a strike eagle in a similar configuration.

It's a fancy name for an interceptor.
Since 590 nmi subsonic clean that it has for combat radius is dwarfed by something like Su-35S or MiG-31 with their respective 810 nmi and 780 nmi combat radius. That's not even talking about the ability of the latter to supercruise at Mach 2.3+ for 390 nmi. F-22 range is absolutely mediocre.

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Imbecile.

Imbecile ameripig clown.

A perfect storm of Russian engineering, piloting, and maintenance.

Oh look, another shit-eating imbecile.

Stop pretending to be a Vatnik, my man. There’s so many more interesting characters you can play to bait Jow Forums.

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Stop pretending to be a cock-sucking imbecile clueless about basic physics.

>Ideally, they would be able to intercept and destroy the bombers before the bombers are in a position to launch their Kh-22
Kh-22 has more range than the combat radius of F-14 plus the range of AIM-54 that it carries.
>AEGIS
First ship with AEGIS was put in service 20 years after Kh-22 introduction. And only with the introduction of SM-6 could it match the flight ceiling of Kh-22 giving it ability to attempt interception before the incoming missile begins its descent.
>F-18 simply isn't big enough to carry the AIM-54 missile
It's big enough to carry 4 Harpoons and more with largely exceeds the weight of even 6 AIM-54 missiles.
>F-18 also has a much shorter range
Does it? I'm pretty sure it's the other way around. F-18 is not an interceptor and hence can't accelerate to and sustain high Mach speed, but that's that. The truth is the US just gave up on having a dedicated naval interceptor and turned to multi-role aircraft. Russians do the same switching from Su-33 to MiG-29KR.

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For defending the fleet, stupud fuck.

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>switching to
>MiG-29KR
Even the Russians quietly accept that the MiG-29K family is an abject failure on all levels. Only the Pajeets seem unaware yet continue to operate them while wondering why they break every time they land.

MiG-29KR > F-18. Deal with it.

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Call us back when you have a carrier to operate it off of.

Get back to me when the landing gear works.

Got an unsinkable one commissioned 5 years ago, heard you're still mad about it.

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Could say it Backfired.

Thought the failure was their carrier being fucked by a crane

Bullsheeeiiit.

Missile range isnt the limiting factor for ASCMs generally, its fire control quality tracks, which you don't get at anything near the maximum range the missile is capable of.

Multiple CBGs also limit the lines of approach severely and its easy to rape bomber streams coming in from a single axis and a known takeoff point, especially with glowniggers reporting takeoff time and heading and armament and that being updated by submarines out front of the carriers. Then you shift your CVNs away and Ivan runs into a wall of F14s long before he has anything other than vague, hours old RORSAT data on carrier location. So he gets shot down and freezes to death in the North Atlantic and his wife has to turn herself out sucking NATO cock every night just to afford rations.

Sad many such cases

At least your inept Navy can't fuck up like it always does and sink this one.

>its easy to rape bomber streams
Lol, I love it how you assume CBG was able to meet supersonic bombers at release point. Quite a peculiar world you live in.
>glowniggers reporting takeoff time and heading and armament and that being updated by submarines out front of the carriers
You are delusional, next post you will be exploring the possibilities of flashing out mobile ICBM routes by hooked mushroomers with cell phones.
>hours old RORSAT data
RORSAT data was real time. It was its whole point.
>So he gets shot down
In your fantasies. I see you have quite an elaborate one, likely propelled by your porn addiction. Not unexpected of a pathetic degenerate ameripig.

>Ameripig talks about other navies being inept

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>Meet supersonic bombers at release point

Yeah, with supersonic interceptors? Because AWACS sees you long, long before you detect the carrier? You already have a Heavy CAP up who immediately engage, then the alert 5 and 10 fighters, then the whole air wing. Go ahead and release your ASCMS in the blind, because it's your only chance to make it back alive as by time your onboard radars get a cue you will be getting hit (no illuminated, hit) by AIM-54s. Explain how you would avoid this, I'd love to see your facts for how you penetrate DCA with no casualties or somehow fly the Backfire without being picked up at 600 miles by the E2. Vatnik cope is the only incoming data the carrier will ever have to deal with.

>Rorstats are real time!

When they are overhead... they orbit and move and then the data ages and the circle of uncertainty widens as a function of the carriers top speed. Is it possible you didnt know this basic fact? Did you really just blow yourself out by revealing your own ignorance? Classic vatnik!

> Lel, army and air force SF weren't specially trained to observe and report Soviet Naval Aviation streams, and that wasnt a specific mission of SEAL teams in the 70s and 80s!

Because you said so? Quit trying to cope, you lost and digging in just makes you look more retarded.

At least we have a carrier and power projection. How did your naval aviation deployment to Syria go?

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pump

>Lol, I love it how you assume CBG was able to meet supersonic bombers at release point. Quite a peculiar world you live in.

Carriers operate multiple AWACs aircraft and so long as they aren't in the Barrents sea they were fairly safe from aircraft. If you factor in more CBGs and other groups they're much safer.

>RORSAT data was real time. It was its whole point.

Except for the periods of time they weren't over head.

Fleet defense was a role the Navy came up with in the late 1950s. The world was developing AShMs and Navy brass was scared of Tu-4Ks launching missiles at their carriers from outside the range of their fighters.
Technically speaking the role has even older roots. Near the end of WWII, kamikaze attacks were a serious enough threat for the Navy to develop specialized interceptor aircraft. Planes like the F2G were developed with a focus on low-altitude speed to allow the plane to intercept kamikazes a safe distance from the carrier.
Anyway, the F-4 was primarily designed for this interceptor role, which is why it was designed around the AIM-7 and without a gun, which would prove problematic when the Air Force tried using it as a low-altitude fighter-bomber.
The F-111B was designed to replace the Phantom, its turbofan TF-30s and variable-geometry wings solving the F-4's low-speed handling problem while also increasing top speed. The F-111B would eventually run into problems as it wasn't well-suited to be a fighter, and would be cancelled.
However, much of the design was picked up by Grumman and used in the more refined and more modern F-14, including the swing wings, AIM-54 Phoenix, AN/AWG-9 radar, and TF-30 engines. The F-14 naturally adopted the same role as its predecessors.
Ultimately "fleet defense" basically means "naval interceptor." Designed to down bombers before they can release ordnance on their objective.

Just to add, AIM-54 was also capable of intercepting ASMs (although at an understadnably poor hit %) themselves, so even if the Backfires got their missiles away and escaped, the Outer ring was still useful in reducing the number of ASMs for the surface fleet to deal with.

And the erosion of the F-14's "Fleet Defender" role had a lot to do with the shelf life of the AIM-54 and the lack of an established production line. The Missiles needed retiring and couldn't be replaced so the much more complex aircraft couldn't be justified when the Super Hornet was just as good as good in all other roles.

Its also interesting to note that the there has not been an Air to Air Missile with similer characteristics since.