mixelflick wrote: I'll reserve judgement on the Super Hornet until more numbers are in, but strongly suspect it'll be in the same "not bad at all" category.
It's been 35 years, what numbers are you waiting on?
mixelflick wrote:Personally, I shudder at the thought of all Hornet air wings mixing it up with J-11's, J-10B's/C's, J-16's and especially J-20's. Because once you figure out how to defeat the Hornet, you've figured out how to defeat every single USN carrier air wing.
Oh what nonsense, you're mixing hornets with Superhornets and F-14Ds with such arguments and it's hypothetical retrospective nonsense. So I'll have to presume you're talking about now, otherwise it's too absurd.
So, for that to occur an OPFOR would have to explore (as they die) all of what an upgraded classic Hornet could do, plus also all of what the SH can do. Which is not easy with a gen-4.5 context, especially when it's networked to a wider system-of-systems. On top of that a couple of the SH present will be Growlers, contesting the EM spectrum, without credible counterpart on the PLAAF PLAN side of things.
It's also silly because the USN is part of a Joint force (i.e. what's going to happen to them as they're trying to kill off Classic Hornets?) so god help any naval aviation or airforce that plans to explore the minutia of what a Classic Hornet can do to them and how to kill it, as the classic Hornet is clearly competitive with or better than all of the aircraft that you have mentioned, sans the J20.
And does anyone believe the J-20 is ready for prime time yet? My own examination of blown-up versions of the recent airshow J-20 weapon bay imagery is absent visible cables, pipes, boxes, hydraulics or pneumatics. i.e. apparently a display prototype and not an operational aircraft. Are there any then? If there are, why didn't they display one, with real inert weapons within a real operational weapon bay? The F-35 was showing its weapon bay from early in its testing program.
And would the old 3rd-gen come 4th gen F-14 really be any 'better', even in an A2A fight? Given you must be talking about a comparison with the present SH, the fleet interceptor, this is what the relevant indicator 'numbers' look like:
F-14DFuel Load lb 16,200
Empty Weight lb 44,800
Weapon Weight lb EMPTY
Full fuel Weight lb 61,000
Under MTOW lb 13,350
Dry Thrust lb 33,220
A/B Thrust lb 54,160
Dry Thrust 100% fuel 0.545
HP: lb Ratio 100% fuel 0.888
Dry Thrust 50% fuel 0.628
HP: lb Ratio 50% fuel 1.024
F/A-18FFuel Load lb 14,400 ... it has only 1,800 lb less internal fuel than an F-14D
Empty Weight lb 32,081 ... it has 2/3rd the weight of an F-14D
Weapon Weight lb EMPTY
Full fuel Weight lb 46,481 ... it has a 14,600 lb lighter MTOW
Under MTOW lb 19,519 ... it has 6,200 lb higher payload than the F-14D (and carries the AIM-120D)
Dry Thrust lb 26,000
A/B Thrust lb 44,000
Dry Thrust
100% fuel 0.559 ... higher dry thrust to weight than F-14D
HP: lb Ratio
100% fuel 0.947 ... higher A/B thrust to weight than F-14D
Dry Thrust
50% fuel 0.662 ... higher dry thrust to weight than F-14D
HP: lb Ratio
50% fuel 1.120 ... higher A/B thrust to weight than F-14D
The only reason the F-14D is faster was a swing-wing design which allowed a lower drag and higher cruise speed, thus a lower specific-fuel-consumption over all. But put the
maximum EFT loads on them and you get this:
F-14D Int Fuel + 2 x 267 US Gal =
19,698 lb = 74,350 lb with full bags and weapons
F/A-18F Int Fuel +
2 x 480 US Gal =
22,260 lb =
F/A-18F Int Fuel +
3 x 480 US Gal =
26,190 lb = 66,000 lb with full bags and weapons
For completeness, here are the T:W ratios for those max loads:
F-14D @ 74,350 lb 2 x 267 US Gal
- Dry Thrust
100% fuel 0.447
- HP: lb Ratio
100% fuel 0.728
- Dry Thrust
50% fuel 0.517
- HP: lb Ratio
50% fuel 0.843
F/A-18F @ 66,000 lb 3 x 480 US Gal
- Dry Thrust
100% fuel 0.394
- HP: lb Ratio
100% fuel 0.667
- Dry Thrust
50% fuel 0.501
- HP: lb Ratio
50% fuel
0.848The
F-14D is also 12.7% heavier when thus loaded with fuel and stores, so its presumed advantages in lower-drag from the wing-sweep are being eaten up by extra weight and AOA. Those are the numbers, they've been available for a long time.
So how is the SH/F allegedly inferior to the F-14D
in strike range? From Spring this year the SH adds LRASM range on top of its current strike range.
As pop pointed out yesterday, if you have the long-range SA advantage you also have more time to plan and act, to get to where you need to be. Other than cruise speed and raw acceleration, the F/A-18F is much superior to the F-14D everywhere. This endless questioning of the Hornet's suitability to replace the F-14D
against the available opposition of the day, can't be taken seriously.
But even a classic C/D Hornet would not get owned by the F-14D in A2A. The AIM-54 was for shooting down heavy bombers, not for use against alerted fighters (and it would be alerted). This would be a modern AIM-120D fight. Nor would the C/D flounder against any of the PLAAF/PLAN jets you mentioned, on the contrary.
And then there's the rapid expansion in naval missile capabilities too (the ability for SM-3 to poke out the eyes of OPFOR observation and tracking satellites for instance) and expanded missile sensors and co-op engagement capabilities and EA/EW, for the ship-based defenses that have been constant and on-going during the Hornet-only era in USN service. This is all relevant context to your imagined crisis of NAVAIR capability and asserted USN carrier relative vulnerability.
Where was there ever a risk of Classic Hornets being wiped out? Who was going to do this? The guys who just had their air bases, bunkers and HQ hammered by B-2s?
And this month the F-35C is in initial-operational service.
Then there's MQ-25A tankers to come and BKIII CFTs, so any further dissing of the reach (and A2A relevance) of Hornets or the SH as replacement of the F-14D, is clearly irrelevant BS.
The Classic Hornets and the SH have been the right jets for the prevailing times and conditions, and the precision-strike firepower of the USN carriers went up by at least an order of magnitude since their introduction, requiring less bombs to get more targets destroyed. The present USN carrier air is more deterring and effective than ever before, and is about to become a lot more deterring. And a large part of that increase in capability to come is because of the fuller exploitation of the F/A-18E/F/G's still latent untapped range and capability potential, not just due to the F-35C.
Frankly, your view is just a personal bias that can not be taken seriously, and is not commensurate with objective comparisons of the Hornet or SH's actual abilities, their comparative numbers, or their operational service context.