Hacker News Reader

Comment by nradov | Hacker News Reader

The decision was mainly a cost reduction measure, driven by the failure of the A-12 program and a need to free up funds to fight the GWOT while continuing JSF development. The earlier F-14 problems had largely been resolved in the F-14D model and there was a clear, low-risk development path to the "Super Tomcat 21" model with greatly improved capabilities in every area. The F/A-18E/F Super Hornets which replaced the Tomcat, while cheaper and more reliable, lack the speed and range that would be needed to fight a future Pacific Theater war against China.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29653/this-is-what-gru...

https://youtu.be/CpXyYgL4jPI

I think the Navy is now regretting their decision, but it's too late to go back.

View on HN

I stronly doubt your conclusion considering the Navy is replacing the F/A-18s with F-35s which are closer to design of 18s than 14s.

Perhaps there might be time to face the fact that the F-14 may not have been the most useful (and upgradable) planes for actually practical roles the carrier aircraft are expected to do?

The F-14 maybe has been sexy in the air, but for effective and operational warfare the things like logistics, maintainability, reuse of parts and carrier space matter much more, especially if F-14s shortcomings made it less able to actually be in the air when needed.

It's like taking your daddys 1970s charger (with new infotainmed and bolted on cruise control) into a desert expedition. Sure it has that gas guzzling V8 for the POWER when you need to hunt sand people, but in reality a modern Hilux is going to make the combined force a much more potent force and won't need truckloads of spare parts and mechanics to trail it. Even if it doesn't go 0-60 in 3s.

The Navy isn't really replacing the F/A-18E/F with the F-35C. Carrier air wings will continue to contain both types until the Super Hornet is replaced by the F/A-XX currently under development (assuming it doesn't get cancelled).

By the end of its service life the F-14D had decent availability rates. And while the F/A-18 was certainly superior in terms of logistics and maintainability, that doesn't help if it lacks the range to reach the target.

I think it is even worse. NAVAIR had the 14 with its massive capabilities and instead spent a ton of money improving the A6, A7, a bunch of canceled projects, picked the effing LOSER of the LWF program, and then effed the 2 stealth projects and got out of the 2010s with extremely limited capability.

Even worse, the money that could have been spent building ships that would be useful in a conflict with CN was spent on effing GUN Cruisers (!!!) and littoral ships that didn’t even work.

Imagine instead if the USN had 8 additional Burkes, upgraded/refurbed 47s, Aegis/VLS across the fleet, and a hi/lo of updated, maintainable 14s and 16s.

The US taxpayer spent billions and billions and got nothing. It’s been huge scandal for 30+ years

Reply on news.ycombinator.com