October 10, 200718 yr Since this subject always seems to get pulses racing, I thought I would throw out a hypothetical for your consideration. This is sort of a "Second War Between the States" scenario, Midway fashion. What USN air wing would fare better when pitted against the other ? Air Wing A: the typical 1980s era air wing, with two squadrons each of F-14 Tomcats and F/A-18 Hornets, another of A-6E Intruders, and a handful of KA-6D tankers (four was usual, iirc). or Air Wing B: the early 21st century air wing, with say, a squadron of F/A-18E, one of F/A-18F, and a couple of F/A-18C. Suppose the support aircraft (E-2C, EA-6B, helos, etc) and the ship platforms (CVN, Aegis, etc) were the same or had the same capability. (Or, you can argue that leaving out all of these other considerations make the hypothetical impossible to consider, of course. But keep in mind the title of the post. ) Discuss ! Can a Harpoon scenario of any kind (H4, H3ANW, HCCE) provide any semblance of accuracy ?
October 10, 200718 yr My two cents contain a couple of assumptions: 1. The F/A-18s have early model AMRAAM, not these 75 and 90nm nice toys. 2. The 1980's airwing only requires 1980s style upkeep, not trying to keep ancient birds going today. Given those two assumptions, I would put my money on the 1980's airwing. Some basic reasoning of how I get there, pretty much in order of importance... 1. In the 1980s the planes were for the most part single tasked. An F-14 driver spent all of his time being a fighter pilot, not dropping bombs every 3rd mission. The level of training in each specialization (F-14 for AAW, A-6 for ASuW/Bombing) could be more completely accomplished than with mixed use F/A-18s. 2. With the A-6 superior range to most F/A-18 configurations, not to mention F-14 vs F/A-18, the 1980's battlegroup commander could use separation to his advantage, sucking the poor F/A-18s low on gas and limiting them to strikes that require tanking, as compared to untanked A-6 strikes. This offsets the potentially slower turn-around of the 1980's airwing vs the 2000 airwing. In sum, the 1980s airwing might be able to generate more attacks on target if range is well managed. 3. I still hold a personal opinion that AIM-54Cs can sneak up on a target much better than we usually expect. It is a big missile with pretty large kill area, even close counts on many AAM shots. Secondly the sucker likes to fly high, and the target's radar may well not be able to look high enough to track the Phoenix inbound, depending then upon RWR to warn of needed evasive action. 4. If range gets closer than Phoenix shots (not to mention after the Phoenix run out), the F/A-18 is going to do a number on the 80s airwing with AMRAAM, I cannot discount that. The short range shots I again favor the F-14 with a fighter pilot, not the attack pilot of the F/A-18. 5. Numbered towards the bottom of my list since I know so little about the morale and and such of the two airwing's operational philosphy, I'm thinking the 1980's airwing is much more ready and accepting that risks must be taken. The 2000 airwing is, I assume, taught caution and conservation. That difference in approach will give the 1980's airwing the room to adapt to the situation more quickly. Cold War was about long range shots, current approach is don't shoot until you know the opposition is hostile by visual ID! Can a Harpoon game simulate this encounter? I think it fits most easily into H4, range, logistics, morale are easily accommodated. Next in my list is H3/ANW with logistics part of the game. Low man on the totem pole for this one in my opinion is HC. In HC the player may use his own logistics tracking but you can't enforce that on the AI and that's a deal breaker for this scenario. Phoenix, AMRAAM, and Harpoons are limited and both sides sorely need them in this matchup.
October 11, 200718 yr Author Interesting points, Tony. I see some merit in all of them. Given your preliminary assumptions, I wonder how much of the 'capability gap' between the F-14 and the F/A-18 (I think we can perhaps all agree that the Tomcat is a better all round pure fighter aircraft) is closed by the Hornet's ability to use superior weaponry (i.e. AMRAAM in variously increasingly tasty flavours, better Sidewinders, more and better air to mud weapons, better EW gear (perhaps), etc, etc). For example, I think many perhaps over estimate the ability of the AIM-54A/C Phoenix to engage maneuvering fighter targets (although admittedly the C version was supposed to improve this somewhat). H4.1/HT assigns some pretty low hit probability figures to the weapon. And there would have been somewhere between 50-90 missiles aboard the Boat, iirc. We could go on to talk about Sparrow ... never mind. Tomcat 21 would perhaps have made all of this moot.
October 11, 200718 yr I think Brad is trying to pick a fight, Craig, where are you? Oh, did I mention with the short legged tankers of the F/A-18 and strikes will neccessarily be of few numbers if long range can be maintained Full squadron attacks from A-6, but half squadron attacks of Hornets if you are lucky once support aircraft are considered
October 11, 200718 yr Author I think Brad is trying to pick a fight, Craig, where are you? Nah, but I will admit to trying to provoke some intelligent discussion and debate. Oh, did I mention with the short legged tankers of the F/A-18 and strikes will neccessarily be of few numbers if long range can be maintained Full squadron attacks from A-6, but half squadron attacks of Hornets if you are lucky once support aircraft are considered You mean attacks from Intruders carrying early model Harpoons, Walleye, dumb bombs, and maybe a few LGBs ? Those attacks ?
October 12, 200718 yr Nah, but I will admit to trying to provoke some intelligent discussion and debate. Everytime I find a subject to make comment on someone slams the door in my face. love bungle
October 12, 200718 yr Author "We" could try this in HCE...when it's released. I'm tempted to do just that, Pete, though perhaps we can all agree that the results wouldn't be conclusive. (Translation: I wouldn't want the F-14 aficionados to cry foul. ) Fun, nonetheless. Maybe a series of scenarios with various air wing combinations.
October 12, 200718 yr Maybe a series of scenarios with various air wing combinations. Yeah, like some simple open ocean, essentially blue-on-blue "exercise" With the relatively new trilogy air rules, it could be completed without too much hair loss.
October 12, 200718 yr Hello guys, some food for thoughts about the Phoenix vs agile targets. in 8 years of aerial war, around 76 AIM-54 were fired by Iranian Tomcats and about 65 hits were scored. Most of their confirmed victims being MiG-23 (13), MiG-25 (12), Mirage F.1 (10), MiG-21 (9), Tu-22 (5), MiG-27 (2), Super Entendard (1). ( Source: Air Combat Information Group - Arabian Peninsula & Persian Gulf Database ) I wonder if the shot down pilots wouldn't have survived if they would have over estimated a bit more the Phoenix About the CW era air wing vs the 21st Century air wing debate, in my humble opinion, it would end in a draw, the lack of specialization of the today's air wing being compensated by the availability of the true force multipliers which are the more efficient avionic ( simply think about the Link 16 for example) and more advanced weapons. take care, Jan
December 4, 200718 yr I think the assumptions are off in your analysis. Why would the current pilots handicap themselves by only using older AMRAAMs? The newer airgroup has a wider variety of options available to them. They can load everything up for fighter work and even if it was an even exchange between the fighters (unlikely) and the Tomcats and Super Hornets killed each other then you still have to run the gauntlet of normal Hornets to get to the carrier. I understand the benefits of specialization but think that flexibility outweighs that. And for those that say the Tomcat is a better fighter let me remind you that Mig-28s shot down a Tomcat and would have launched on the carrier if one extraordinary pilot hadnt been available. Never saw them do that to a Super Hornet.
December 4, 200718 yr And for those that say the Tomcat is a better fighter let me remind you that Mig-28s shot down a Tomcat and would have launched on the carrier if one extraordinary pilot hadnt been available. Never saw them do that to a Super Hornet. but really ROFL
December 4, 200718 yr Hey now, let's stop all the bickering and chust-thumping and come up with the situation you want to see. 2x F-14D vs 2x F-18E or something else? Approaching head on or is another side "jumped"? Dstance apart at start? Any other start criteria? If it's this small number of aircraft getting in close, it might be better modeled by something like Clash of Arms "The Speed of Heat" instead of the abstracted furball in H4. I'm really annoyed at you guys as I just put TSoH back up in the attic on Saturday! Longer range engagement would stay in H4.1 and basically boil down to detection and launch of the radar-guided death ray
December 4, 200718 yr Hey now, let's stop all the bickering and chust-thumping and come up with the situation you want to see. 2x F-14D vs 2x F-18E or something else? Approaching head on or is another side "jumped"? Dstance apart at start? Any other start criteria? If it's this small number of aircraft getting in close, it might be better modeled by something like Clash of Arms "The Speed of Heat" instead of the abstracted furball in H4. I'm really annoyed at you guys as I just put TSoH back up in the attic on Saturday! Longer range engagement would stay in H4.1 and basically boil down to detection and launch of the radar-guided death ray Well, I'd have to say 2 v 2 in Fighters Anthology would do even better
December 4, 200718 yr Well, I'd have to say 2 v 2 in Fighters Anthology would do even better Yeah, I'd agree, especially not having to crunch all the numbers - but then again that's fun too in a sick, sort of twisted way.
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