quote:


> Indeed, the saddest element of this story is that no Tomcat has ever
> flown a Fleet Defense Bravo loadout of six missiles in active (cruise)
> service. They cannot safely recover or (single engine ROC) launch with
> that much weight.
> And further they cannot themselves maintain adequate smash to
> aggressively maneuver at altitude to set the geometry vs. fighter
> targets without going supersonic which both eats fuel and instantly
> compresses the fight. Indeed, most of the squadrons did even not
> deploy (before
> 1988 anyway) with the
> outboard horn rails because they were draggy as hell and a pain to
> mount/dismount in trade for the more common Sparrow or even Sidewinder
> (6X2 or 4X4) alternate loadouts. Lastly, the USN only produced about
> 5,000 AIM-54s and of those, only about half were the
> AIM-54C+ 'ECCM/Sealed'
> (either as new or by conversion) which had the seeker, warhead fuzing
> and autopilot upgrades to be any good against more than the dumbest
> threats. The /total/ number is only sufficient to allow every Tomcat a
> Fleet Defense Alpha loadout of 4 missiles. One time. And the actual
> magazine count during cruise was never more than a fraction of even
> this (back when there were actually two squadrons of 12 Tomcats on
> every deck).