9/11 and the F-14

Today was the 17th anniversary of 9/11. Despite being seen as the king of air-to-air, I think the F-14's finest hour came not in the '70s, '80s, or '90s, but rather in the '00s, when it was the spearhead in the War on Terror. The F-14 was among the first to strike Afghanistan in Operation Enduring Freedom, something even most fans of the F-14, for some reason, have a hard time embracing

I highly recommend people read the book F-14 Tomcat Units of Operation Enduring Freedom, which you can find at the link below. The F-14 executed some incredible missions during the war in Afghanistan and dropped an unbelievable amount of ordnance. Every mission pushed the pilots to their limits, but they didn't miss a beat. I sincerely hope an Afghanistan map for DCS will come out so we can play historical campaigns of when we struck back at the heart of terror.

http://a.co/d/1TKlhgJ

Great post CheckGear, thanks for sharing! The Tomcat was of course originally designed to be an air superiority fighter and fleet defense interceptor. It spent the majority of it's service time in this role by conducting numerous CAP and escort missions, intercepting Russian bombers, and performing aerial reconnaissance. However, during this time, they only recorded a total of 5 air to air kills. I agree 100% with you in that the Tomcat's finest hours were the last five years or so of it's service history when it fully embraced it's role as a long-range strike fighter .

In DCS with the Tomcat serving next to the Hornet, I am trying to figure out how I would best utilize them. The Tomcat has the AIM-54 and with that, will serve well in fleet defense. However, I believe the Hornet to be a better dogfighter and with the AIM-120C and AIM-9X with JHMCS, and more modern sensors/systems, it's hard to beat in any type of air to air engagement. The Hornet is an excellent strike fighter as well but lacks the range and payload of the Tomcat. It will be a lot of fun having both is DCS and designing missions to best utilize their strengths.

Have you seen this discussion on the upcoming Afghanistan map?

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=216588

I made a comment that a map focused more to the south would be best so that some water could be included for US Navy operations.

In addition to putting warheads on foreheads in A-Stan and Iraq..

F-14's also flew CAP over the greater Virginia area too.

The F-14 did almost everything in it's twilight from deep strike, to CAS, to FASTFAC.

thanks for the info

It’s a great read.