And those hidden things are not so much created by the airframe per se, but improved subsystems, such as better engines, better avionics etc. I'm fairly sure C-130A is an entirely different animal from C-130J in these regards. As for single seat issue, it would be fairly trivial issue to design a single seat variant of F-4 or just to leave the seat empty like USAF is planning to do with F-15X.
M-16 was largely a failure in Vietnam, so how come M-16 family of weapons could be used in 21st Century?
All these and many many more things add up to a fighter fleet capable of much more than a hotted up fleet of phantoms could ever do.
Sure, like YC-15 would have beaten souped up C-130 in most respects, or B-1 would beat B-52, or B-2 would beat B-1.
Of course it can be mounted, but only a pair on the main pylons.Navy will want long range interception and its chosen tool for that is the AWG-9 radar and the Phoenix which the F-4 cannot mount. There simply is no way that something like the F-14 isn't adopted. You would need a POD back to the end of WWII where the Navy for some reason does not think that long range strike craft needs to be intercepted long before they reach the fleet.
There comes a point of diminishing returns on the increasing need to totally redesign the internal spaces for the avionics and engines that became available.An M16 is not a jet fighter, nor was it a failure although it did need improvement. The two can't be compared.
As for jet fighters: true, subsystems can be swapped out making for a much more capable aircraft, but you're still stuck with the limitations of the original design. Advances in materials and manufacturing techniques between the f4 and f15, like casting engine blades as a single crysal meant that pilots could slam throttles open and closed or wings that didn't bend in ultrea tight turns. Then theres other stuff like line replacable units for subsystems, where repair is by replacement rather than parking a jet so the avionics can be broken down for repair. Or engine thrust blocks connected by 3 pins for engine changes in an hour.
All these and many many more things add up to a fighter fleet capable of much more than a hotted up fleet of phantoms could ever do.
Exercise is one thing but Soviets had only a handful of ssgn, a few rocket ships with asm by 1980Sorry, the Soviet conducted exercise that launch simultaneous attacks from multiple missile platforms at an imaginary USN CVBG with 100 missiles. Soviet Cold War era ASM threats included more than the Soviet land-based Naval Aviation.
F4 of 1965 would be very diffdifferfrom f4 of 1980The F4 didn't secure air superiority over Vietnam against Mig 21/19/17s, SA2s and AAA, how would it secure air superiority over Europe against better everything?
It never needed toF-4 never faced flankers and fulcrum in combat.
True but my timeline is 1975 to 1990.There is no reason why F-4 would not be subsequently equipped with AR missiles when AIM-120 is developed. In fact, the German and Greek Phantoms have been upgraded to be able to use AIM-120 in OTL. There is also rumors that the Israeli and Turkish Phantoms have been upgraded to be able to use non-US BVRAAMs.
Of course it can be mounted, but only a pair on the main pylons.
It would be a lot harder to get the normal 4 the F14 flew with.
I agree it was how shall we say. ...a miracle of packing to get the system into the likes of the F111 and F14. I understand it was stuffed into all sorts of spaces in the airframe.Missile isn't the main problem, radar is. AWG-9 was a beast and had some pretty miraculous features for its time and an absolutely godly range. Without that the Phoenix will not work.
F-4 simply isn't transferrable to the next gen of digital augumentation. It still has fully analog mechanical flight controls vastly inferior to even the F-14 which actually had some primitive AFCS stuff in it. And no it simply isn't a matter of putting new stuff in it. That would amount to changing virtually everything on it, costing as much to develop as a whole new plane.
Exercise is one thing but Soviets had only a handful of ssgn, a few rocket ships with asm by 1980
In a full fledged war with all the might of uSN they would be streched thin
so PVO interceptors thrown in to intercept tactical strike planes ?
or to escort soviet intermediate range bombers like su-24 ?
or both ?
I personally feel f-16 in the earlier versions was not a big enough threat in itself in the A2A arena atleast
What about more developed mig-23ML/MLD versions and maybe something like a Mig-21 bison ?
i think mig-31 radar can do that due to its radar
but can the f-15 radar direct 2 x AIM-7 at 2 different targets ? I think its theoratically possible but not practical in combat conditions