Don't get me started on the F-14, especially the F-14D. When fully tricked out with LANTIRN, the Navy finally got a true multi-role, all-weather fighter/bomber that could go full air-to-air for fleet defense and also drop precision munitions like the Intruder.
Back in the day I participated a military exercise with some F-14Ds. Their capability was unreal.
Then the powers that be dumped it.
What a tremendous waste.
I believe you on that. There’s realistically nothing foreign that can tangle with them. They could address threats at speeds and distances that super hornets could only dream of.
And that bombing capability was something else. They have had a fantasy that one airframe can do everything a carrier needs.
The truth is, a carrier air wing has but a shadow of the air-to-air and strike capability it did before they improved everything for the sake of procurement officer careers.
when the f-14 shut down after flight, you had to roll out the 55 gallon drums on wheels to catch the leaking hydraulic fluid... when those seals shrunk, it left behind a helluva mess..