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To: F14 Pilot

How many Tomcats do the Iranians have, and how have they managed to keep them maintained and flying through 2.5 decades of the US not sending even a single repair part to Iran? They cannot have been cannibalising parts for two and a half decades, could they? And what about the weapons?


27 posted on 10/01/2005 1:25:18 AM PDT by spetznaz (Nuclear-tipped Ballistic Missiles: The Ultimate Phallic Symbol)
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To: spetznaz

44 air worthy tomcats!

Well, they have been able to get many spare parts through some third parties.

And they also seem to be successful in reverse engineering and have produced some AIM-54A missiles.
However, during Iran-Contra, they got whatever they needed!

However, they had tried to install HAWK SAM on F-14s in late 1980s which failed though!


30 posted on 10/01/2005 1:38:55 AM PDT by F14 Pilot (Democracy is a process not a product)
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To: spetznaz
No way they could have kept them up, if they would get airborne I would guarantee their RADAR wouldn't work, even if they could get parts the test equipment required was pretty well destroyed when we pulled out, they smashed it with an ax and lit it on fire, no way it could have recovered from that. There was a black market ring busted in the late 80s on the Kitty Hawk that was selling them parts, after that I think it was pretty well shut down. Guess what will be the first to go when we hit them.
31 posted on 10/01/2005 1:39:22 AM PDT by mcgiver38
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To: spetznaz
How many Tomcats do the Iranians have.....

The last time I was in the Gulf about seven years ago they had half a dozen of so. But the thing is they can still fly. The real question is can they do the mission they were designed for? I'd be willing to bet they don't even come close....

35 posted on 10/01/2005 1:43:50 AM PDT by Doofer
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To: spetznaz
That's the subject of some debate. They claim that a couple dozen are flyable, but the stories that filter out indicate that perhaps a dozen are actually serviceable at this point. They apparently only fly a few regularly for practice, preferring instead to keep the wear down to preserve the jets for the day they're actually needed. Could they do a lot of damage? Potentially, but keep in mind that the weapon and radar systems are several decades out of date. While the airframes may be the same, the equipment they use to fly and target would be considered primitive by todays standards. In any combat with Iran the airfields housing these jets would be #1 on any target list. Even if the Iranians were able to disperse them to their more remote airfields to preserve them, they would be ineffective im combat. We would have them so badly outnumbered that it's unlikely that we'd lose more than one or two planes to each of their fighters before we'd take them out (I'm assuming a well executed suprise attack here...they probably wouldn't even get one in actual combat). With their small number of planes, that battle would be over in a week.

I've said it here before, and I'll say it again. If we ever go to war with Iran, it's going to be a lot nastier than the ones in Iraq or Afghanistan. They're more organized and more technologically advanced than the Taliban, they have been setting up remote airfields and bunkers for decades to prepare for a war, and their terrain is a lot more defensible than Iraq's. We'll no doubt win, but at a far higher cost. These Tomcats are just a small part of the reason for that.
118 posted on 10/17/2005 11:55:51 AM PDT by Arthalion
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