the 'Tomcat' ever used to its full potential?

The F-14 Tomcat was correctly dubbed the MiG killer in it's time, it was big and could host six large long range supersonic AIM-54 missiles that would kill any nimble MiG before it could even get close to any US position, built to defend aircraft carriers in the high seas the F-14 armed with the AIM-54 could hit airborne targets dead on 100 miles away, targets including fighter jets, supersonic bombers and even cruise missiles!

However this system was expensive, and apart from selling 79 F-14's and 285 AIM-54 Phoenix missiles to the Shah's Iran, following the revolution of 1979 it was rumored throughout the west that these missile systems were disabled by the Americans before they left, neither way it was an extremely expensive loss for the United States military.



The US Navy however throughout the 1980's made no use of the deadly system, the AIM-54 wasn't mass produced at all, as it had been during the late 1970's, instead during both incidents above the Gulf of Sidra against Libyan MiG's and Sukhoi's Navy Tomcats used short range AIM-7's and AIM-9's, which meant close quarter dogfights which misses the whole point in the missiles role in the long range defense for naval aircraft carriers.



However during the 1980's the Iranians did manage to press at least 55 of their F-14's into the newly founded Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, only around six AIM-54's had been disabled by the Americans, the Iranians put the Phoenix missile into increased use throughout the first five years of the war against Iraq, in one instance in 1982 downing two Iraqi MiG-23's with just one AIM-54!



However the Iranian Tomcats had a problem with their faulty TF30 engines, although this didn't stop the IRIAF F-14's scoring over 100 air to air victories against Saddam's air force.

The US Navy in 2006 had the Tomcat fleet destroyed, the deadly AIM-54 system never got it's chance to prove its worth in the west.

Related Reading:

Persian Cats

Dez Iddon: Just in case

Book: Iranian F-14 Tomcat Units in Combat

Iranian F-14 Tomcat achievements

The F-14 was only ever exported to Iran under the Shah, 79 were delivered between 1976 and 1979 and shortly after the Iranian Revolution and the seizure of American hostages in their embassy in Tehran, shortly afterwards the US and the west put aside the rules that govern how states behave by aiding Saddam Hussein in his bloody war against Iran and spreading propaganda one of the most famous ones to this day was the status of Iran's fleet of F-14's, which were told be sabotaged and left useless.

These lies changed from the whole IRIAF being inactive by 1984 and the air war remaining "uninteresting" according to US sources, however the post revolution Iranian air force the IRIAF had;

scored the first kill for an F-14 in September of 1980 against an Iraqi Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunship using it's Vulcan cannon!

Managed to service and maintain the Tomcat's air frame and keep a hefty amount of the fleet active throughout the war, this was a big burden considering they were under complete arms embargo from most of the world and the F-14A's they had had the TF30 engines which were a problem even for the IIAF!

Shot down over 159 adversaries, and saw more air to air combat than the entire USAF and US Navy saw in the Vietnam War!

However as the US mainstream media made several claims sometimes contradicting each other, for instance in 1987 stating Iran no longer even had an air force which was followed by an engagement (one of several over the course of the war) in which a single F-14 downed a MiG-23 in plain sight and scarred off the rest!

After nearly 20 years of declaring the IRIAF dead and not a threat the US Navy had all of their F-14's destroyed to ensure Iran didn't get spare parts for their air force, proving how much of threat the US considers the "long dead" IRIAF to be!

possible sources for new Iranian fighter jets

With continued Israeli threats to attack Iran's nuclear program Iran has a right to defend its skies against attackers, not many people are aware of how dangerous an attack as threatened would be.

For instance the attack on the Bushehr nuclear reactor would immediately kill thousands living in the surrounding areas and poison those as far away as the Qatar and the United Arab Emirates!

With Iran threatening to do the same to Israel this is indeed a dangerous game, Iran can counter Israeli aggression but does it have sufficient air power to defend against a massive Israeli strike.

Unfortunately not, the F-14A is still the top gun of the Iranian Air Force and the 25 or so still in service don't have AIM-54 missiles that made them such a deadly force in the 1980's, other aircraft they have worth mentioning would be handful of MiG-29's bought from Russia in 1983 and several ex Iraqi Air Force jets that crossed over during Operation Desert Storm, some of these (most notable examples being the a handful of Mirage F-1's and some Su-25's) are still in service today.

Venezuela offered to sell their fleet of 21 F-16's after the US introduced an arms embargo, only 12 remain in service today in the Venezuelan air force and the US strictly does not allow Venezuela to sell the fleet to a third country without written consent!


source

Since when did they have command over Venezuela?
They should be allowed do what they want, its for defence and Iranian engineers would surely be able to develop new parts for them like they did in the case for their F-14's and F-4's, hell they were even able to build a fighter from scratch based on components from the F-14 and F-5!

Next onto a country that doesn't have arms and economic sanctions against Iran.



That would be North Korea, Iran have already acquired a hand full of missiles off North Korea but I somehow doubt they will acquire many planes, most of the North Korean air force are older MiG's (Fishbeds, Floggers etc.) most of which probably don't even work, the best North Korea have are a rumoured 35 to 40 MiG-29 Fulcrums (see picture above) which are used to defend Pyongyang airspace.

I somehow doubt they will want to sell any of them to Iran or anyone else for that matter.

They could turn to someone else who isn't an ally or a friend, or anything really for that matter.

Russia.



Iranian citizens crying death to Russia recently didn't seem to strain relations, rumours of Russia delivering S-300 air defence batteries to Iran aren't yet verified, but if that is true that mean Iran could bolster one hell of an air defence against enemy aircraft.

The Jerusalem Post reported that Iran has signed an arms deal with the Russian Rosoboronexport arms group to buy 250 Su-30 MKM warplanes and 20 Il-78 MKI aerial tankers.
It was dismissed as propaganda, but still if it had been true it would have well evened the tide, it would have been over three times as big as the amount of F-14's delivered during the 1970's, but not just that, they would be able to import parts if they ever had to fight a long war, and spread out across the many tactical air bases presently existing in Iran would be the perfect defence for Iran's skies, (the old Khatami Air Base the ex hub for the F-14's built in the desert outside of Isfahan comes into mind as a great base of operations for this new fleet).

Anyway, back from Nevernever land the only hope of something like this happening in the near future will be long after the Russian president Dmitry Medvedev realizes nuclear talks will take little action on the other side and a militerization of Georgia might lead him to back Iran with just such enormous aerial defence logistics.

But for the moment Iran will just have to rely on what they have at the moment!

An Iran Saudi Arabian conflict

Saudi Arabia doesn't have an overly big army, it came under attack once in the 20th century from Iraq in 1991 at the opening of Operation Desert Storm when several conventional Scud missiles were launched at major cities including the capital Riyadh, while these resulted in only minor deaths the Saudis didn't have to exactly fight to defend themselves, since the vast amounts of oil in Saudi Arabia (and the fact Kuwait needed to be liberated) meant the US and Britain backed them to no ends to which they would do today.



That means they still buy up hi technology (mostly air power) and have even recently ordered 72 Eurofighter Typhoon F-2s, (simply enormous aerial defence logistics), but think about this, the last time Iran was buying high technology from the US was during the Shah's time in which he had paid for 150 F-16's which were canceled and transferred to Israel and Pakistan after the revolution.

Ayatollah Khomeini had proclaimed Saudi Arabia as well as Israel at certain points of time making Saudi Arabia a potential enemy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iran at the time was arranging its military forces executing many generals and 'Shah pilots' when Iraq attacked, several countries armed Iraq in its bloody eight year war against Iran.

Unlike the Saudi's limited (and heavily publicized) victories in Operation Desert Storm the IRIAF (Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force) got barely any recognition of its achievements, 300 engagements were fought alone over Khark Island with Iranian F-14 Tomcats and F-4 Phantom II's against Iraqi Dassault Mirage F-1's (bought from France) and several older MiG's, a ratio of 5 to 1 against Iran at the start of the war!



With no spare parts to keep the F-14 airframes intact several were cannibalized and only in the Iran Contra Affair in 1985 were spare parts for their AIM-54 Phoenix missiles acquired, because of these sanctions the Iranian Air Force was slowly being starved out of existence.



But early in the war they had proven their worth in Operation Kaman 99 and in other small instances (such as the Sultan Strike), it was in 1987 a week after the US (for the second time since 1984) stated that the Iranian Air Force was completely dead, that two F-14's using an F-4 as bait lured a strike package of Iraqi Su-22's heading for Khark Island led by two Mirage F-1's hit the lead Mirage from nearly 50 miles away with an AIM-54 head on killing their flight leader and recorded the other pilots scream in Arabic "F-14! Run! Run!" before doing just that!

You might be wondering where I'm going with this, well where I'm going with this is that Iran under heavy sanctions from the west (and only air defence and MiG-29's bought from the east) would inflict serious damage on Saudi Arabia which are backed by continue to buy the latest military hardware straight from Europe and America.

Iran pretty much relies on itself and has made hundreds of conventional ballistic missiles, air to air missiles for their F-14's and F-4's and have even managed to make several aircraft like the F-5 called the Saeqeh.

Through sheer determination they managed to defeat overwhelming odds they managed to become nearly completely self sufficient in their military (while Israel and Saudi Arabia rely completely on the United States and Europe) and you can be guaranteed if Saudi Arabia and Iran ended up fighting a war (probably air to air ship to ship across the Persian Gulf) Iran would stand it's own and again prove that self determination and courage will win them any war regardless of the odds against them!

Top 5 coolest air forces

Note before you criticize my choices, this list is of the coolest air forces of the world not the best!

5. Iranian Air Force (IRIAF)

The only reason I picked the Iranian Air Force is simply because the way its been made up since 1980, the Shah's air force was a match for the Soviet Air Force until after the Iranian Revolution when it was disbanded and pro Shah pilots put in jail, tortured and some even killed.

But after the Iraqi invasion started on the 22nd of September 1980 the Iranians got together and launched Operation Kaman 99, 60 F-14's defending Iran's airspace and 120 F-4's launched in to retaliate bombing the Iraqi air force and destroying about 55% of it!

300 engagements against Iraqi fighters was fought over Khark Island alone, the Iraqi Air Force failed in destroying one target over eight years at the hand of Iranian F-14's, showing them to be a deadly force regardless of the arms embargo and heavy sanctions.



Iran today are even capable of producing their own variant of the F-5 Freedom Fighter and are keeping over 20 F-14 Tomcats and over 60 F-4's in service.

4. Israeli Air Force (IAF)



While it's main task these days seems to be deploying F-16's to kill women and children and destroy UN convoys the Israeli Air Force in its day did a pretty good job, especially the ballsy Operation Opera in 1981 destroying an Iraqi nuclear reactor.

In the Lebanon War of 1982 they even managed to shoot down 100 Syrian aircraft without a single loss.

And around the same time during a training exercise an F-15 was involved in a collision with an A-6 even managed to land with only one wing!


3. United States Air Force (USAF)



The USAF is the biggest air force in the world and in some regard the best because of that, they have created many revolutionary aircraft, such as the F-14 Tomcat (named the MiG killer), the A-10 Warthog which in my case is one of the reasons tanks are becoming obsolete and they have recently invested into stealth bombers and fighters (with the F-22 Raptor), I have issues with whether or not stealth aircraft are proven.

That being said the US Air Force is a mighty adversary for anyone to have!

2. Russian Air Force



In the early 1980's the Soviets designed the Su-27 Flanker, basically integrating the F-14 and F-15 designs into one, it was big and ready to kick ass, since the Soviet Union fell the Russian air force the Russian Air Force has made some technology demonstrators and haven't really made anything in bulk relying more on their MiG-29's and Su-27's as their main frontline fighters.



But when they make make something new count on it being awesome.

1. French Air Force (ALA)



Yes the French Air Force is what I picked as the coolest air force, its far from the best air force in the world but in my books it surely is the coolest, apart from a large amount of sleek Mirages and the new Rafales it is a very sleek cool looking air force.

And the pilots apparently like to hug the ground for some reason;



And if you think a small looking Mirage can't do much damage because of its size, think again, a Rafale can fire an ASMP supersonic nuclear missile that has a yield equivilant to 300 kt of TNT!

Now that is quite a big punch for such a small little plane!

The Sultan Strike

The IRIAF (Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force) isn't credited as much as it should have been for its victories in the Imposed War on Iran (otherwise known as the Iran Iraq War), under arms embargo the personnel in this organization managed to keep their F-4's, F-5's and F-14's in the air in (extreme cases) having to cannibalize other air frames and parts as spares to keep the others that were in better condition in the air.

When the war started on September 22nd 1980 when Saddam Hussein attempted to destroy the Iranian Air Force on the ground, at the time most of the Iraqi Air Force was made up of obsolete aircraft like MiG-21's, MiG-23's and Chengdu J-7's (example seen below).



Saddam's major air attack proved futile as Iran had built several concrete bunkers to store its aircraft (having learn the mistakes of the Arabs in the Six Day War), so the Iraqi Air Force was only successful in crating a few runways.

Iran responded the next day with Operation Kaman 99 was launched as were 146 Iranian F-4s and F-5s for a bombing raid on Iraq, 60 F-14 Tomcats where scrambled to defend Iranian airspace against a possible Iraqi retaliation, they managed to down five Iraqi MiG's, the bomb raids inflicted damage on the air bases but the Iraqis had flown most of their air forces to neighbouring countries (such as Saudi Arabia) before the Iranian attack, however they were then out of action for several weeks.

As the Iranians were putting up stiff resistance against the Iraqi invasion (Saddam vowed they'd reach Tehran in three days!), the IRIAF had total air supercity over them making it impossible for the present IrAF at the time to support ground units.

The Sultan strike was born after the Iranians had obtained very precise information about 47 French technicians having arrived at an air base near Mosul along with several of the new Dassault Mirage F-1's that the Iraqi's had ordered back in 1977 now ready for delivery giving the IrAF a newer fighter jet for their inventory.



However the Iranians weren't going to allow that happen and were eager to "welcome the French" to the war since they had obviously chosen the side of the aggressor, unlike the Israeli bombing of a nuclear reactor in 1981 (Operation Opera) in 1981 in which they attacked on a Sunday to avoid killing foreign workers on the plant the Iranians were readying to strike when there were several French workers in the area!

A total of six F-4's were put to the mission each carrying twelve Mark 12 bombs along with a KC 707 tanker along with two F-14's from the 81st TFS flying shotgun, they would be flying a total of 187 miles to strike their Iraqi targets.



Zig zagging past Iraqi radars and entering Turkish air space before re entering northern Iraq, refueling several times from the low flying tankers watched over the F-14's, they came across a patrol of four MiG-23's, covering the strike force both F-14's engaged one (with an AIM-54), and the other engaged two right away destroying one instantly and knocking the other out of control, engaging a third the fourth obviously returning to base being low on fuel.

The Tomcat's had protected the strike package that had broken 300km into Iraqi air space and bombed al-Hurriyah air base destroying two MiG-21's and three Mi-8 helicopters on the ground, a single French technician was killed, the rest of the French were ordered home.

It was a small tactical victory and proved to Saddam Hussein that the Iranians were a formidable foe!

what the IIAF were prepared for

Since 1972 the Shah of Iran had taken interest in buying some new American built hi-tech interceptor aircraft, Iran had taken interest in the General Dynamics F-111 since 1968 but the US turned down this request instead sending some 32 F-4 Phantom II's to Iran in the early 1970's.



In light of air to air combat experience from Vietnam the Grumman Cooperation designed the F-14 Tomcat, a fast and powerful interceptor that could face down nimble Russian MiGs, it also had the large powerful AWG-9 radar that could scan the battlefield for miles and could carry six AIM-54 missiles, these large long range missiles could be fired and reach a speed of Mach 4 before hitting their target from up to 100 miles away.

This incorporated with the AWG-9 radar meant that the F-14 could track 24 different targets and fire 6 missiles at them, all of this under a single airframe, truly the worlds first super fighter.



But after the delivery of the first 20 or so in 1976 the Shah orders another batch bringing the total number of orders up to 80, these made up the bulk of the IIAF air defense that would cover all of Iran, most of the F-14's to be situated at the massive Khatami Air Base built in the desert outside of the city of Esfahan in the centre of Iran.

But why the development of such huge aerial defence logistics in so short a time?

Well Soviet MiGs had performed several overflights of Iran during the 1970's and the Iranians were finding it difficult to cope with their F-4 Phantoms, and intercepting the fast MiG-25 Foxbats (still one of the fastest jets in the world), it became dangerous when an F-4 intercepted and managed to hit the MiG-25 which managed to fly over the northern border into the USSR before crashing.

The Soviets responded by shooting down one of the IIAF EF-4's, not long later the first F-14's begun to arrive.

The IIAF was improving their air defense to be one of the best in the world, the AIM-54 armed F-14 Tomcat proved a real threat to the Soviets compared to the Sparrow armed F-4, over the desert the F-14's trained by shooting down drones from long distances with their new AIM-54 missiles testing the deadly system.



The Shah seemed to think seriously that the Soviets were going to invade, if coordinated properly the IIAF would be a match for even the Soviet Air Force and would be able to keep Irans air space well guarded, the Shah had also ordered the delivery of some 150 F-16 Fighting Falcons about a year before the revolution but that never happened and they were given to Israel instead in 1980.

But that would have been one formidable force if held together properly, the F-16's just add it to a standard that would ensure the Russians had no air superiority and would therefore be unable to launch a ground invasion of northern Iran.

However following the 1979 Iranian revolution the IIAF fell apart when the Americans left along with several pro Shah pilots, those who remained where jailed or tortured and most of the planes couldn't get proper maintenance, the grand IIAF had fallen and was replaced by the IRIAF which still has some former IIAF aircraft in it today. But by 1988 they had been exhausted for resources by fighting the war with Saddam and most of their AIM-54 missiles had lost their shelf life and only 25 Tomcats remained flyable.

But the IRIAF are pushing some more back into repairs and building their own planned replacement for the AIM-54.

It's still a formidable force but its hay day has long gone and its well aged now!

What the IRIAF consists of today

It seems that Bush has not attacked Iran, tensions have been rising since 2006 when it was even suggested that nukes be in such an attack since it was too big to invade!

What I always wanted to know was whether or not the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF) would have posed a credible threat to USAF aircraft?

Back in the 1970's in the Shah's Iran the Imperial Iranian Air Force (IIAF) was spending millions on high technology from the United States, by 1979 the air force had over 450 modern aircraft even a match at the time for the Soviet Union, these aircraft included 120 F-4 Phantom II jets, 79 Grumman F-14 Tomcats (out of a scheduled 80) and even F-5's.

These were later transferred into the successor of that the IRIAF after the 1979 revolution, for the next year alot of these were grounded due to maintenance problems with several Tomcats, but on September 1980 after the Iraqi Air Force launched its invasion by using the IrAF to strike IRIAF aircraft on the ground they failed the main objective since most IRIAF were sheltered in concrete bunkers.

Iran launched the largest air operation in the whole Iran Iraq War and in the countries history, less than 24 hours later Operation Kaman 99 was launched, 60 F-14 Tomcats were launched to protect Iran some armed with the AIM-54 missile system, 30 F-4's then hit back at Iraqi air bases taking out 55% of it there and then.

For the rest of the war Iranian F-14's were used for protecting the Khark Island installation, over 300 air-to-air engagements against IrAF fighters, fighter-bombers, and bombers, were fought in these areas alone between 1980 and 1988.

The IrAF had acquired some French Dassault Mirage F-1's which downed a total of three Tomcats.



In Operation Desert Storm in 1991 several Iraqi planes fled to Iran to avoid being destroyed by coalition craft, these included several Mirage F1s, MiG-25 Foxbats, MiG-21 Fishbeds, MiG-27s, Su-24MK Fencer-Ds, MiG-29 Fulcrums, Su-20s, Su-22M Fitters, Su-25 Frogfoots, MiG-23s and a number of Il-76s.



Also in 1993 Russia sold Iran a number of MiG-29 Fulcrums, Iran only bought a handful of them and have not yet decommissioned the older US built F-4's and F-14's.