Manual

Each nation entered the Cold War withdifferent strategic objectives. The UnitedStates recognised that it could neverreturn to semi-isolationism and thatcontaining the spread of Communismwas going to require global involvement.To back this commitment, the US had tocreate a naval force able to respondquickly to potential trouble spots. Such aforce would have to be self-contained andprovide for its own air defense.The Soviet Union took a much moredefensive stance. Its biggest concern waskeeping US warships out of Sovietwaters. While the United States built upits fleet of aircraft carriers, the Sovietsjumped ahead in missile technology. TheSoviets planned to make the vaunted USsuper-carriers vulnerable to low costmissile attacks.In the 1950s, the US Navy recognisedthat Soviet progress in missile technologywould one day pose a serious threat to itscarrier battlegroups. Naval tacticianscould envision having to fend off waves ofattacking long-range bombers or nuclearcruise missiles. It was assumed thatsometime within the next decade theSoviets would manage to arm theirstrategic bombers with stand-off cruisemissiles. Once this happened, UScarriers could be hunted down anddestroyed before they sailed withinstriking distance.To deal with this eventuality, the Navywanted to develop a carrier-based fighterable to engage Soviet bombers at rangesin excess of the stand-off range of theirmissiles. Engineers were quick to pointout that the Navy’s mission requirementswere at odds with the weight restrictionsnormally associated with carrier aircraft.A fighter conforming to this set ofrequirements, would have to be largeenough to store tons of additional fuel yetremain light enough for carrieroperations, an impossible task.The Navy’s answer was to design a fighterwith a powerful radar and complement oflong range air-to-air missiles. This solutionhad the advantage of increasing thecombat radius of the aircraft withoutincreasing its fuel load. The aircraft couldtake up a patrol station closer to thecarrier and let its missiles reach out andperform the mission. Unfortunately, thisconcept meant the fighter would beburdened by the weight of its own radarsystem and missiles, losing much of itsdogfighting capability in the process.The ability to dogfight was not supposedto matter. Under these designspecifications the aircraft would be aplatform for launching missiles, andnothing more. Once it had expended allits missiles it would immediately return tothe carrier. Labelled an interceptor, thisaircraft was never meant to engage theenemy up close and personal. After all,didn’t the Navy leave the guns off theirPhantom II design? They wouldn’t havedone that if they thought for a momentthat their pilots would be dogfighting withenemy pilots.GENESIS OF THE F-14In late 1957, the Navy won a contract tobegin developing the XAAM-M-10 Eagle,a two-stage, solid fuel, radar-guided airto-airmissile with a range in excess of100 nm. The Douglas F6D Missileer wasthe aircraft selected to carry the Eagle.The Missileer design called for theinclusion of a track-while-scan pulseA carrier battlegroup at sea.