This idea around repurposing F-4s is more of a situation which the F-16’s are starting to enter too, and those make more sense, since they are/were very good fighter/bombers and are probably cheaper to run and maintain considering there are active logistic chains for them all around nato essencially.
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Just to state it clearly, this is the original f4J that saw service during Vietnam, its air to air is on par with the F4E, ground weaponry not so much
Well that is what the Fighter Mafia thought- the F-4 is very not energy-manueverability and needs to be replaced ASAP by F-16s
so the rwr doesnt ? or say hi to me anymore?
That is an extreme oversimplification of what happened. The airframes were already quite old and abused, the maintenance costs, or upgrade viability was just not enough to justify the effort of keeping them against upgrading to the more capable F-15 and F-16.
Naturally whoever wants to build and sell F-16’s will lobby for that, but that by itself is not the entire reason of why the Phantoms were put out of service for the most part.
