It was planned for the F-14D to get the need software upgrade to operate AIM-120’s, as the AIM-54 they could not take all 6 and return to the carrier, while with the AMRAAM they could take as many as they could AIM-7’s and come back. However because there were only 55 of them, and certain people were trying to kill the F-14’s production entirely, the money that was set aside for that upgrade was transferred over to increase what they had for the LANTIRN upgrade.
And even within the US tech tree, adding such a plane has precedent. The F-15C ‘Golden Eagle’ was a plan (not sure they even made it to funding it) to upgrade the existing fleet of single seat F-15C’s to the F-15EX standard, meaning it should have 16 AMRAAM’s instead of the 12 it has and the I wanna say 10 before they were compelled to increase it but that parts beside the point. The military decided it wasn’t worth it to upgrade the older airframes, and so stuck with the still in production 2 seaters so only the 15EX will be a thing. So an ‘F-14D (CSU)’ - CSU being ‘Computer Software Upgrade’ as I don’t know that they had some name for the AMRAAM software package, sporting at least 6x AMRAAM’s is something that should more than be on the table, it should have been getting released with this - and then people maybe wouldn’t be going as scorched earth. As to which version of the AIM-9 and 7 it gets, I suppose that comes down to what BR it would be, which is kinda complicated because 6x AMRAAM’s isn’t exactly competitive above 13.3, least in terms of Arcade BR, F-16’s pretty routinely prove that point, and the Tomcat isn’t the most agile bird. I know more and more we have 13.0 planes with 2-6 more modern ARH missiles, albeit I don’t know that any of them can launch 6 at a time (again, Arcade BR’s). But even at 13.3 they’d at least have to give it access to the 9M.
Also, to tie to what’s posted right after - if they wanted to give us an F-14 squadron vehicle, they should give us the 'F-14A (Late) to go with the Early at 12.3 in Arcade (whatever in RB/SB) or really move both down to at least 12.0 in arcade cause they are getting stomped on. The F-14B in game is actually the F-14B (Upgrade), which is why it’s not really that different from the 14D, and the F-14A Early is the ‘Top Gun’ F-14A with the TF-30 engines. So, technically missing from the game that could be the F-14A Late is the F-14A+ from before they started calling it the F-14B, when it just had the TF-30’s replaced by the GE engine and a new RWR as the squadron vehicle. Alternatively, while it would be a non-ARH plane, in terms of a higher BR squadron vehicle for the US a missionized B model of the F/A-18 could be an option, though at what BR exactly I couldn’t tell you, if they went super early (like just entering service) where they’d have the AIM-7F maybe 11.7, otherwise a 2 seater version of the 12.3 aircraft.
If it’s not getting the 120s (personally don’t feel awfully strongly that is should or shouldn’t tho it’d be neat) then it should at least get all the later aim-54s. And almost more importantly it should get the aim-7P and aim-9M to make it more viable to run with the sparrows. Asking 80€ for essentially a copy paste of the B is really just sort of absurd.
it is possible but with a catch, F-22 (Early) would not have HMD as the IRL one that finally implementing it this year with Thales Scorpion (although they already tested it since early 2010s)
Well, the US Air Force has been dead since the F-15C. The US tech tree is lagging way behind. Now they’re selling an F-14 at 13.0 with ‘biological RWR’ that has to face the Su-30 all the time. Is this a sophisticated plot to increase the menu options for those 13.3 Su-30s?
If they wanted a side-grade, they could have just chosen the F-14BU instead of the F-14D.
Heatblur literally is releasing that very aircraft as a module for DCS soon. they dropped a teaser for it twelve hours ago as of this post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Da8rs5U-a4
NOTE: I’m not making an advertisement, I’m making a comparison of similar content that I feel is done better by a competitor in the Flight Simulation community and using it as an example of what i feel SHOULD have been done instead of this… Disappointment of a premium pack.
on top of that they’ve deleted my comments discussing the price of the F-14D Pack and where i said pre-ordering Ace Combat 8’s deluxe edition was more worth the money.
