Jorge, correct me if I am wrong, but is there a real world replacement for the job the F 14 TomCats or the A6 Intruder did?
no sir. The F/A-18 F is in my view an F-14D with less capabilites and there's nothing out there that replaced the A-6E, then again, munitions technology has alleviated some of that (although in Yugoslavia, the absence of the A-6 and FB-111s seriously degraded our all-weather capabilites), but we really blew it financially with the A-12 (and now the F-35). What we should have done (in 1996) was continue to build the F-14D with the Tomcat 2000 follow on, the A-6F and maybe Hornet Es, then continue the R&D for their eventual replacements. What happened, the A-12 was a disaster, basically leaving the Navy with only F/A-18s (and it's variants) as the only game in town, that even today, they can't match what a Tomcat was capable of.
