F-14 TOMCAT

[expat]

Further... Exocets are cheap and easy to get (see tanker wars in the 1980s).

Remember, tankers do not shoot back, however Type 42 Destroyers tried and lost in the Faulklands Conflict. As I remember the UK lost 2 too theses weapons. They were launched at the maximum range and the aircraft were already on the way home when they hit.

Matt

[C]

Remember, tankers do not shoot back, however Type 42 Destroyers tried and lost in the Faulklands Conflict. As I remember the UK lost 2 too theses weapons. They were launched at the maximum range and the aircraft were already on the way home when they hit.

But the Type 42s did there job to be fair - the Exocets surely weren't aimed at them...

[Ivan]

@expat: The post wasn't about shooting sitting ducks with Exocets (which shooting at tankers is, even if you arm the crew with Stingers), it was about the fact that Iran at the absolute heights of the sanctions still could get hold of Exocets, and was able to modify the F-14A to carry the necessary electonics to carry them.

Remember that the only reason for selling F-14s to Iran was Soviet RECCE overflights (with Foxbats), and that at that time there was nothing else in the US arsenal that could touch the MiG-25RB (mission cruise M2.8, overdrive over M3.2). The F-14 was the best they could offer to cover their gulf assets at that time (2nd half of the 1970s).

Main problem in the gulf is subs (Shkval), fast attack boats (Shkval) and coastal batteries (Shkval, SS-19 'Granit' with conventional warhead). A single conventional load Granit is enough to sink a Nimitz class carrier.

[expat]

@expat: The post wasn't about shooting sitting ducks with Exocets (which shooting at tankers is, even if you arm the crew with Stingers), it was about the fact that Iran at the absolute heights of the sanctions still could get hold of Exocets, and was able to modify the F-14A to carry the necessary electonics to carry them.

Someone must have deleted a post because I cannot find any reference to what you have written Ivan!

The post was about supersonic attack on the fleet with the mention of Exocet missiles. My reply was, you can do the job without being supersonic, as in the Faulklands Conflict. The Dassault Super

[Ivan]

Some sources say that they even took the exocet launcher from one of the frigates and put it on a truck, which was used in that attack too...

[expat]

Some sources say that they even took the exocet launcher from one of the frigates and put it on a truck, which was used in that attack too...

HMS Glamorgan was struck by an Exocet missile fired from a shore-based launcher improvised on the back of a lorry trailer. HMS Glamorgan was some 18 miles off shore at the time and steaming at about 20 knots. Who needs super sonic ??

Incidentally, Argentina had taken delivery of five Super