W.A. Baker wrote:
In article , John Carrier
wrote:

[...]

By the time the Bug was validating its incredible
maintainability rep in the late eighties, the writing was on the wall for
the Tom. It's maintainability (lack thereof ... you should have seen what
it was like to keep Block 75's up 'n flying) doomed the jet.


John, what percentage of that maintenance load was specific to keeping
the Tom's mission-capable in the fleet air-defense role? I'm thinking
mainly of the avionics for the Sparrows and Phoenixes. Would there
have been a significant savings in maintenance man-hours if the Toms
had been explicitly transitioned into being "cold nose" bomb trucks
dedicated purely to the strike mission?

Strike and cold-nose (i.e., no radar) aren't compatible options anymore.
You need radar ground-mapping modes at a minimum, and realistically
also some air-to-air modes for self-defense. At that point, there's not
a huge amount of unique Sparrow or Phoenix support left in the system.
But you have to ADD distinctive strike capabilities, such as a laser
designator and FLIR (e.g. LANTIRN) to match the A-6's TRAM sensor turret.

OTOH, a ground-up redesign of the F-14 like the Super Hornet (ASF-14,
roughly) might have allowed significant savings.

--
Tom Schoene lid
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