[DJR-351]

Originally Posted by Sezzy

Why not just update the F1-11?

Twin engine, awesome piece of machinery...spend the coin on updating, as opposed to bringing in more planes that will get decommissioned and live out their last days turning to rust...

From an e-book i have...

....Survivability is however the ultimate constraint in this game, and that will determine the point in time when the F-111 becomes operationally non-viable, even if it remains systems-wise supportable and structurally sound.

Here is however where the issue does become more complex. When the F-111 was designed, during the early sixties, it was optimised as a single penetrator, an aircraft designed to penetrate deep into hostile airspace individually, without escorts and evade fighters and surface air defences using high speed persistence, onboard jammers and terrain masking. The much larger B-1A was designed around the very same model, indeed it used various avionic items designed for the F-111. Until the deployment of the S-300P/PMU (SA-10/20) and S-300V (SA-12) family of SAMs, the A-50 AWACS and the look-down/shoot-down capable Su-27P and MiG-29 fighters, the F-111 was unstoppable by any Soviet IADS. The pulse Doppler radar technology in these AWACS, missile and fighter radars has however eroded the survivability of the unescorted F-111....

....basically there are too many more advanced nasties out there now that could effortlessly swat the beloved F-111 out of the sky.....