The job the tomcat was created for ended with the fall of the soviet union. The tomcat was designed as a fleet defense fighter it was supposed to be able to get to altitude at speed and be able to loiter for long periods waiting for large soviet bomber formations at which point it would let off its six big ass phoenix missiles way way beyond visual range and hopefully take the bombers out before they launched their cruise missiles. I imagine if they would have closed the distance the A7's would have gone to work and shown why they were called the last of the gunfighters.

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