Grendel as a Universal Infantry Cartridge

[LRRPF52]

The B-1 was canceled by Carter, true, but he did so knowing we had the B-2 under design. Reopening the B-1 line ensured we would not have enough funding to build more than a token 20 B-2 stealth bombers, a much more effective bomber.

One more edit: While the 22 months of F-14 development is a remarkable story, it's not completely surprising even by today's standards. Typically, engine development takes about twice as long as airframe integration, and the Navy left the F-14 with the TF-30, the same crappy engine used in the F-111. It left the F-14 crew with an engine they had to manage in combat, RPMs, angle of attack, etc., when you'd really rather be doing something else. FWIW, the F-18 was designed to be cheaper than the F-14, and it failed miserably at that; it would have been cheaper and more effective, IMO, to use the entire F-18 funding line to re-engine the F-14 with the F100 engine (same as F-15/F-16), then buy more F-14 aircraft, because nothing else came close to the Phoenix interceptor missile, but that's not what happened, obviously.

The B-1A with supersonic capability could penetrate Soviet Air Defenses quite easily back then, and wouldn't need to in many cases with ALCM's. I think it makes a lot of sense to have a balance leaning more towards B-1's, especially looking at what a workhorse that has been, versus allowing Warsaw Pact countries to G2 the radar signature and operating profile of the B-2 just to dump a bunch of conventional munitions in limited conflicts on man-dress-wearing miscreants. A trans-contitnetal, trans-atmospheric bomber would be the next step at replacing the B-2, and we wouldn't need that many of them.

The F-14B with the F101, and F110 engines in the F-14A+ should have happened a decade earlier. The Navy has been trying to do F-15 work with the F/A-18 for decades, and the whole Lightweight Fighter airframe from the YF-17 doomed that platform from the start, especially when considering combat radius, although the avionics, FBW, and thrust-to-weight have made it a formidable multi-role fighter, gas capacity restrictions aside. The Pheonix was certainly impressive in the trials, but real-world use resulted in failures, unless we are to accept the claims of the Iranian Air Force, which are highly-plausible, considering the missiles were still relatively new in the Iran-Iraq war during the 80's.