A report on McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II and Grumman F-14 Tomcat

The canonical example was the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, used by the USAF, USN, and U.S. Marine Corps to provide air superiority over Vietnam, the only fighter with enough power, range, and maneuverability to be given the primary task of dealing with the threat of Soviet fighters while flying with visual engagement rules.

During the same period, the Navy had ended its VFAX program and instead accepted a proposal from Grumman for a smaller and more maneuverable design known as VFX, later becoming the Grumman F-14 Tomcat.

Its versatility and reliability have proven it to be a valuable carrier asset, though it has been criticized for its lack of range and payload compared to its earlier contemporaries, such as the Grumman F-14 Tomcat in the fighter and strike fighter role, and the Grumman A-6 Intruder and LTV A-7 Corsair II in the attack role.

The U.S. Navy started the Naval Fighter-Attack, Experimental (VFAX) program to procure a multirole aircraft to replace the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, the A-7 Corsair II, and the remaining McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs, and to complement the F-14 Tomcat.

Groups of F-4 Phantom and F-5 Tiger fighter jets attacked targets throughout Iraq, such as oil facilities, dams, petrochemical plants, and oil refineries, and included Mosul Airbase, Baghdad, and the Kirkuk oil refinery.

Meanwhile, Iraqi air attacks on Iran were repelled by Iran's F-14A Tomcat interceptor fighter jets, using AIM-54A Phoenix missiles, which downed a dozen of Iraq's Soviet-built fighters in the first two days of battle.

Navy aircraft also played a significant role in conflicts during the following Cold War years, with the F-4 Phantom II and the F-14 Tomcat becoming military icons of the era.

In the same year, the termination of the Naval Advanced Tactical Fighter (NATF), an offshoot of USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program to replace the F-14, resulted in additional fighter capability being added to A-X, which was then renamed A/F-X.

In December 2011, Japan announced its intention to purchase 42 F-35s to replace the F-4 Phantom II, with 38 to be assembled domestically and deliveries beginning in 2016.

In the United States, the influential proponents of BVR developed fighters with no forward-firing gun, such as the original F-4 Phantom II, as it was thought that they would never need to resort to WVR combat.

After lessons learned from combat experiences involving modern military air capacity, the U.S. Navy's VFAX/VFX and U.S. Air Force's F-X (Fighter Experimental) reassessed their tactical direction which resulted in the U.S. Navy's F-14 Tomcat and US Air Force's F-15 Eagle.

Due to the mass production, the aircraft was very cheap: the MiG-21MF, for example, was cheaper than the BMP-1 The F-4 Phantom's cost was several times higher than MiG-21.

During the Iran–Iraq War, 23 Iraqi MiG-21s were shot down by Iranian F-14s, as confirmed by Iranian, Western and Iraqi sources and another 29 Iraqi MiG-21s were downed by F-4s.

In the 1960s, NAS Oceana became the home to all East Coast based F-4 Phantom II squadrons.

After the F-14 Tomcat arrived on the scene in 1976, VF-101 transitioned to Tomcat operations and Phantom training operations shifted to newly established Fighter Squadron 171 (VF-171) to handle Atlantic Fleet training for the F-4 Phantom until it was retired from service in 1984.

It was integrated into the newer F-4E Phantom II variants.

It was also adopted as standard in the "teen"-series air superiority fighters, the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon and McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet.

As a result of eight years of aerial combat in that conflict, the IRIAF has the second highest claimed number of fighter aces in the region, exceeded only by the Israeli Air Force; as many as seven IRIAF pilots claimed more than six kills, mostly achieved in the F-14 Tomcat.

On 23 September 1980, Iran launched Operation Kaman 99 as 40 F-4 Phantoms, armed with Mark 82, Mark 83 and Mark 84 bombs and AGM-65 Maverick missiles, took off from Hamadan.