McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II

What I can't understand with the F-4 that after several years of combat over North Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh trail during the mid to late 1960s that it needed an internal cannon that while the USAF when they introduced the F-4E with its' internal M61 Vulcan gun the USN's new much more capable F4J (A massive improvement on the F-4B) didn't have an internal gun.
 
NMaude said:
What I can't understand with the F-4 that after several years of combat over North Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh trail during the mid to late 1960s that it needed an internal cannon that while the USAF when they introduced the F-4E with its' internal M61 Vulcan gun the USN's new much more capable F4J (A massive improvement on the F-4B) didn't have an internal gun.
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No room, the AWG-10 dish is like 80cm, the F-4E uses a small nose and smaller pulse radar.
 
F-2 said:
No room, the AWG-10 dish is like 80cm, the F-4E uses a small nose and smaller pulse radar.
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While a good point there were USN and USMC F-4 pilots who did miss having a gun, for instance Dan Pedersen (The first officer in charge of a newly formed Top Gun at Miramar) mentioned several times in his book "TOPGUN: An American Story"* (Which I read last January) he found himself when flying over Vietnam (He flew F-4Bs then F-4Js during the war) in situations where he sorely missed having a gun.

*I highly recommend reading his book.
 
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F-2 said:
No room, the AWG-10 dish is like 80cm, the F-4E uses a small nose and smaller pulse radar.
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That's exactly it. The F-4E has a much smaller antenna diameter than the F-4J (~20"?), even though the nose of the -E is ~5ft longer.
 
Scott Kenny said:
That's exactly it. The F-4E has a much smaller antenna diameter than the F-4J (~20"?), even though the nose of the -E is ~5ft longer.
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There's no reason why the USN couldn't have purchased a few F-4Es when it became abundantly clear an internal cannon was needed for the Phantoms.
 
NMaude said:
There's no reason why the USN couldn't have purchased a few F-4Es when it became abundantly clear an internal cannon was needed for the Phantoms.
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Didn't have the right radar and other avionics (radios, at the least). I don't have the full list of changes between F-4B and F-4E.
 
NMaude said:
There's no reason why the USN couldn't have purchased a few F-4Es when it became abundantly clear an internal cannon was needed for the Phantoms.
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Other than the fact that it probably couldn't be successfully be launched from the carrier due to forward c.g. due to the gun+ammo+radar.
 

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