Some of you might of noticed a few weeks back that I listed this new article: “Persian Tomcats: Can Iran get another 20 years out of its F-14s? (How Iran manages to keep its F-14 Tomcats flying),” by Babak Tagvhee in Aviation News, August 2022.
Part of the reason I flagged this article is that Tomcats and my air combat wargaming have long gone hand in hand. The first modern air combat wargame I owned was the TSR edition of Air War: Modern Tactical Air Combat (1983). The cover featured, of course, an F-14 Tomcat.
Not an air combat game, but in 1986 I picked up Target: Libya, a magazine game in Strategy & Tactics No. 109 based pretty much on the Tomcat cover only.
The second modern air combat wargame I acquired was Air Superiority from GDW in 1987 featuring…a Tomcat on the cover!
Even my favorite naval combat wargame, Harpoon, got into the Tomcat “game” with the cover of Harpoon: Battles of the Third World War – Modern Naval Warfare Scenarios from GDW in 1987.
My love affair with Tomcats was not limited to just wargames. One of the earliest Squadron/Signal Publications books to enter my collection was F-14 Tomcat in Action: Squadron/Signal Publications Aircraft No. 32 by Lou Drendel (1977).
Who can forget the incredible flying scene in the movie The Final Countdown (1980) where Tomcats and “Zeros” tangle!
In 1986 the designer of Harpoon, Larry Bond, was credited as co-author with Tom Clancy for his bestselling novel Red Storm Rising. Although we don’t “see” any Tomcats in the book, we read all about them, especially in the chapter “Dance of the Vampires” which we now know was plotted with the assistance of Harpoon.
In 1986 we also get the original Top Gun movie and all that Tomcat love…
The cover of what may be the best-ever coffee table aviation photo book by C.J. Heatley III (what a great aviator name) is The Cutting Edge (Charlottesville: Thomasson, Grant & Howell, 1986) and has…Tomcats.
My Osprey Publishing book collection even has a Tomcat entry with Iranian F-14 Tomcat Units in Combat: Osprey Combat Aircraft 49 by Tom Cooper and Farzad Bishop (2004). There is LOTS of good wargame scenario fodder in this book!
For this winter, I have a 1/144th scale plastic model from Trumpeter to build.
Part of my love affair for Tomcats also comes from my two cruises with Dale ‘Snort’ Snodgrass. Although he was not my squadron skipper, he was a legend in the Naval Aviation community that we all respected. His death in 2021 was as sad as it was unexpected.
While the Tomcat-cover wargames are not the only air combat games in my collection, they are the most memorable. Now that I think about it, the cover of Birds of Prey: Air Combat in the Jet Age (Ad Astra, 2008) features an F-15 Eagle. Maybe that cover, as much as the difficult rules, explains why I don’t enjoy BoP?
Feature image by self
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Rocky Mountain Navy Gamer 
When I was a kid, there were binders with regular deliveries of new sheets on any given topic. I received the free starter kit on two topics from my grandparents and could choose one to continue – either planes or dinosaurs. I chose dinosaurs. But there is probably no text that I read as often as that one sheet of the F-14 Tomcat from the planes starterpack!
I have a personalTomcat wargaming story. My first Command LIVE DLC scenario, Black Gold Blitz, featured Iran and Saudi Arabia. Naturally, Tomcats played a prominent role, and I was actually sick of using them for some time in recreational play because I’d seen so many F-14 engagements when making and testing the scenario.
As an #avgeek I can appreciate this post and do like USN carrier aviation, especially the development of aircraft from the late 1940’s to the modern day. Having just picked up a copy of the MD F/A-18 Hornet book, could I recommend the Haynes F-14 edition:
…if you haven’t already got it of course! 😉
Don’t have it but WANT!
Of course, I can’t help but have that “Highway to the Danger Zone” song in my head now… but I also can’t help but hear it in Archer’s giggly delivery!
Archer 🤣