southernphantom wrote: Fair enough. The RAAF would likely have been better-served by a Strike Eagle derivative (losing the Growler ability, unless a jammer-Eagle was developed), but the SH is a perfectly good aircraft.
The question though, is how quickly could they have acquired advanced Eagle variants, establish the logistical base/infrastructure, get pilots trained up(it's much easier transitioning from a Hornet to a Super Hornet, than another aircraft type). Additionally, how many Eagles would they be able to afford vs. the Super Hornet? The Eagle is considerably more expensive to acquire/maintain.
It's an avionics fighter, not a kinematic fighter, which works fine unless you're fighting 5th-gen wackiness. And in that scenario, you'll very probably have USAF Raptor support.
Though I will point out that a Greek F-4 can carry that payload (IRIS-T in place of 9X) and then some.
This is a good point. An F-4 with modern avionics and weapons, can still be formidable. A Super Hornet has significantly better agility than an F-4, and state of the art avionics. It's nothing to be trifled with, especially when the fight is at the systems level, and not the platform level.