At the time the F-4 Phantom was offered to the Navy, the F-8 Crusader had already been accepted as a daylight dogfighter, so the Phantom was developed into an all-weather radar-equipped fighter armed with radar-guided missles.
At the time the F-4 Phantom was offered to the Navy, the F-8 Crusader had already been accepted as a daylight dogfighter, while the subsonic McDonnell F3H Demon was the Navy's all-weather fighter. The Phantom was developed as the Navy's first supersonic all-weather radar-equipped fighter armed with radar-guided missles.