Same with cars…no airbags, ABS, stability control, even seatbelts ( I recently read where Sir Stirling Moss was quoted as saying he ran 500+ races without seatbelts).

Let’s not blame any ac…US or Russian…by saying it didn’t do then what we routinely expect aircraft to do today.

The Vickers Vimy didn’t have reversable props..
The Lancaster didn’t have terrain following capability (other than a strong pair of arms at the controls)
The Dakota didn’t have blind landing capability…
The Hunter wasn’t stealthy…

this is the reasult when there is no consideration to battle damage

this examples are from the Iran-Iraq war

Source http://www.otvaga2004.narod.ru

You are contradicting yourself. The Tu-128 was a very special thing. The Su-9 had similar shortcomings like the Su-7 (short range, field performance). The F-106 was only effective in its role as ground controlled interceptor and in this role quite effective (proven by its long service time). Short ranged missiles are not really a problem when your opponent does not have any real chances to defend. A MiG-23 (speaking of the earlier versions until late 70s here) entering a defended airspace will be easy prey, its radar insufficient to really give a good situational awareness.
On equal terms (no external radar, no speed or altitude advantage) I rate the MiG-23 superior.

Its rate of climb was OK, proven by it low wing loading, acceptable drag-ratio and the reasonable thrust.

The F-106 probably was not a good fighter simply because the F-4 simply overshadowed, the F-4 was the best fighter the US had from 1957 to 1974

The Mirage III i feel was a better aircraft but still it had its vices The Mirage III was conceived at about the same time, and as a response to the same type of threat, as the MiG-21. With the fast, high-flying bomber the main threat, the Mirage III was developed as an interceptor. The delta wing planform was adopted for its high-speed, high-altitude qualities. It was intended to climb fast and intercept rapidly.
Although designed as an interceptor, it was as a tactical fighter that the Mirage achieved fame. The view out was considerably better than from the MiG-21. The Mirage handled very nicely and was definitely a pilot’s airplane. The standard tailless delta faults were that take-off and landing runs were longer than they need have been plus speed bled off alarmingly in hard turns and the Mirage IIIC was somewhat inferior to the MiG-21 in turning ability. On the other hand, the speed loss attendant upon hard turns could be used to advantage to force an overshoot. The Israeli Air Force taught a sudden, vicious pitch-up as an evasion maneuver. The tremendous speed loss almost invariably forced an attacker to overshoot, but it left the defender out of airspeed and vulnerable to a further attack.
In fact, the Israeli pilots preferred to use the classic slashing attacks wherever possible, and avoided turning in most cases.

“Air Warfare in the Missile Age” (1985) by Lon Nordeen

The Israelis highly rated the MiG-21 as a medium-altitude dogfight aircraft. With its slightly higher thrust-to-weight ratio and lower wing-loading, it was able to out-accelerate and out-turn the Mirage IIIC. Nevertheless, the Mirage’s pilots managed to shoot down MiG-21s as Arab pilots generally did not fly the plane to its limits of performance.
However, the MiG-21 was found to be highly susceptible to battle damage, having a tendency to burn or explode after being struck only a few times with 30-mm cannon fire. On the opposite, a Mirage was hit by the Soviet-built Atoll infrared-guided air-to-air missile fired from an Iraqi MiG-21 over an Iraqi airbase where the Mirage was patrolling. The Mirage’s tailpipe suffered extensive damage, but the pilot was able to return to the base.]

As a bomber interceptor for the CONUS area the USAF never saw the point of fitting short range AAMs onto the F-106 or F-102, but who really thinks that it would be a big issue to do so, if the USAF felt the ‘Six’ needed them (AIM-9Bs typically), and I can’t see any structural or aerodynamic problems arising, it would take a few weeks design, testing and certification if it came to it! Add on the Sidewinders I’m sure the F-106 has what it takes to be a frontal fighter, when you compare it to the likes of the MirageIII/F1, MiG-21/23, F-4, etc.

In numerous dissimilar air combat training within the US military, the F-106 has often proven itself to be more than the equal to the F-4 Phantom in WVR ‘dogfighting’. The F-4 for that matter, has spent a lot of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s in WVR combat against MiG-17/19/21/23 and has never been found too wanting!

If the Phantom (and F-105) can win a dogfight with a MiG-17, it should have no problems defeating the FLOGGER, and if the Phantom can defeat the FLOGGER I can’t see the ’Six’ having too many problems either (the F-105 should be in there with a shout too).

Was the MiG-23’s R-23 ‘medium range’ missile any better against ‘fighter sized’ targets? How many R-23s did the MiG carry in comparison to the F-106 anyway? Have we any reason to believe that the R-23 was any more effective a missile, compared to theAIM-4D?

That wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve heard that the MiG-23’s Sapfir-23 radar had some sort of ‘Look-down, Shoot-down’ capability – this is a matter of some debate though. Certainly if armed with R-23R/T I doubt if the MiG-23 could have intercepted any of the low flying targets expected. Perhaps the MiG-23ML or the MiG-23MLD with the radar upgraded, along with the R-24 series of missile, might have had some chance against lower flying aircraft, but for the greater part of the 1970s, no MiG-23 could have detected and destroyed any aircraft attempting to fly ‘under the radar’

I also doubt if the Sapfir-23 had a better detection range or processing power than the MA-1 system either.

I don’t mind going down this road at all…

It’s often forgotten that the F-4 suffered a greater number of losses during the Vietnam war than the F-105.
Also, it should be remembered, that the Communist Vietnamese possessed more anti-aircraft artillery than the Germans did during WWII , and that the North Vietnamese also received up to 6,000 S-75 ‘Dvina’ SAM missiles during the war (and used most of them, by the way).

330 combat losses over a period of 8 years might seem like an impressive figure, but the ‘Thud did fly over 20,000 combat missions so we’re looking at a loss rate of around, hmm, 1.65%…

So the question is… should we regard such a casualty loss figure as either a damning indictment of the ‘Thud’s’ survivability – or as a glowing testament to it??

I’m inclined towards the latter…

Well i feel the MiG-23 would not have it so difficult versus the F-106, first the AIM-4 is a different kind of weapon, it is short ranged and it was designed to take on bombers, the MiG-23M had a limited look down shoot down capability, and a limited radar, if jammed according to the Russians the MiG-23M still managed to fire R-23s at the Israeli F-16s, but their range was so reduced by the ISraeli jamming that the AIM-9L armed F-16 could counter attack and kill even the same aircraft that just achieved to shot down other F-16s.

The F-106 has a very slow rate of climb to me it suggest its acceleration should not be as good as the MiG-23 that boasts a higher rate of climb so i think as an interceptor the MiG-23 armed with R-23s should be a better interceptor.

It is true early MiG-23 were not as good as late variants but even the MiG-23MLD or MiG-23MLA were not super fighters, they were just good interceptor combining excellent speed and acceleration and were able to engage more or less other third generation fighters on an even basis.

The F-106 had the sophisticated Hughes MA-1 electronic and fire control system and worked in conjunction with the SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) defense system. The MA-1 took over control of the plane shortly after takeoff and guided it to the proper altitude and attack position.
In reality this system has an equivalent in the MiG-23P that worked on similar lines but it also could had been guided by other PVO fighters.

What Phantom and others here fail to realize, is that this is an INTERNATIONAL forum, and in this contexst hes reply was bouth rude and offensive.
If you dont like opinions in less than perfect english, you can easily find an all english/american forum.

Oh give me a break already! If his English was better than mine it still wouldn’t change the fact that it’s not relevant information to what the topic creator was asking for when this thread was made.

When you combine irrelevant information with difficult-to-understand English it makes for a big waste of time for MiG-23MLD who has to take the time to type it as well as anyone else who might read his big posts thinking there could be information in them that is relevant to the thread in question.

If I started spouting off performance characteristics about the F-4 in the small amount of French that I know in every thread created about the F-4 I get the distinct feeling it would get old to many people on this forum very quickly. With that being said MiG-23MLD’s English is better than my French, but let me reiterate that my real problem is not with the broken English…..it’s with the fact that he posts stuff that has nothing to do with what the topic creator asked.

So what if I’m being mean……..I’m also being realistic.

Phantom II

Your critic about my English is welcome there is nothing bad about it, however the information to the thread was and is relevant, however what franc wanted is more specific information about the event, you have not provided it niether any one here posting, all what everybody is doing here is critisizing each other and to do that i prefer instead post data related to the fighters in question, for you that data is irrelevant but not for everybody you forget there are visitors to this thread and new members for them this information perhaps was relevant.

I do not like you try to portrait my posts as irrelevant, they were not irrelevant, in fact they are relevant to those who know little about the aircraft in question or to those who have no idea about the capabilities each fighter has.

Since no one has given a satisfactory answer to franc i feel giving data was good enough.

However you should know that your critics are welcome about my english but you should moderate your tone because if we are doing an effort to speak a descent english you should have some tolerance to us, all the non native speakers because many of us can speak more than two languages in my case i speak five languages with different level of command respectively but undotedly english does not represent any more a challenge to me except from the fact since i learned it in my teen years i will never speak it perfectly.
I am a native spanish speaker, however i can speak Portuguese and English well, i can speak Japanese at least to keep a conversation but but my level is not so advanced however i can write and read a great deal of Japanese and i also understand some basic Russian

Sorry, I really don’t want to instigate any arguement among the members of this forum. I saw much enough debates about F-4 vs MiG-23 in here and other forums, that’s not important matter, also not I want. All I hope you can teach me just is a detailed results, situation and course of that confliction between N.K’s MiG-23 with S.K’s F-4 in 1994. Thanks in advance.:p

I would like but beyond some performance, avionics and weaponry data i am totally ignorant about the incident.:o

Those that have leaped to MiG-23MLD’s defense in this thread are (in my own opinion) one of two things: A; new to the forum, and therefore haven’t seen this sort of thing from him an infinite number of times, or B; weren’t paying attention to the topic of the thread.

The OP (Franc) was asking for information about a specific encounter (meaning, one incident) between DRPK MiG-23s and ROK F-4s in 1994. At which point, MiG-23MLD jumped in and gave a lengthy (and familiar to longtime forum members) discourse on the performance characteristics of both aircraft. Whether or not his figures are accurate (and I think they probably are) is irrelevant; just as his entire posting was irrelevant to the question posed in the thread. Franc wasn’t asking how the MiG-23 compares to the F-4 in general, nor was he posing a theoretical scenario, he was asking what happened in a particular instance.

Here’s an analogy: Someone asks, “Did you hear about the car wreck on the highway yesterday between the Audi and the BMW? What caused the crash? Who was driving?” To which someone replies, “Well, over the years, BMWs have fared slightly better in crash tests than Audi models, and here’s some data to prove it.” Doesn’t answer the question asked, does it?

Meat

The things are not as you are saying, here no one including me knows any thing about the incident, have you said any important information about the incident? answer no, the only thing i did is give an assesment of what could had happened based upon the performance characteristics, here no one has even a slight idea what happened in 1994 except there was a clash between an F-4 and a MiG-23, beyond that you only have critisized me without any thing better to what i have written at least i gave based upon the performance parameters of both fighter an slight idea about the weaknesses and strengths both fighters have very likely in an speculative way we can have an idea probably dependeing on the altitude weaponry and radar each fighter will try to fight in conditions that favour it.

If the F-4 was flying below 1000 meters and was armed with AIM-9L very likely had more odds of beating the MiG-23 specially when the F-4 has a two men crew, beyond Mach 0.9 or 5000 meters of altitude, the F-4 is in a slight disadvantage but since the R-60MK is not as good as the R-73 probably the F-4 has still some chances of beating the MiG-23.

At BVR combat the F-4 can beat the MiG-23 depending in what model of AIM-7 is carring but earlier AIM-7s are not really a threat.

Also i guess the avionics fitted to the South Korean F-4s have to be a little beat more updated even in 1994. so in few words giving some performance and data can give a slight idea of what could had happened.

Other factors as AWACS or data link usage are of crucial importance too but undoutedly as far as it respects on a one to one basis both fighters are more less matched

I personally reckon your just pissed because he demonstrated the MiG-23 is better in many respects than the fighter that is both your username and avatar.

Lol…..now that actually made me laugh. I’m feeling rough from a hangover, but let me say that did make me perk up and laugh a little.

The MiG-23 accelerates better, is slightly faster, and turns a bit better in some situations and that’s about it.

The F-4 by contrast can fly much farther (which translates to more endurance during something like a CAP), has the advantage of a two-man crew for better SA, has generally better avionics (especially in the case of the upgraded models….such as Kurnass 2000, ICE, PI 2000, etc.), carries a much larger load of weapons, can carry more AAM’s (including more of the all-important BVR weapons like AIM-7 & AIM-120),and it is generally a more versatile airplane (for decent ground attack work in the Flogger you need a dedicated airplane like the MiG-27…..the F-4 by contrast can do all missions).

So let’s see…..the MiG-23 has a slight edge in close combat, but in just about every other mission, the F-4 is generally going to be a better choice.

Yeah…I guess he proved to me which is better….

I’d like to add I’m not criticizing the information Flogger has posted. It’s obviously accurate if he’s getting it where he says, and indeed he comes to the same conclusion about the F-4 and MiG-23 that I always have……they are roughly similar and very comparable and a one-on-one fight would probably have a different winner every time.

I was simply pointing out that the original poster wasn’t looking for that type of info, and seeing as Flogger seems to post it on every thread he partakes in, it just gets old reading the same TYPE of data over and over again.

Comparing two airplanes by looking at turn rates is like comparing the New York Jets & the New Orleans Saints football teams by only looking at what each team can do while on offense. In short, it doesn’t paint a full picture of the capabilities of an aircraft. There are a ton more factors to consider when comparing two airplanes, such as payload, range, number of crew members, avionics suite, weapons capbilities, etc.

Phantom II

The MiG-23 that North Korea uses are basic MiG-23MLs, Yefim Gondon claims that the MiG-23ML`s Saphir ML was a litter better radar than the F-4`s APQ-120 fire-control radar.
The Russian claimed the MiG-23`s radar although more limited than the F-15`s radar was more less a good radar
The radar complex that the American aircraft possessed had definite advantages over airborne radar aboard the MiG-23MF, this was more acute in the case of the MiG-23MS. However, the radar capabilities displayed by the MiG-23ML and F -15 proved to be approximately equal. The AN/APG-63 was able to detect the MiG-23 at the maximum range within 100-110 km (with heading angle of 90°), and MiG-23ML detected the enemy at the same conditions within the range of 90-95 km; both aircraft radar had the capability to detect targets against the background of the earth clutter (look down shoot down capability). Although the zone of survey for the AN/APG-63 along the azimuth exceeded twice the surveyed air space zone, it was respectively, + -60 °for the more modern AN/APG-63 and + -30°for the Saphir;
The Saphir-23 radar was 1,5 times better descriminating group target clutter than the American made AN/APG-63, this fact, in particular, allowed MiG-23 formations to hide from the enemy the true number of aircraft flying in a dense radar clutter system.

According to Russian assesment the MiG-23 against the F-15s and F-16s used these tactics:

High-speed and quick acceleration were the MiG-23 main strengths which allowed it, the ability to carry out swift attacks and to withdrawn from the melee of the air battle at high speed (in the opinion of a number of western specialists, if the MiG-23 was flown by a skillful pilot it was capable of successfully attack and break off the encounter with any other less speedier fighter at will).

The MiG-23 can be flown for a relatively prolonged time on a high-speed low-altitude flight with its wings swept back at the maximum swept angle of 72 deg; the F -15 and F -16 with their low specific wing loads experienced near to the ground very strong aircraft turbulence and in flight fuselage vibration, and as if “they were riding on a cobblestone bridge” , this type of low flight at high speed could not be endured even by well trained F-15 or F-16 pilots.

I guess tactics against the F-4 should not be so as limited.

MiG-23 please don’t fill his head with all of your turn radius, G-limit crap. Why do you always do that everytime the Flogger is even mentioned on this forum?

Are you trying to prove something? Nobody even listens to you (not the least because the majority of your sentences lack any sort of punctuation or proper syntax) when you start rambling on about all that stuff.

No F-4’s were lost during the 1982 Bekaa Valley Conflict either…….

The only Israeli F-4’s shot down by MiG-23’s were lost in the 70’s….I believe it was two of them sometime after the Yom Kippur War in 1973. ’74 being the year perhaps?

Whatever the case, no Israeli F-4’s were lost during the 1982 Bekaa Valley conflict in air-to-air combat.

Phantom

Israel acknowledged that they lost 5 aircraft to enemy action from 1982 to 1999 and among them they mentioned two F-4 Phantom lost in June 1982.
You are right in the fact the F-4 are claimed shot down by AS-7 Grails and not by MiG-23s, however Russian literature claimed they lost several F-4s some claims even say around twenty F-4Es were lost by Israel in 1982 to MiG-23s and MiG-21s.

When i gave the data i used the MiG-23ML manual so the data at least for the MiG-23ML is totally well based upon real facts, the F-4 data i got it from some charts from the internet that claimed very high turn rates at very low speed around Mach 0.5, however at Mach 0.9 the MiG-23 surpasses the F-4.
The charts i used claimed that at Mach 0.7 and 1500 meters the F-4 has an instantaneous turn rate of 17 deg/sec slightly higher than the MiG-23`s instantaneous turn rate but at Mach 0.9 the F-4 has a very poor turn rate of 13.5 deg/sec lower than the MiG-23, so at 1000 meters above Mach 0.9 the MiG-23 rules if these charts are right above 5000 meters the MiG-23 has better turn rate as Yefim Gordon claims in his book MiG-23/27 swing wing soviet fighter/strike aircraft.

In terms of performance the MiG-23 is more less a match for the F-4 in 1985 the MiG-23MLDs had already long range R-24s and excellent R-73 in the case of North Korea they only have MiG-23MLs so as far as weapons we can only expect the R-24.

See that we are comparing the F-4E and the MiG-23ML, the MiG-23MLD and F-4J are not here in the match however consider the MiG-23MLD is armed with AA-11s and this missile out maneuvre any earlier AIM-9L or AIM-9M and only has been surpased recently by the AIM-9X

The Russians acknowledged some F-4 were able to shot down MiG-23s too