MiG-23MLDWait a minute, weren’t you preaching about how the Tornado was a great multi-role ac before? Now its great because it was ‘felxible’? Make up your mind please. :rolleyes:
Thats because the Tomcat was planned to be retired this year, so slapping new upgrades on it at the end of its serivce life would have been stupid and wasteful.
Again, why do you keep compairing the Tornado to second-class planes in its field? The current planes that set the standard are the F15E+, Su30s and Su34s. The Mig23/27 are more in the league of the Jagure. Its like comparing the F15 to the F16.
Do you actually know the combat ranges and warload for both? Why don’t you look them up first. :rolleyes:
So, the ASRAAM is unmatched? What about the Aim9x, Pythonv, IRST etc? :rolleyes:
So what? In a few years everyone will have ASRAAM class AAMs operational. The advantage is transient.
Like the Tornado has supercruise and stealth features. :rolleyes:
All the rest of your arguement is unsubstantiated by facts and is nothing more then your own unsupported beliefs and hopes.
Pointless, just a statement of hopes.
Like the Su30 isn’t compatable with AWACS support or doesn’t have an IRST. :rolleyes:
How old are you? Seriously.
When i said the Panavia Tornado is stealthy or has supercruise?
The only thing i said is simple the Panavia Tornado has been upgraded with better weapons than many of it`s contemporaries lack, and has been upgraded much much earlier than many aircraft operationally with ASRAAM, also as a conventional fighter, modern weaponry has given it that slight upgrade to allow it to even to remain effective in the the first decade of the XXI century.
As an airframe it has two different radars one allowing it to flight like the F-111 or Su-24 hugging the ground with Terrain Following capability, and another radar that put`s it in the league of the F-14 and MiG-31.
Modern weaponry makes it a good fighter and strike aircraft
MiG-23MLDFlogger becomes his own victim, by twisting facts again!
hehehehehe
Sens
I have not twisted anything, simply i have said what the different accounts say, i simply asked you why they did not write we landed in the Kuwaiti Desert? why Cocciolone did not say our Target was in Kuwait? why the Iraqies did not say we shot down the Panavia Tornado near kuwait City in Southern Iraq.
Southern Iraq can mean many places in Iraq
MiG-23MLDthe last versions of the tornado are outclassed in BVR and CAC by F-15 E/I/K/SG, F/A-18E, F-16 bk50/60, mirage 2000-5 mk2
All those aircrafts use equivalent or better missiles (aim-120C, aim-9x, mica IR/EM), better radars (APG-63V1/V3, APG-80, APG-79, RDY-2) and are far better AA platforms both as interceptors and dogfighters.
That is true however see that the Tornado is going to be replaced by the Eurofighter and that fighter with ASRAAM and Meteor will make any of those aircraft obsolete.
The Tornado is as good fighter and the AIM-9X and ASRAAM are basicly equivalent, the ASRAAM has a good IR detector and can be fire in a multitarget engagement scenery, the Tornado also uses JTIDS making it a quit complex machine.
About the AMRAAM well i do not know if the british use older variants of AIM-120
here some features about the ASRAAM fromASRAAm specifications
ASRAAM is the world’s first IR missile to enter service using a staring array detector, which detects the whole target ‘scene’. The actual picture is very similar to a monochrome TV picture, and gives the missile excellent long-range target acquisition capability and enhanced performance against any employed countermeasures.
In a typical WVR engagement the missile is slaved to the target either visually or by aircraft sensors. The missile is then launched and following release it accelerates to speeds in excess of Mach 3 whilst being guided to the target using its IR seeker. The missile can be fired at very high off-boresight angles, in either lock-before or lock-after launch modes. Because the missile has a fire-and-forget capability it allows the pilot to engage multiple targets with multiple missiles at the same time.
Aircraft
Tornado F3
Typhoon
Specification
Primary Function: Air-to-air Infrared missile
Length: 2.9m
Diameter: 16.6cm
Launch Weight: 87kg
Range: Over 10nm
Speed: Mach 3.5+
Guidance System: IR staring array with modern autopilot
MiG-23MLDASRAAM…bla bla bla…Thats about the only thing your entire arguement is based upon and its rather lame mate. You seem to be posting on the wrong forum on the wrong thread. :rolleyes:
I repeat again for those that somehow can’t seem to get things the first time round: ASRAAM is a missile, and quite seperate from the Tornado, if the Tornado have to rely entirely on the qualities of ASRAAM to allow it to be able to compete against its peers, then the Tornado is far from a great ac. Also, the ASRAAM is a very recent addition to the Tornado, and the advanatge it offers will only be transient. It might come as a shock to you, but all weapon systems get upgraded, new missiles and subsystems will be added, and sooner or later, ASRAAM class missiles will be the norm instead of the exception (and that is likely to happen sooner then later). Once that happens, the Tornado will have no redeeming feature. That is why the airframe itself is so important.
All your examples are meaningless because it involves HMS cued high off-broadside AAMs v conventional AAMs, in such case, the advanatges offered by HMS are considerable. But in any likely Tornado v Flanker WVR engagement, both will be using HMS cued missiles, and the handful more degrees off-broadside (assuming the Tornado does have HMS to cue them) offered by ASRAAM is only a marginal advanatge.
And so could a Mig21, Mig23/27, Mig29, Su24, Su27, Mirage1/3/5/2000, F5, F16, F15, F18, J8 etc if they had the advanatge you gave the Tornado. Does that make them all great now? :rolleyes:
PLAWOLF
Let`s see the fact and the parameters why the Panavia Tornado is a good aircraft.
Let`s see, the Panavia Tornado is a good because has been flexible enough to adapt different weapons to two different variants, many aircraft have failed to get upgraded, example
F-14D:This aircraft was wasted due to lack of upgrades in air to air weaponry, the Tornado competed with this aircraft as an interceptor, but at the end the Tornado got better WVR and Medium range weapons, something the F-14 never got.
The MiG-23 has not the avionics, radar or warload to compete with the Panavia Tornado.
An interceptor must have basicly good speed and good weapons, the Foxhunter radar is a good radar and the AMRAAM and SRAAM are good weapons, if we compare this to the MiG-23 or MiG-27 well the Tornado is far superior.
If you compare it to the Su-30, still the Tornado has some good points
as a strike aircraft it has higher warload and longer range and as a fighter the SRAAM gives it unrivalled capabilities.
you can say so and so but in 2006 few aircraft have missiles in the Class of the SRAAM operational and no Su-27 or super Flanker has a better missile than the ASRAAM, only the Israeli air Force and USAF F-15 and F-16s, the Australian F-18 and Chilean F-5 carry operationally better missiles or SRAAM operationally.
In performance the Su-30 has no Supercruise so even having a better climb rate the Su-30 has not an overwhelming superiority in acceleration but just a quicker burst speed.
the Su-30 is not stealthy so in that sense it is a big aircraft easy to detect.
The Su-30 might have better agility but the Panavia Tornado has better missiles so in terms locking the enemy faster the Panavia Tornado is not at disadvantage and it`s missile gives it a better firing option.
The Su-30 can shoot down the Panavia Tornado but it`s not going to be a total overwhelming superiority of performance and agility what is going to decide the outcome of the battle or what gives to the Su-30 better odds, but of detectability and weaponry and in that the Panavia Tornado is not defenseless
The Tornado also works in conjuction with AWACS so even using it`s IRST system the Su-30 is detectable because it is not stealthy like the F-22 and like the F-15 is a big aircraft easy to detect
MiG-23MLDOh boy, did you even look at the links given?!
Old Flogger at his best. Proofing nothing, but stil not be be ashamed to ask someting to distract from what. Just to remember, we are still in 400 km distance to Bagdad.
Keep in mind that the ‘red-line’ marked in that satellite-pic is not marked on the terrain of the desert. A Tornado covers ~15 km/min. When you bail out and reach the ground several Iraki soldiers were eager to arrest you. As an Italian your first question will be to those:”Please give me the coordinates from that place of cause!” After that you went to the international press and give away all details from that mission till the place of your arrest. Stop, on your way to Basra as POW you will look around that highway to report Iraqi installations there to the international press too.But at best you ask Cocciolone that question at all, do you?!
Sens
Please the red line is only to show the international political borders between nations and Iraq and Kuwait are shown as two separate nations.
The writer of the webpage did not write Kuwait desert, they quoted them saying Iraqi desert, Cocciolone said their target was in Southern Iraq not Kuwait i guess that was it`s original target.
independently of the Geographical unaccuracies of the terms used that are quit confusing, we have to say there is also a small posibility of two Panavia Tornado were shot down.
MiG-23MLDFeels like I am talking to a wall. :rolleyes:
Go back and re-read my last post, cos your reply addresses none of the issues I have raised. Only stubern 5 year-olds keep repeating the same tired lines over and over and over again hoping that if they say it enough times it will become reality. If that is the level you are at, then I will waste no more time with you. If you can do better, PROVE it with action.
And no, simple drawns you pulled off the net do not count as evidence.
In action is easy the Panavia Tornado recieved ASRAAMs much earlier than the USAF F-15, the AIM-9X and remains a credible fighter in 2006.
PLAWOLF
you are just avoiding a reality, a good missile make as a good fighter, but a good fighter does not do that for a missile.
Arm a F-15 with AIM-9L and arm a MiG-21 with R-73 and HMS you will see the MiG-21 will prevail remember cope India.
Arm a F-16 with Python IV and an F-18 with AIM-9L and you have a mock combat score of 200:4 as when the Israeli beat the US navy.
Now if both fighters have no missiles it is true the Su-30 will beat the Panavia Tornado, in fact it is better for the Tornado to run away, the possibility of that to happen exists.
Performance parameters such as supercruise help for such reason the Eurofighter has it, stealth helps for such reason the F-22 and F-35 have it, thrust vectoring helps for that reason the Su-30MKI have it.
But if a F-22 faces a Tornado in WVR combat at eye ball range the ASRAAM will shot down the F-22 if the Raptor goes to war only with AIM-9Ls
MiG-23MLDAt least, when the Russian claim was about Bagdad >400 km away, just to remember us, where it started! What is the real reason behind such behavior?! –
The loss of that Italian Tornado does show only, that the Russian claim about a Tornado kill near Bagdad from that obscure website was a fabrication. No uncommon behavior to mix facts with claims to generate a new reality. Those people prefer it not to show any credible source for such claims, when “presenting facts”, but do all to question those of their critics.
What angers most is, that the starters of such rumours try to convince us, that all sources are questionable in some way. That is the logic of ‘twisters’.
So far “Flogger” showed no real intrest into facts. Always in hope of short memories he distracted from unpleasent demands by twisting into other questions.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900LargeMaps/SKAR-64GDK7?OpenDocument
Sens
Geographically speaking i want to ask you why they did not say we landed in the Desert of Kuwait much easier is not it?
Why Cocciolone says Southern Iraq?
MiG-23MLDFlogger,
You are again off in a fantasy land. The captured aircrew were under extreme duress to make those interviews. Have you actually seen the footage of those aircrew and the things that they said in them? They were told what to say and that includes saying that they were shot down in Iraq. The Iraq’s considered Kuwait to be their 19th Province.
Sorry Flogger, but your attempts at trying to find evidence in support of the Russian version are laughable based on which desert was stated.
The Tornado wreckage was recovered in Kuwait. That is where the intercom audio tape came from. I take it that you have heard the intercom audio?
Flogger have you attempted contact with the aircrew as of yet? Will they lie to you if they take the time to reply to you? Bellini has already stated that the target was 20km NW of Kuwait City. Explain to me how he ended up inside Iraq as per the Russian claim?
TEEJ
The Italian record said they did not recover the wreckage in fact they say they did not know where it crashed check the account
Il punto di impatto del velivolo e quindi presumibilmente
This phrase means basicly the location of the crash is just a guess
So how they are going to recover it at night after they just parachuted the Tornado if they said expecifically we ca not locate exactly where the Tornado crashed.
Al Jahrah is in Kuwait basicly it is the most likely place i guess they were shot down according to the Western account for example would not be better for the Iraqies if Coccione said our Target was in Al Jahrah in Southern Iraq? that is a place where you can located a place of Kuwait named as Iraq in that way Kuwait can mean Iraq or as you say in you theory the 19th province (Kuwait) But if he said southern Iraq simply it meant southern Iraq and up to i what read he only said Southern Iraq
MiG-23MLDOh really? If its a fact, then surely it can be proved beyound reasonable doubt. When was the last time a Tornado beat a Flanker in WVR combat then? :rolleyes:
So what? Mig21s have apprently ‘matched’ F15 in mock combat under the right pre-set RoEs. Every dog can have his day, doesn’t come close to showing it is the better ac, and I stress again, we are comparing AIRCRAFT here and not missiles.
You have a trule dreamy-eyed notion of how air combat works. To start off with, just because a missile *can* engage at certain conditions does not mean that it will be at its most effective or even have a decent chance of hitting your target. You pop-off an ASRAAM at a Su30 40 degrees off your broadside while the Su30 pops an R73 at you while he’s got you lock in his gunsight and you figure our who is more likely to end up in flames. We are not talking about the gulf in capacity between conventional IRAAMs v HMS cued high off-broadside missiles, both will have the later, and the difference in capacity is not huge.
Manuverability of the aircraft is also paramount in determining how likely it is to evade a hostile missile. You can both fire missiles at the same time, but you still loose if your opponent’s missile nails you while he dodges your’s.
That is a questionable claim, and even if it were true, will only give credit to the missile and not the plane.
And thats why the Tornado is not great. With the right weapons suit, a great many other planes can do everything the Tornado can and more.
I’m afraid it is just not true. ASRAAM is a very recent addition for the Tornado, before that it had absolutely no chance against a Flanker, Fulcrum, Eagle or Viper in WVR combat, and would not stand much of a chance in its prefered BVR field either because of the limitations of the airframe (don’t handle well at high altitude); and I highly doubt that its chances will be much better once ASRAAM comparable weapons are developed and intergrated onto its rivals. In ground attack, the Tornado’s combat record is questionable at best, and certainly does not come close to that of the F15E. The flanker derivatives have not seen combat to test out their ground attack ability, but they have far greater potential if not capacity then the Tornado.
The truely greats have stood unmatched for decades, the Tornado’s transiant advantages does not even come close to propelling it into that highly exclusive club.
And that makes that ‘low performance aircraft’ great? :rolleyes: If that was the case, then a 747 with a hundred VLS AAMs should be the best ‘fighter’ ever. 😀
The Tornado speaks by it self, the aircraft has serve well the english, German and Italian air forces, the Tornado has a better missile than the R-73, the ASRAAM is a missile nearer to the Python V than the R-73, the R-73 is not in the same class, what the Su-30 will try to avoid is an ASRAAM from hitting it not the Panavia Tornado, the Tornado can fire the ASRAAM without getting behind the Su-30 that is the reality, both at BVR will use AMRAAM type missiles
MiG-23MLDIn fact, MiG-23MLD it is you who is pretending. The F-117 is nothing more than a highly survivable medium level precision attack aircraft design to avoid detection by avoiding the search systems required to put the Mig 21 within range of it.
The whole point of this thread is what the state of play was in 1987 not now or in 2010. The only aircraft with supercruise in service at the time were large and came in black (and based at Mildenhall) or white (and had BA and AF logos on the tails). The only aircraft in Europe with Thrust Vectoring at the time had RAF roundels on them. The F-117 was not supersonic for one very important reason. When an aircraft travels at supersonic speed it produces a wall of highly compressed air in a wide cone. That compressed air is quite dense close to the aircraft and will reflect radio energy back towards the point of transmission. A F-117 at Mach 1 would have a big problem, namely OPPS where’s my stealth gone!!!!
Yes the F-117 would have flown only at night, however why on earth would you want to operate in the one environmental condition were you have a major disadvantage?
The F-117 pilot does not have to do any praying at all, as the aircraft is fitted with a quite sophisticated radar detection system that allows the pilot to detect unknown threats and take avoiding action before he is detected (The F-117 pilot does have a problem if that system fails or the RCS of the aircraft is compromised in anyway however 😉 ). Also what makes you think that any WP Radar or SAM operator could have seen the faint echo of a F-117 when their scopes were full of the electronic noise being thrown at them by the NATO jammers (Compass Call, Raven’s and ground based systems, plus any overspill from the WP’s own jamming effort. The RF electromagnetic spectrum is not that wide).
Looking at the big picture, the F-117’s chances of getting into the target areas were very good and net result on the first night would have been most of the East German fixed air defence command and control system – GONE. Major river bridges in East Germany and Poland – GONE (A pontoon bridge cannot take the weight of a 700 ton train loaded with tanks) plus a number of other high valve target’s hit) A major headache for the WP commanders in air defence command and control and logistics resupply.
Knowing it can be done is one thing, having the technical expertise to actually do it without having done all of the R&D work is a completely different matter.
Please you are over exagerating, first you are thinking the WP will loose, likeliness of such statement low, seciond statement is that the F-117 is a wonderful weapon that with only 50+ aircraft they could had changed the war, That is totally unlikely, because first the WP always had strategic weapons to hit back NATO, remember the powerful Typhoon Submarines
Starting for the fact the WP could hit you back and destroy NATO civilian infracstructure meant they would launch raids of Tu-22M and Su-24.
The F-117 was a surprise weapon for a surprise attack, in that context they were useful as a surprise weapon, after that NATO would need to pray the WP would not retaliate with nuclear weapons, remeber they were not Serbia that lacked nukes or Iraq that even did not have them.
If the battle was only a tactical one you can be sure SAM will take a great toll of NATO attack aircraft once they crossed the air space, numerically speaking the WP was several times more powerful that even Russia is today.
They had plenty of MiGs and Tupolevs to attack.
50+ F-117 can not change a war You are saying something like the Me-262 or V-2 could had changed the WWII outcome
Yes they could made it more difficult but the outcome would be the same a real statemate a real draw because neither the WP or NATO had the Power to defeat the other because nukes would simply equalize everything.
Usually many think Iraq or Serbia are mini examples of what could had happened, the true is not, Iraq never had nukes that is the reason the West invaded it, but ask your self why the West can not dare to invade China or Russia? simply the Russian nuke arsenal is enough to keep NATO away, the same was with the WP the only difference is the WP included a military alliance of several nations close to 30 if we consider todays political map.
If the WP never used nukes still they would had shot down enough NATO aircraft to keep Russia or Ukraine without any NATO soldier steping their territory, just consider this Serbia is a tiny nation of 10 million people the WP had more than 300 million see that Russia and the comunist world contrary to Iraq had a scientific knowledge enough to asure you several more F-117 would had been shot down and with a force of 50 believe the impact the F-117 would had had is minimal
MiG-23MLDYeah that’s sure helped the Mig-29 loads :rolleyes: AIM-9X, ASRAAM, and all the rest aren’t impressed by your one-of-a-kind, backflipping TVCing, Sooper Dooper Super Flanker. Do a Cobra with one of those on your a$$ and you’ll just get smacked in the head instead of the a$$. But please, continue to think that way. It’ll make the job easier LOL.
The things are not as simple as you pretend the Russians are working on a F-22 counterpart but they are not going to design a F-117 NightBrick because they know the F-117 flies like a brick, the F-117 carries no air to air missiles because in 1987 they knew even a MiG-21 could shoot it down
The F-117 Nightbrick has not Thrust vectoring, lacks Supercruise and more important it is only effective at night it won`t fly beyond Mach 1 so what could had done a F-117 pilot in 1987? nothing just flight at night and pray the WP had no SAM or fighters near it`s flight path besides hope the mission planner did do his job in avoiding areas with high concentration of Radars and SAMs so his F-117 could have been out of the reach of the Radars and SAMs that were capable of shoot him down.
In 2010 Russia will have real F-22 counterparts why because inteligence is a virtue any human has so if the US can build a F-22 so the Chinese or Russians if they want 😉
MiG-23MLDF-117 attacking the USSR. That would mean KC-135 Tankers over Poland. Don’t think so. However the F-117’s would have most likely taken out every road and rail bridge over the Oder and the Elbe, making the movement of the follow on forces of the WP a lot more difficult that you would think. The Russian would have moved most of their armour by rail into Eastern Germany. The north to south rail links in Poland and eastern Germany were not that great. Hence they would have given the WP a big headache before the F-117 fleet was gone (which would have most likely happened).
Don’t believe every thing you hear from the Russians, they do have a tendency to use misinformation almost as badly as the US and the British especially when they are trying to sell equipment to countries that are most likely to be on the receiving end of a F-117 attack. The F-117 shot down is a good point. I do know what happened that night in a lot more detail that anybody on this thread thanks to the nature of the job I was doing at the time. I can not go into it in any detail, but I will say that there were a lot of factors that were involved in the incident, in that if one of them had not happened, that SA-3 Battery would have hit jack S***.
The other factor that has not been mentioned is that most of the NATO aircrews had at one time or another practised evasion tactics against soviet air defence systems (in the shape of MSQ-T43, MST-T1, MST-T1A, and MSQ-T3) on the electronic warfare range in the UK and while doing it had also done longish range flying from bases far away. The WP pilots did most for their flying from their bases to ranges not that far from their airfields and do you know of any western type systems simulators used by the WP for EW training? I would say that the NATO aircrews had a much better chance of hitting their targets than the WP pilots.
I do not think the russians are bluffing or lying for one simple question, they are designing a F-22 counter part, they do prefer agility over an invisible brick, they knew the invisible brick has fallen from the Sky and was shot down, Serbia`s real capabilities in 1999 were quit diminished from what it had in 1989 and far far behind what the WP had in 1987.
In 1987 very likely having parity in numbers and more less parity in quality the WP very likely would had shot down a great deal of aircraft and destroyed a lot of airstrips, the F-117 are not V/STOL aircraft, they are not easy to build and more important it`s flying qualities are horrendously bad, so once detected it`s an easy pray limiting it to night attack, so the F-117 NightBrick even as invisible it is, can be shot down
Of course for people who think Serbia was a great power :rolleyes: or Iraq as powerful as Ukraine they tend to over estimate the effectiveness of the Western aircraft.
In Vietnam the Russians were supporting economically the Vietnamese Air force but in 1999 Serbia had embargo and Russia was so weak economically to even think in interving in behalf of Serbia.
The WP was basicly as capable as NATO in military terms, it disapperared because as an economic and political power the communist world failed to become real communism and ended up as all empires of the past uncapable of feeding it`s own people and granting the benefits that even a dictatorship even most be able to provide to it`s citizenship 😉 due to the burocracy, corruption and low productivity of civilian goods that was common in the WP nations
MiG-23MLDFirst off, it is a questionable claim that a Tornado armed with ASRAAM will be able to match, let alone beat the Su30 in WVR combat. Secondly, even if it were able to scrape a few more bronie points, that is ENTIRELY due to the missile and not the plane, and we are comparing planes here.
It would also be interesting to see some actual facts and figures to back up your claim of the Tornado winning in the ground attack guise on account of weapons. The Russians and Chinese also have decent PGMs and AR missiles, and I can’t think of any western AShM that come close to some of the things the Russians have delpoyed. Even the current gen Chinese AShMs are better in quite a few important ways.
Lastly, if you seriously want to compete for the crown of ‘great multi-role’ ac (and I’m not convince the Tornado is even multi-role at the moment), then compare it to its peers and not relics that would have been replaced with far more capable planes had it not been for financial and political reasons. As long as there are the likes of the F15E, Su30 and Su34, then thats what the benchmark is. If you want to make a case for the Tornado being a great plane during its time (when it first came out), then you can’t use its current weapons suit to judge it.
What you have done so far is really compare apples to oranges in a way most likely yo produce the result you want. Hardly a convincing arguement I’m afraid.
Not is not questionable, it is a fact, the Chilean F-5 were far more capable than the French Mirage 2000 in mock combat thanks to the Python IV, an aircraft is a weapons system, if the missile you carry is better well does not matter if you have or have not thrust vectoring, of course if it is a gun battle the Su-27, MiG-29 or Su-30MKI will rule over the Tornado, but only if the Tornado has no AAMs left, but the ASRAAM is part of the weapon system and the most important is what results you end up having.
The ASRAAM gives to theTornado a WVR capability that balances it`s short comings in performance and agility.
The Tornado might not be agile but armed with ASRAAM it does not need to be a MiG-29OVT or F-22, the Missile will do the rest because it does not need to be behind the intended target.
The Eurofighter of course is a better platform but as fighter and attack aircraft the Panavia Tornado was and is one of the best aircraft made in the world in the late XX century
The whole point is relatively low performance aircraft if fitted with fourth or fifth generation missiles become real threats to advanced 4.5 and even 5 generation fighter aircraft
MiG-23MLDSince when is the Tornado a multirole aircraft at all?
The IDF and F3 versions are completely different versions. It’s as if you said the Mirage 2000D and the Mirage 2000-5F are one and the same multirole plane.
No the fact is the Tornado F3 is a fighter, and the Tornado IDF is a ground attack plane. None of the is multirole, just as the Mirage 2000-5F and the Mirage 2000D. Now take a regular Mirage 2000-5, or a dash 2 and you have a truely multirole AC, same with F15E, Rafale, Gripen, Typhoon…
Not the Tornado.
Also, saying the Tornado is one of the best planes ever because it can carry ASRAAM, AMRAAM or whatever is ludicrous. You can put ASRAAM, AMRAAM or a water pistol on just about any plane as long as you’re willing to integrate it. It doesn’t say a thing about the plane itself, but it says a lot about the missiles.
In the AtoA arena, I’d say many planes would be better than a Tornado, as long as those can carry the same armament.
In the attack role, I wouldn’t bet against a Mirage 2000D, or a Mirage 2000-5 Mk2, or a F15E, or a blk 52+ lawndart against the Tornado.
In the gulf war, sure Tornado took a lot of flak because several were shot down (ahem :D), but also because some missions had to be aborted due to bad weather (???!!!)
Nic
The question is how many aircraft are armed with Python V, IV or AMRAAM operationally in 2006?
Only the F-5, F-15I, F-16I, and Tornado 😉 the other potentially as good missiles just started induction such as the IRIS-T and AIM-9X
MiG-23MLDThe Tornado was a low level penetration bomber that was converted into a stand-off weapons platform after it was shown in the 91 Gulf War that low level penetration attacks are too dangerous on the modern battlefield.
It will never be able to come close to the all round performance offered by the likes of the F15E, Su30MKK/MKI and Su34. These are the current leaders in multi-role combat ac field, and being able to ‘beat’ obsolete types like the Mig23/27 and Su24 etc is hardly a fantasitc accomplishment since the former types have effectively stopped recieving upgrades decades ago.
The Tornado is a decent ac, but lets not kid ourselves about it being ‘great’.
The Performance of an aircraft is important sometimes as a survability feature of non stealthy aircraft such as the F-15 and Su-30, it is true in a gun fight the Tornado has not too much chances versus the eagle or the Su-30 but with SRAAM no way it can not beat the F-15 or Su-30 In fact the Panavia Tornado armed with SRAAM is even better than the R-73 armed Su-30 , in air to surface weaponry the Tornado has excellent weaponry, Missiles like the SCALP and ALARM allow the Tornado to still be a real threat
Under the current upgrades the Panavia Tornado has recieved it will be as good as any foreign competitor, because the clue to any weapons system in what weapons you can carry and the Tornado in that sense is one of the best
Weaponry in part has been the reason the F-14, Su-24, JH-7 and MiG-23 are not as good as the Tornado, and with good weaponry the Tornado will remain a reliable weapon system for at least another 10 years
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