Amraam is fired inertial with one, none or two datalink updates from parent aircraft. No update leads to least accuracy when radar light ups at roughly 12-20kms but yes one wonders against datalinked Flankers though the ranges you give (110kms etc) are clearly head on not NOE.

Even more damning is the fact that stealth assets are accompanied by jammers (presumablty to defeat LF radars) so how is F/A 22 cost effective if it uses force multipliers to ensure safe ingress?

I coudn’t agree more Flex. Whilst I must say I was initially blinded by the sophistication of the F/A 22 that was until I learned its price. At roughly 250 million each (Includes R&D yes but fielding a system from scratch should include R&D costs) one wonders whether the advent of shoot and scoot LPI sam radars, LF radars triangulating to provide better data and simply building large radars on aerostats (as the U.S proposed to defeat low RCS cruise missiles) and cuing interceptors to fire using datalinks represent a more cost effective defence than the cost to the U.S of fielding Raptor. Even worse, would not ultra long range missiles on F 15C provide air supremacy without the need for stealth to defend against sams? If one considers how effective LF radars can be with todays signal processing and algorthims, one sees that though stealth is effective militarily it is not economically. Is the price of the Raptor program less than the cost to threat nations of fielding passive radars, LPI sams, or simply more radars? Add longwave ir (especially effective in Middleast) and even with poor accuracy LF radar cued fighters can get close. Alternatively 5 Flankers (roughly the same price as one Flanker) with good missile approach warners (ie Ir, UV so pilot can see missile range, aspect and avoid) could negate F/A 22 quite effectively. Look down the threat line with Irsts and the F/A 22 may be detected. If the F/A 22 cannot kill BVR because targets have cheap maws (compared to buying a Raptor), allowing them to evade the fairly unmaneouvrable amraam, how can it achieve dominance? Even Serb Mig 29s avoided amraams and that was without maws. Clearly the F/A 22 needs a maneouvrable BVR aam to defeat threats all of which now can and should have maws (Rafale, Eurofighter, Flankers as an outfit option). If so, why not build a better missile to achieve air supremacy and use harm shooters, jammers to defend fighters? It has to be more cost effective. Now if the F/A 22 had fielded in the 90s as planned, many of these threats would emerge only midway through its service not at the onset…

IIPGW? Please explain.