I’m surprised with all of the modernizations to the main wing they didn’t opt to change the inlets to a series closer to the wing roots, something akin to the F-105. The nose of the aircraft was already cramped, and to change to side body-mounted inlets would of alleviated some of the space problems.

Smashing a Mach 6 target with a bucket of bolts is nonsense. SDI failed all but the most spoon fed of targets, so ineffective the tests required the integration of strong uniquely signatured homing transmitters in all downflight targets. Its not going to be very vulnerable at all.

I just don’t think it makes sense for more than a small quantity of bombers. The faster you burn a candle the faster the wax is all gone. It would be too expensive of program.

1. The SA-2 wasn’t successful, it wasn’t even a warhead fragment that hit the plane and the pilot didn’t even notice anything until he found it after landing.

I hardly consider the SA-2 a failure. The SA-3 was a pared down SA-2. The SA-3 took down a wobbly goblin. SA-2 took down, percentage-wise, as many U.S. aircraft per flight as enemy MiG’s in any war. Not per attempt, but per flight.

Four Mig-31s flying roughly 200km apart can scan up to a WIDTH of 1,000km, using a datalink.

They form a virtual radar with a scan width of 1,000km. And the datalink is digital.

The F-14D master can act as director for the steering of each slaved array. Otherwise, it is just overlaying a series of independent scans upon a master map. You want the master in control or you leave huge gaps in coverage.

I’m not sure you want the Dornier Do 335 Pfeil as an example as it had a prop on the nose, too, not just in the tail.

I would dare to speculate the Su-27 program is the future of the air defense forces whereas the MiG-31 – even modernized further – has a shorter shelf life of perhaps ten more years at the most. The compatibility of these two systems to work together is probably more important than one system stealing the shine of another. (Since MiG is no longer producing the latter then all they can hope for is to bleed the existing program for future monies.) I wouldn’t put it past the program to develop a powerful datalink system together akin to the F-14D’s where four or more aircraft can chain their radars together to more than double their effective scaning scope.

The four target limitation of Zaslon may be due to its coded pulses for which it illuminates a target. It might only have the ability to send four specifically coded illumination pulses at a time whereas the AWG-9 used coded data links separate from the single illuminator carrier signal. Don’t get me wrong, there are probably a near infinite number of coded sequences to send out the illumination signals, the fire control itself is perhaps limited to sustaining and managing the manipulation of the code for four unique patterns at a time. The targets for the AWG-9 are systematically hit with radiation from the same signal source for targeting updates, which becomes less effective in regards to timing granularity as the distance increases between missile and launching aircraft – hence the need for active terminal guidance. (Even at the speed of light it does take critical time for the signal to travel out to the target and return, plus the time to steer the signal from one point to the next.) The Zaslon can simultaneously mark four targets with separate signals if I’m understanding how it works. So technically speaking the Zaslon is the much more sophisticated of the two.

A Mirage III is able to physically dominate the MiG-21, too, but that doesn’t say much about the Mirage III or MiG-21 in general. They are just designed around disimilar flight envelopes.