Certainly Schorsch. The principal is essentially the simple one of attack profile as I described earlier.
[…]
The irony is, of course, that if the Argentines had been equipped with a squadron of Badgers with KSR-2/5 we could’ve coped much more adequately than we did with 5 Etendards with AM39!.

Thanks for explanation. I guess an E-2C together with fighter aircraft having a tiny bit more endurance than the Harrier (take the Phantom!) would have done the job quite well. The Invincible-Class was useful for North Atlantic, but only marginallyfor such a conflict.

I don’t know the capabilities of the avionics in the J-10 or its range (and I think most people only have educated guesses on it), or the J-11B..

but in general, the J-11/Flanker, due to its large range and speed.. has the ability to dictate the engagement over a smaller aircraft with less fuel. In the case with the MiG-29 at least, a Flanker can simply bingo fuel the enemy.

I’m not too sure, but I believe that was the situation in Eritrea-Ethiopian war where the MiG-29s were operating at the extent of their range when facing opposing Su-27s. The larger aircraft will also have the larger radar and more room for counter measures while its down side will be the larger RCS.

Then the F-4 should have bashed the MiG-21s over Vietnam constantly. More range, more fuel, a (1960ies technology) radar at all, hey, we have a winner.

Fact is, in an unclear air engagement with lots of participants like friendly fighter bombers, friendly and unfriendly air defense systems and possibly everything poisoned by ECM, the winner will be the one that brings in most aircraft with best average information (see Bekaa Valley 1982). A long range missile shot won’t work. Bingo fuel is without relevance, one goes in and out. And if not, external tanks help a lot. When caught in daylight and 5000ft in a tricky situation, an F-22 might well lose against a pair of F-5Es or MiG-29A (provided they have comparable IR missile technology).

When did I say Harpoon was a good weapon…I think its been reasonably well proven to be quite the opposite just the same as Exocet!. What ‘vaunted British air defence’ in the Falklands?. British air defence was set to shoot down Kh-22’s and KSR-5’s….Exocet presented a threat that was outside the engagement envelope of our naval SAM’s apart from, initially, the two Broadswords with the, then, brand-new SeaWolf. This is what I’m saying….shoot your weapons through the opposition engagement envelope and dont be suprised if your weapons are intercepted….shoot them outside the defensive fire zone and you are much more likely to kill your targets!.

Interesting read! Can you elaborate above statement a bit? Why is a rather small and simple missile like the Exocet outside the defense envelope, when the more sophisticated weapons were within?

I guess the most promising action by USA as owner of CVBGs would be a massive pre-emptive strike on all Tu-95 bases within reach. Different than a CVBG these are only lightly defended, are not moving and actually identifiable with Google Earth.

The massive strike of Soviet forces on CVBG was a scenario more bound to North Atlantic which is kind of “small” in some areas. In the Pacific there is neither a real reason for US carriers to go nor a good chance to find them.

The role of CVBG is also today more offensive than it was in the Cold War. For the big East-West conflict the carriers were overpriced assets. The USA always kept them to police the world.

Designing a supersonic aircraft with a variable inlet, a turbo-jet and and an acceptable airframe layout wasn’t exactly that difficult in the 1960s. Examples were plenty, many specific solutions available without having too much problems. The time period between initial development and fielding of the first really operational aircraft tells the story. The J-8 was always 20 years behind the “state-of-the-art” at any given time. The latest operational models still have conceptional shortcomings when compared to F-4E models, and must be put below upgraded F-4F models.

Tu-95MS are not antiquated. They are 15 years younger then B-52H. Soviet system of production at its best, instead of upgrading not so old aircraft or ship they simply send it to junkyard and order new ones! Of cource it has to do something with the fact that upgrading is not gonna win you any orders or medals 😉

I guess the Tu-95/142 can well be the last production aircraft with huge wing fences. Nice that first generation swept wing design has been preserved for everybody to see in the 21st century. Still a remarkable aircraft which started as a niche solution attributed to very special (and very Soviet) problems.

I guess it si military SOP not to operate within the “uncomfortable” zone of other not allied assets of war. It is clearly a provocation. On the other hand, with at least a dozen radars having an active lock on the Bear the overfly was probably anything but a joy ride.

Please remember the Iranian Airbus that was shot down by an Aegis cruiser. In times of crisis this behavior can end very stupid. But I guess all participants kept their nerves.