hopsalotJust I have remembered that the AIM 120A has became operational in 1991, thus making comparisons between the MiG 29 equipped with the AA 10 Alamo (R 27) and the F 16 with the AIM 120 in the 80 does not make any sense, in case of war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in the 80 AIM 120 would not be in operation.
Tests had conducted in 2003 in the US with the MiG 29 and its missiles AA 10 and AA 11 had the purpose of evaluating those weapons due to its threat, but would be necessary to remember that this version 9:12 from MiG 29 as well as the AA 10 and AA 11 went into operation in 1983 in the Soviet Union, that is almost twenty years before those tests.
The pilot’s analysis has been addressed with a tactical purpose and not as well as historian analysis, after all if was a Russian pilot that had been participating in tests with an F 16A in its territory and compared the same with a MiG 29M equipped with the AA 12 (R 77) in 2003, his analysis would not be equivalent?
Of course things are highly dependent on exactly what is compared and when. This pilot compared 1988-89 vintage Mig-29s against the F-16 starting in 1996 and extending to at least 2003. You are correct that the AMRAAM wouldn’t have been available if a war had broken out in the 1980s, but at the time he was comparing it was a reasonable comparison. (and is more or less what happened in the case of Allied Force in 1999)
The point of this isn’t to figure out who would have “won” a Cold War doomsday scenario. I think most agree that if that had unfolded we would still be trying to rebuild today. This comparison is mostly an interesting datapoint for aircraft enthusiasts to either incorporate into their knowledge, or in the case of a few here, ignore completely because it doesn’t say exactly what they want it to.
hopsalotWhat garbage? R-27RE capabilities? Taken from Su-27 manual. I am now throwing garbage to assume missile is the same on MiG-29?
It all depends how you measure, the devil is in the details as always.
The pilot that actually flew the Mig-29 and fired its weapons as part of a controlled weapons exploitation had this to say:
When it came to tactically employing the jet there were surprises and disappointments. The radar was actually pretty good and enabled fairly long-range contacts. As already alluded to, the displays were very basic and didn’t provide much to enhance the pilot’s situational awareness. The radar switchology is also heinous. The Fulcrum’s radar-guided BVR weapon, the AA-10A Alamo, has nowhere the same legs as an AMRAAM and is not launch-and-leave like the AMRAAM. Within its kinematic capability, the AA-10A is a very good missile but its maximum employment range was a real disappointment.
…
From BVR (beyond visual range), the MiG-29 is totally outclassed by western fighters. Lack of situation awareness and the short range of the AA-10A missile compared to the AMRAAM means the NATO fighter is going to have to be having a really bad day for the Fulcrum pilot to be successful.
…
One thing we did when I transferred back to Nellis, since I ran all things relating to foreign materiel exploitation, was to set up an exploitation of the AA-10A and the Archer using the German MiG-29s. This exploitation became known as Project Grace and was conducted at Eglin AFB, FL in June and July 2003. The Germans island-hopped the Fulcrums to the States as they had done a few times prior. We fired 11 AA-10As and 12 Archers in varying scenarios. We learned a lot about the radar and the missiles.
This is a pilot that has extensive personal experience with the Mig-29 and the AA-10. This is the same pilot that said some very complimentary things about the Mig-29 and AA-11 and so there is no reason to believe he would suddenly turn into a nationalistic flag waver as soon as he started talking about the AA-10.
Now that was obviously a shorter ranged version of the AA-10 than on the Su-27, but there is zero chance that the long-burn motor would take the range of the AA-10 from “nowhere the same legs as an AMRAAM” to “R-27RE has 234% range of AIM-120B; its effective KILL range is 31% greater than AIM-120A’s MAX range. “
This is the same crap APA always tries to pull. They take one datapoint that might actually be factual under some extraordinarily rare conditions (“maximum” radar detection ranges) and then leap to conclusions about a much more general scenario. Suddenly people start saying things like: “if you ve F-16 pilot, irrelevant if enemy’s missile has low PK because its SARH, there is a 2-3 minute flight in the 60km zone where enemy can shoot and you can’t.” :stupid:
Jammer? Well Gardeniya L203 IS a jammer and all 9.13 carries one. By definition it happens to jam radars? By its working principles, it hides vector data and range from the enemy radar, but reveals its direction -to appropirate equipment- while doing so. Where is fanboy garbage here? Do you want me to say “yes its a jammer but cannot jam any radar esspecialy not like small, airborne ones on F-16, despite that is what its designed/carried for”. Is this more logical to you? Now who is the fanboy here?
Yes, Gardeniya is a jammer. There are certain things it is supposed to do. The F-16’s radar is designed to resist those things. How does that balance out in practice? Well that isn’t clear… and the F-16 can/does carry a variety of jammers itself. How do those perform against the Mig-29/AA-10… same problem.
Of course in your little scenario the Mig-29 has a wonderfully working jammer and the F-16 doesn’t:
Furthermore, MiG-29 will be actively jamming so without vector data, F-16 will no idea of its heading and cannot utilize AIM-120 in loft trajectory but instead use HOJ, which linearly follows the jamming source, nearly halving the max range.
Don’t like? That’s your problem, welcome to the real world.
No, welcome to amateur hour. A world where Russia missiles are credited with ludicrous range and performance while Western missiles/fighters are assumed to fail completely.
Essentially just assume the Russian fighter has a missile with “234%” greater range, assume it has the sensors and situational awareness to use that range, assume the Russian jammer is working and that the Western fighter has no similar capability… gee, who do you think will win?
hopsalotWell obviously I am speculating, and thats my own speculation so I cannot provide a source for that. For any data/number I have provided you can ask for a source, or at least spaculate something different for yourself if you are calling mine poor? I did said debatable as I drew my own conclusions.
a)That Active-radar-homing or Track-while-scan is not necessarily always a game changer, like the message I’ve replied suggests? b)or that ordinary MiG-29 9.13 of 1990s still had good BVR capabilities without TWS or ARH?
Try to be smarter, I’ve already said I don’t like MiG-29. I will even go on to say I do like F-16 more than MiG-29. That however does not make an F-16 pilot insulting MiG-29 as not being a fighter, which is ethically wrong and technically not right either. Do comprehend this part at least.
Who said I want to discuss anything with YOU? Someone unable to grasp the message of what I am saying?
The pilot gave a very reasonable assessment of an aircraft that he personally flew.
You are just throwing out piles of APA/fanboy garbage. You ignore or dismiss the weaknesses of one plane while attributing ludicrous/APA capabilities to its weapons/jammer/etc.
Your whole post is a perfect example of garbage in garbage out.
hopsalotEverything you have written here is just poor speculation and guesswork and you have not provided any independent sources to back up any claim. The whole scenario itself is irrelevant anyway – what exactly are you trying to prove?
Russia stronk!
There are too many errors there to even start to have a serious discussion.
hopsalotA very good M2000 pilot would have made him have a bad day if he flew any form of F16, but against a Mig 29 the Mirage loses the advantages it has on the F16.
Nic
Does the Mirage 2000 have a HMS now?
hopsalotThe aggressors need the ability to carry external IRST, Jammers, fuel tanks etc They should have considered just buying really basic F-16’s as the production line winds down as an option and buy a simpler trainer. Many however, look at the T-X as something to keep the design teams busy as the services transition from the F-35 acquisition to the full fledged 6th generation fighter development and X plane competitions. With that in mind one can better understand the effort of NG through Scaled composites to rapidly prototype a new clean sheet design.
Certainly your point about keeping design teams busy is a valid one, but the same point as applies to the Gripen applies even more so to the F-16. The original F-16 only took a few years to go from concept to production back in the 1970s. There is nothing to say that a clean slate design couldn’t do the same thing today, assuming they were willing to avoid bureaucracy and keep the program to the bare essentials.
With modern composites, design tools, etc, beating the F-16 or Gripen’s price/performance balance shouldn’t be hard.
hopsalotMy disagreement with a Boeing/Saab clean sheet instead of Gripen derivative is only growing stronger.
Gripen first flew 25+ years ago.
If Boeing(or Scaled Composites) can’t do better using modern technology and tailoring their design to the specific requirements they aren’t trying very hard.
hopsalot75% of F-16s in EU didn’t have AIM-120 capability 90s, too. His quote is merely annoying; Is having bigger BVR missile the only thing that makes an airplane fighter? Then according to his logic; by the time he flew MiG-29, then current Skyflash equipped Tornado ADV or Super 530D equipped Mirage 2000 were pretty inferior to then current 9.13Ss in virtually any BVR criteria. So what? Were they not much of a fighter before MiG-29? Or as F-22 introduced should we call F-15/16/18 “not much of a fighter” now? Thats very disrespectful thing to say when people still design/build/use/fly/buy them.
Its not about MiG-29 vs F-16. If a MiG-29 pilot flew a Dutch F-16A at the same day and said “F-16 is not much of a fighter because all it carries is AIM-9”, I would oppose such tone too.
He can state the obvious that MiG he flew didn’t have much capabilities in BVR arena againist AIM-120 capable opponents and thats it.
He clearly wasn’t comparing just on the basis of AMRAAM. Did you read the article? The discussion of AMRAAM was only a small part of what he had to say.
hopsalotI think the point is rather that comparing one, relatively basal variant is not representive about all MiG-29’s, even in contemporary time frame. Note that this is pretty much exactly what he says about F-15A!
Who said anything about this representing all Mig-29s? This was one highly experienced pilot’s impressions of a fairly new though perhaps not top of the line Mig-29 in the mid-1990s. At this point the comparison is already almost 20 years old and is rapidly moving out of “modern military aviation” into the pages of history. I just get tired of the tendency of some around here to rush to promote their agenda no matter what. Suddenly an essentially brand new fighter becomes a “non upgraded Cold War era MiG-29.”
hopsalotTheir fundamental problem was that they were facing an opponent with more than 10-times advantage in sheer numbers alone. Even deployment of MiG-35s would not have changed the outcome.
They weren’t even able to get into range of their own weapons… this wasn’t fundamentally a numbers problem.
In comparison, the model NATO allies (FAP, KLu, BAF, RDAF, NoAF) were using at that time was… F-16A Block 15OCU. The first MLU kits came in January 1997.
The pilot starting flying the Mig-29 in 1996. So again, this is a perfectly reasonable comparison.
I don’t think I am getting your point here.. Care to outline a conflict scenario in 1989 where USAF F-15/F-16s would meet Warsaw Pact MiG-29 operators (say East Germany) in aerial combat, without Soviet involvement?
We are comparing aircraft, not war gaming a Cold War goes hot scenario in 1989. Please try to stay on topic.
The buyers I listed went for the most advanced version which was available. The Block 60 can’t be exported without consent of the UAE who own the rights.
Really, so the Iraqis bought AIM-7/AIM-9L equipped F-16s in 2011 because those were the most advanced version available? :stupid:
The F-16 Block 60 represents what was available to a buyer with the means to pay and that was sufficiently high on the US’s list to be given access to top end equipment.
So again, lets try to stay on topic. A mid 1990s comparison between a 1989 vintage Warsaw Pact Mig-29 and the F-15/16 as it existed at the same time is a perfectly reasonable comparison. The pilot actually had some good things to say about the Mig-29, but as usual people around here are completely incapable of accepting any source that doesn’t tell them only exactly what they want to hear. :very_drunk:
hopsalotI believe only two Yugoslav MiG-29s went into combat with full avionics suite working, without force multipliers, so this real world experience becomes somewhat of a moot point if one wants to compare individual capabilities.
The fight went exactly as an unbiased observer would have expected it to. The Mig’s were totally ineffective against the AMRAAM armed fighters and were running for their lives almost from the moment they took off. Nothing would have changed if the Serbs had had 10 or 20 times as many Mig-29s. Their fundamental problem was that they were facing an opponent that could track and kill them from far beyond the Mig’s effective range.
This obsession is a reaction to your obsession with comparing early export model MiG-29 variants against latest versions of the F-16.
I wasn’t the one who made the comparison. The “early export model Mig-29” was what Warsaw Pact allies were being sold in 1989.
Using your standard from German MiGs, the latest F-16 version should be taken F-16C Block 52 as countries like Morocco, Pakistan, Oman or Egypt are still taking deliveries of brand new aircraft of this otherwise 15+ yr old variant.
Were better versions of the Mig-29 were exported in the same time frame? Certainly none with sufficient improvements that the outcome against an AMRAAM armed F-15/16/18 would be in doubt in a BVR engagement…
The difference here is that the F-16 Block 60 was available 15 years ago to those the US regarded as close allies. The buyers you listed either intentionally went with less expensive versions or weren’t trusted with a top of the line version.
hopsalotfunny how guys insist on the german Migs being “new”…
if they ordered their Migs in mid 80’s and got the “export” version (most basic one, technologically dating from early 80’s) they can be brand new airframes, they are still 15 years old tech when he flies them.Take another example: today (february 2015) I can order, from Yakovlev, a brand new Yak-3M. it’s 1945 russian technology except for the Allison engine. Considering it’s a brand new fighter bought in 2015, would you consider even remotely serious to compare its capabilities with today’s tech in service?
Germany’s Fulcrums are in a similar situation, when they recieved them, they were clearly beliw the russian standard if the time, and after 1989 (about a yezr later) east germany ceased to exist and recieved zero upgrades for its Migs. Like it or not, even “brand new”, from thetechnological PoV, they were already “15 years old”
These aircraft were current to the standard that was being exported at the time… 1988-89. Like it or not they were brand new aircraft and not the Cold War relics people here would like to pretend they were. There is nothing whatsoever unfair about comparing a fighter delivered in 1988-1989 to an F-16 in the mid-1990s. Seriously people, lets try not to be ruled completely by emotions.
hopsalotIf author is stupid enough to compare MiG-29A with F-16 block 50 and say MiG-29 has no clear BVR ability, its his problem. Guess what, its 20 years obsolete by now. If you look the opposite, today’s MiG-29SMTs, despite lack of russian funding/development, would easily make fun of any AIM-7 equipped F-15A in BVR arena. This doesn’t mean F-15 has no practical BVR capability.
As usual, more errors than I have time to invest in correcting, but the above stands out as particularly arrogant. The pilot flew the Mig-29 starting in 1996. At the time he flew them the East German Mig-29s were less than 10 years old. Hardly obsolete museum pieces being compared against the West’s latest and greatest.
So yes, this actual fighter pilot with thousands of hours in a variety of jets is “stupid enough” to compare the Mig-29s he flew in 1996 to the F-16s that were operational at that time. How ignorant of him to reach conclusions internet kiddies disagree with… :stupid:
hopsalotI think this last statement was a bit exaggerated, as the MiG-29, as a lo part of the mix wasn’t primarily tasked with BVR, yet still had at least rudimentary BVR capability, in contrary to the F-16 which was gun and winders only until the ADF version came into service.
I don’t see any reason to believe the claim was exaggerated. It certainly matched the real world experience of pilots during Allied Force.
In all fairness, the main problem with most comparisons is that the Fulcrum did not get its “C” version as F-16 did, until fairly recently (SMT, then M1/M2 -> 35), as well as the fact that foreign pilots never got their hands on a full blown Russian variant (mostly 9.13 + some 9.13S). A first hand report from USAF testing of the ex-Moldovan MiG-29s would surely be an interesting read (especially the effectiveness of the non-export radar, IRST and Gardeniya jammer)
I am not sure what this obsession is with comparing late model Mig-29 variants against earlier versions of the F-16. If you want to talk about the latest versions of the Mig-29 then the appropriate comparison is something like an F-16 Block 60.
hopsalotWell yeah, comparing a post Cold War Amraam armed Western fighter to a non upgraded Cold War era MiG-29 might lead to a disadvantage for the latter.
Who would have thought.
The F-16 flew quite a few years without any BVR capability whatsoever.
AMRAAM starting appearing in 1991. The first AMRAAM kill was a Mig-25 in 1992. (downed by an F-16)
The East German air force received its Mig-29s in 1988-89 so I am really not sure what your problem is with the comparison, these were essentially brand new jets in the 1990s and he was comparing them to the F-15s and F-16s of the same time period.
Also nice to see steryotypes about Soviet pilots having no autonomy are repeated as fact. lol.
Not sure what part of that you find humorous.
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