The Iraqi air force was stuck in a pretty hopeless situation.

If anyone has played a good combat flight sim like LockOn, which attempts to model the functions of radar, AWACS and EWR what you see demonstrated are the standard operational doctrines of force coordination. The fighters don’t even use their own radar to view the combat field, but have target information relayed by datalink from AWACS or EWR. Lose AWACS/EWR and pilot view diminishes to a small area around individual aircraft who then have to work together for field coverage and rely on the power and complexity of their onboard sets, prone to electronic warfare and certain technologies and techniques, conditions, failures, etc.

Contrary to popular western belief Soviet aerial doctrine specified a defensive war rather than aggressive warfare, according to the Kremlin and supported by aircraft fit as compared to western contemporaries.
Put simply the radar sets on Russian fighters isn’t so good. Losing EWR is catastrophic, the Luftwaffe published their Fulcrums were not suitable for front line service with a NATO air force, was entirely dependent upon EWR systems and poorly suited to independent operations, due to its poor radar and navigational system, both are unreliable and can barely perform their advertised functions, they don’t even have modern radios installed. None of this makes the slightest difference operating under an effective EWR network, which is how they’re designed to operate.

Saddam didn’t want to lose his Fulcrums but lost his simple EWR system in the first days. He sent them over to Iran on an agreement he would get them back when it was over, if the country was still independent. Iran agreed because they probably realised that wasn’t going to happen.

This kind of electronic warfare is something NATO/USAF are specifically tasked with making a priority in any conflict, attacking EWR, ECM and SAM sites in the very first wave of any assault into enemy airspace. Among the highest priority is enemy radar networks.
Takes the teeth out of a modern air force, unless it has AWACS or well fortified ground control/radar stations in reserve (eg. a command ship in nearby harbour, like those new Russian battlecruisers can improvise as an aerial command/control station).

Göring’s zerstörer doctrine was actually a feasible tactic that was killed by radar and since he’d been in the unfortunate position to dictate Luftwaffe outlay specifically to suit this requirement, my pet theory is that it was a telling factor of the BoB deteriorating almost immediately into a war of attrition (something the Wehrmacht as a whole was specifically tasked with avoiding at all costs).

Not many people understand what the zerstörer concept really entailed but it was an entire battlefield strategy that worked superbly in France and then again (with revision) on the Eastern Front until late-42. Didn’t work so good in North Africa by circumstance and failed miserably in the BoB, due to radar (in Poland there weren’t many Me-110 units equipped and most ZG staffeln fielded the 109D).

Central to the strategy was the Me-110 which was not ever intended as assumed as an escort fighter, though it was improvised for this purpose from Norwegian bases in north Britain attacks.
What Göring stipulated to his subordinates, of which he was utterly convinced was genius to rival Hitler himself, was the use of medium range attack aircraft as heavy fighters. His idea was that these heavy fighters would accelerate ahead of the bomber stream and whilst enemy spotters were marking bomber positions and relaying them for interception sorties, the Me-110 were diving on airfields in advance and destroying them running up on the field with cannon fire. A force of these attack-fighters would hardly be noticed with the bombers and tracking efforts would concentrate on the strategic threat.
As mentioned this worked extremely well in France, the relatively dispoportionate number of combat ready interceptors were frequently strafed on the field by Me-110 whilst they were still getting updates on bomber positions, and were out of range of both 109 or stuka attacks, the traditional continental tactical force.
The contemporary of the Me-110 in this light is really the Blenheim or Fairey Battle, where even the Boulton Paul Defiant is a different design requirement.

But quite clearly radar tosses this midwar tactical genius to the wolves and it doesn’t stand up to atypical air defences/equip by midwar period (it was attempted to rehash the strategy using a specialised Ta-152 variant to enter production 1945, but otherwise the ZG wound up becoming schnellbomber units).

The thing was the poor German scientists didn’t believe small wavelength radar was achievable by any nation well into the war (even when an RAF heavy was shot down with a 10cm AI radar on its belly they resisted that it was genuine), and so they vastly underestimated British radar development (in its ability to be pivotal in air defence), the potential of the system and the value of centralised RAF district command. Their doctrine remained AAA and independent organisation as the primary defence strategy, with only rudimentary radar development until later in the war. German radar could pick a ship out on open water but an aerial flight near a coastline starts to get dicey and this was what they assumed the common standard.

So died the zerstörer concept. Me-110 may have been attributed with some very damaging results on the RAF otherwise.

I tend to think such opposite extremes of traditional populisms (the Spit won the BoB, the Mustang was the best fighter of the war, etc.), are really an intentional counterpoint attempt to level out those populisms with the opposite extreme, between the two the idea is the general public finds a balance and declares them equally contemporary types.

A family member flew the 109F/G/K from Africa to German airspace and had quite a few things to say about their comparative performance, which at the time challenged popular books directly. Much more recently many of the things he mentioned in my childhood have been since reviewed and confirmed.
He also liked the F series best of all, but said for out and out performance the G-10/K could go toe to toe with a Mustang, but such statements are always conditional and in this case was a response to a book I brought home from school that said the late war Messer was useless and the Mustang far superior. But half the time these books don’t even have the variant specifications correct, there’s like 6 major engine/equipment layouts in the G-14 series and all late war Messers vary dramatically by where they were produced, things got a little crazy there towards the end.

There have been several serious evaluations written about the BoB spec Emil and Spit and I’ve watched most every veteran interview on record (had a great DVD that featured most surviving fighter vets from all theatres in interviews and seminars), the overwhelming conclusion is that they were both perfectly contemporary birds.

The most important point to recognise about them is the oft forgotten fact that they fly completely differently. The same piloting technique which works beautifully in a Spit will get you killed in the Messer, and vice versa. They have very different fingerprints of the performance envelope, very different engine operating characteristics, but totalled they make contemporary, but different short range fighters.

The Messer has a very powerful cruise condition, the Merlin needs to be run up to the high speed condition, so bounce acceleration from cruise to high speed is virtually instantaneous in a Messer and takes a few adjustments and a couple of long seconds in the Spit. This characterises the Emil as having great acceleration.

Sustained climb was always terrific in the Messer, throughout the war. It’s a great torque producer and has the hydraulic blower which is similar to a mild two-speed setup without as sharp a drop off mid range.

The Daimler still pulls nicely above 6000m when the single step Merlins are already dropping off, Räll said frei jäger often cruised at 7000 metres in the combat zone for this reason and had good success with it (killed by the close escort doctrine as it was one of the greater Emil strengths).

A good pilot can roll the fully variable Emil flaps for combat use to increase turn rates in a pinch, bringing them to Spit territory but there was another problem in the mechanics of the leading edge slats which made one occasionally extend in a tight turn without the other, which caused snap instability unless the pilot was experienced enough to recover and re-enter the turn on control feel. This was fixed in the F series production.

The Messer suffered from a ridiculously tight cockpit out of tune with its long throw stick, poor vision anywhere but forward or forward/down but had great ergonomics, very good equipment and handled very predictably and capably at speed. The Spit had much better room, poorer ergonomics and terrible view front/down but nice stick movement. It was best mid range and had much better low speed handling. Marsielle actually said the most important thing for any Messer pilot to learn if he wanted to become an ace was handling the 109 at low speed, under 300km/h IAS it was outright dangerous where the Spit was still flying beautifully. This combined with narrow track gear for the silly accident rate of Messers, where the Spit service record wasn’t affected quite so badly by the narrow track gear.

There’s a lot of specific points between the two types defining their markedly different character and piloting techniques, but ultimately they are performance contemporary and compare very well overall.

oh I was thinking of the Curtiss electric, not the Hamilton Standard (yes hydraulic).
curiously Rotols came in both hydraulic and electric (for multi-engine types)

The Watts two-blade fixed pitch was early production standard, I’m not sure the timescale but fairly early on the De Havilland variable pitch (two settings, three blade) was standard factory equipment through to about June 1940 for the MkI Spit, and was retrofitted to Hurricanes (only those in France still had Watts). By Dunkirk pretty much the entire RAF home fighter force had De Havilland.
From June 1940 the Rotol (hydraulic) constant speed was introduced for production of MkII Spits and retrofitted to MkI. It’s a manual constant speed (ie. fully variable with incidence limiter) with about 35-deg travel.
The Hamilton Standard is electric and less prone to overspeeding in dives; iirc fitted from the MkV but a Spit expert would have to elaborate/correct as I’m running on a distant memory with that.

I’ve been looking over Russian navy equip lately and have to say I’m impressed, their kynshal/kashtan and navalised S300 AD systems are better than anything currently equipped in the USN (not talking about proposals and upgrade programs, just what’s on the water right this minute). Also their emphasis is clearly surface action, tailor made to counter the US/NATO doctrine of force projection. That kynshal can point defence on high Mach missile attacks from better than 20km guaranteed, which is a threat capability NATO doesn’t even have at the moment (tomahawks are subsonic, etc.). And there is no doubt the S400 is being navalised.

That’s an aside, from a tourist.

My impressions of the Tomcat/Pheonix system are a characterisation of technological age. I think they were safely retired because of the modern capability of weapons systems to develop into air intercept weapons able to lock small, high Mach threats which are highly manoeuvrable “intelligent weapons”

Given back in the 80’s the Phalanx was the only point defence system really capable of defeating many Russian high Mach anti-shipping missiles and most of those are nuclear capable anyway (and 650-1000kg shaped warheads even if conventional), the 2km defence zone for the carrier even among pickets isn’t really adequate and older generation SM-1/2 or SeaSparrow can’t really do this job assuredly.
Using a little detective work we can look at the Pheonix system and its design feature of missile interception. Put that together with a ca.120km CAP and standoff range of around 120km on Russian ALCM antiship birds, and what you have is a dedicated fleet defence aerial SAM site on picket from the carrier, performing both intercept and point defence functions (shooting down enemy missiles).

So the point would be current generation shipboard AD networks are capable of performing the point defence function largely themselves, which means you just need really good aircraft interceptors on CAP now, which you can do with SuperHornets and AMRAAMs perfectly well. You might increase CAP to something like 150-180km in a high threat environment and sit your pickets 20-50km from the carrier (close enough to be protected but far enough to help), sending a cruiser force ahead if a serious surface action threat presents. This would appear to be current doctrine, working from tech outlay.

Up to you fellers, but I’d prefer discussion without itemised quoting, as I can scroll back over my own messages if I suddenly turn senile and it seems less like trolling and more like independent discussion without itemised quoting.

This way we can separate those individuals who just marque point by point what someone said and argue with that, instead of having some opinion/discussion about what they were referring to/talking about, which is more like mature discussion.

I quite like a discussion forum but got the sudden impression I might’ve signed onto a troll forum, I hope I’m wrong since it’s such a common thing on the web it’s not even interesting anymore.

Okay, yes above I was talking about Fulcrum engines and typo’d Flanker. The RD-33 have a design issue, as someone mentioned this is a matter of give and take. Essentially in the class of the F404 it has a neat afterburner setup (which would be the reason for its rather unusual looking nozzle), in augumentation however it goes through fuel like a sieve. It’s also the cause of very high temperatures aft of the chamber and as mentioned according to flight mechanic description (a Rumanian iirc), TBO really meant scrapping unless you had a lot of new parts from a consistent Russian supplier, placing the RD-33 (those in current service) at least among export operators in the class of updated Foxbats in terms of operational service life with little expenditure. The Luftwaffe hot-end kit increases TBO from 800 to 1200hrs but this is in conjuction with detuning to 404GE-402 class. Overall design engine life is around 2000hrs before replacement.
The RD-33K squeezes roughly 4% thrust increase with a higher airflow and associated increased entry temp, it’s going to have a lower overall service life than the standard engine (I’m surprised the TBO is the same).

Once again the German kit was built by an operator accustomed to NATO export models which are meant to last in the field with only periodic update packages and general maintenance routines. The Fulcrum design reflected in its engines is meant for advance bases of a major power with an active support infrastructure and high maintenance routines. It was never designed with export in mind, it was designed for home use by the Cold War USSR. This means you could afford to take compromises to return a higher augumented thrust proportionate to dry operation than comparable engines in service elsewhere.

Also the engine design itself is optimised for medium alt over low alt best operation, where Hornets/Vipers perform exceptionally at low alt. In western terms the problem here is that right at the altitude the Fulcrum starts coming into its own, it walks into the realm of the Flanker anyway.
Truth be told however the VVS/PVO/AV-MF was never set up that way and Fulcrums wouldn’t often be in the same combat area as Flankers. More recently things are increasingly centralised in Russia/CIS (journalists call it “becoming NATO-ised”), but that wasn’t the case when the Fulcrum/RD-33 was designed.
Trying to convert the Fulcrum into a hi-lo coordinated deployment equivalent to the Viper/Eagle is an ad hoc adaptation for which the inherent design isn’t really well suited, whilst completely redesigning the equipment installation for the type as the SMT/K/whatever isn’t quite as good an option of either putting a whole new type in production using different engine/airframe combination or just purchasing some Block 50 Vipers. In any case I don’t think we’re going to see any operator of the Fulcrum using it in the hi-lo USAF air combat doctrine.
So a mid range all rounder is what it is. Not quite as good as a Viper on the deck, shouldn’t try to mimic an Eagle on the deck, but equal or superior to most at medium altitude, and then inferior to dedicated air superiority aircraft like the Flanker or Eagle at high altitudes. Most of the time it does okay, but it’s not meant for the hi-lo Viper/Eagle type of doctrine in conjunction with Flankers, it’s meant for independent operation well within an EWR network, over short ranges from advance bases.

Upgrades in proposal stage and phantom variants or concept demonstrators I have no interest in unless we want to start talking about the Aurora x-plane and lightsabres or whatever. A good upgrade for the Fulcrum-C fleet, aside from full FBW integration would be a completely different engine option with much better efficiency and service life potential (I’ll call western experience with Fulcrums “potential” because it departs MAPO marketing claims), but this would mean of course less performance. Kind of like the German attempt to make the RD-33 give a decent service life without a consuming parts like a trash compactor.

The IAF Fulcrum fleet serviceability rate is universally recognised as poor whilst the German Fulcrums managed only 50% serviceability for the year 1992 when the aircraft equipped were only five years old. The IAF also reported double the projected accident rate according to MAPO for the year 1992 (often due to engine failure, despite common belief the Fulcrum is not at all easily flyable on one engine), again with individual aircraft only five years old at most. Serviceability and accident rates (due to engine failure) have remarkable similarity throughout Fulcrum operators, all understated by at least 50% in MiG-MAPO marketing claims.

As for my citing Flanker expense, it’s made out of something like 65% titanium, in what universe is a Flanker not inherently expensive? It is cheaper than US contemporaries but is less sophisticated. Again I’m not interested in phantom variants, speaking in terms of anything actually put in service. IAF Su-30MKI is less sophisticated overall than USAF F-22A, its contemporary; Su-27S is less sophisticated than F-15C, its contemporary. The Flankers have awesome airframe performance aspects though. In any case they are not inexpensive aircraft to purchase or produce, despite being cheaper than the model contemporary flyaway price in the US (who also have cost recovery agendas to consider, hard to believe but I think they rip people off a little like car salesmen).

As Scorpion suggested, there are so very many Flanker variant proposals, revisions of proposals, and proposals of proposals that it is easiest to view simply the ones in service and consider them the existing variants, rather thinking of the “no-suffix” and M/MK, MKI, MKK, MKM as like A, B, C-1, C-2, C-3 variants etc. The layout of the current upgrade being paid for by the RuAF is closest to the MKK afaik and it’s a nice way to describe what it is, despite Sukhoi listings the twice revised M2 (M2 plus second ammendment, post-development, preproduction series 2b but only at the KnAAPO plant and series 1-3616 at Irtrusk or whatever this particular Su-30M update is fully labelled) has optional vectoring thrust and normally-shipboard-gigantonormous cruise missile capability, well if those things were actually ordered and were going to be installed.
It has optional laser guns and proposed little green men.

It’s an MKK for the RuAF as the simplest way to describe the upgrade, from what I can tell, or that is as Scorpion said the MK2 evolution of the MKK which is an MK for China (K) in the second revision MK2 to bring parity for older Russian service models with current exports MK, making it a revision of the M and thus an M2, most closely resembling the equipment/layout of the MKK in the second revision (excepting only transponder codes afaik).

In other words I’d like to send Sukhoi OKB to the Gulags for being pointlessly confusing.

The nose directional authority of the Fulcrum is little more than a roundabout way of talking about the “stability enhancement override” the MiG has because of its limited flight control interpretation, which FBW systems do not have. The automatic AoA limiter virtually all modern warplanes have can be overridden in the MiG by essentially switching off the limited flight control system it has, which isn’t a fatal thing to do unlike most FBW modern aircraft (the sole exception would be the Mirage 2000, which is also still flyable without a control system just not particularly nice).
This ability to make the plane do what you want it to despite the flight computer, in terms of sustaining AoA is certainly quite some nose authority to have.

It’s not the same thing as sustained manoeuvrability, turn capabilities by speed, acceleration and speed performance by altitude. Compared to even the Block 40 F-16 (considered the Fulcrum’s main contemporary by production timescales) the MiG loses momentum in sustained manoeuvres, can’t keep up in acceleration or speed at low altitude (unless F-16 has PW engine prior to block 52) and can’t match its turn capabilities above 0.85 Mach clean.
It is also far more restricted by external tankage especially in the Fulcrum-A (which can’t even fire the gun with a centreline tank unless modified by the Germans but the 9-13 fixes this). This is very bad news because its range is so bad unless cruise performance is constantly maintained.

Here’s a nice review posted directly to the internet at F-16.net by the author (instructor at USAF fighter weapons school) and reposted by another member. Scroll to four posts down.
http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-1836-postdays-0-postorder-asc-start-30.html

I also have a hard copy of Köck’s evaluation given to Jon Lake in interview.
The cited problems with the Fulcrum include:

…navigation system is unreliable without TACAN updates and is not very accurate (I’d prefer to call it an estimation system). It requires triangulation from three TACAN stations and if you lose one you effectively lose the system. We can only enter three fixed waypoints, which is inadequate. For communications we have only one VHF/UHF radio.
The radar is at least a generation behind AN/APG-65…it has poor displays, giving poor situational awareness and this is complicated by the cockpit ergonomics. The radar has reliability problems and lookdown/shootdown problems. There is poor discrimination between targets and we can’t lock onto a target in trail, only in lead.

Naturally Köck has a better review of the Fulcrum’s dogfight capabilities, although as I’ve said this is a parity with modern western fighters and not a superiority without the Archer/HMTD system in conjunction with EOS (IRST, which has better target track/lock than the radar). It was this novel weapon/helmet-sight and the electro-optical IRST that made the Fulcrum “unbeatable” inside of 2 miles, not the airframe performance which is a parity and has some marked design limitations modern western fighters don’t.

But when all is said and done the MiG-29 is a superb fighter for close-combat, even compared with aircraft like the F-15, F-16 and F/A-18. This is due to the aircraft’s superb aerodynamics and helmet mounted sight. Inside ten nautical miles I’m hard to beat, and with the IRST, helmet mounted sight and Archer I can’t be beaten. Period. Even against the latest Block 50 F-16 the MiG-29 is virtually invulnerable in the close in scenario. On one occasion I remember the F-16s did score some kills eventually, but only after taking 18 Archers. We didn’t operate “kill removal” since they’d have got no training value, we killed them too quickly.

Yet at the same time we have an experienced Eagle, Viper and Fulcrum pilot with the USAF explaining the Eagle for example can sustain a better high g turn at low alt if the MiG makes the mistake of trying to mirror his moves. However the same scenario at medium alt is reversed and the MiG is more agile in thin air.

So keeping in mind the Viper/Hornet are optimised for low alt high performance, the Fulcrum by comparison is obviously meant to bridge the gap between the hi-lo USAF/NATO doctrine of matching larger numbers of Vipers with smaller numbers of Eagles. The Fulcrum would be typically used in the combat zone without the presence of the Flanker, so has to combat both these types. And the Soviet approach to this was numerical superiority at the cost of complexity and high all round performance at the cost of longevity, being overall a most importantly affordable package which is relatively easy to produce.

These kind of design requirements aren’t that of a NATO export fighter like the F-16 or Hornet, where sophistication is thought of as lethality, whilst affordability is measured in terms of air superiority models and ease of production isn’t really much of an issue. Meanwhile design life and individual airframe/equipment longevity is a primary requirement, most particularly for the export market. In fact the LFX and Navy’s Phantom replacement project both stipulated export suitability and sustained independent operations (longevity) in the engineering requirements.

The Flanker design approaches these requirements far closer than the Fulcrum, which isn’t really in the same class. It’s a very specialised Cold War general fighter, with very short range, low serviceability and a limited service life.

An incapability of flight system CPU’s to encompass many of the traditional functions of multi crewed birds, in the combat environment so far appears a not entirely overwhelming argument.

I might suggest the design requirements given by operators. The dual seat Rafale (after several revisions) for the FAF listed a primary role in strike operations. The single seat Rafale for the FMAF for a primary role in fleet defence and air superiority. The Eurofighter was optimised for air superiority and is single seat. The Su-27 Flanker is single seat for counter-air/interception as primary. The Su-30 two seater has two variant missions as command/control for interceptors (bolstering MiG-31) and multirole strike.
The F/A-18D in pilot/RIO layout (as opposed to dual control F/A-18B or USN D but I don’t think there were many of these) is for USMC multirole with a strike emphasis (and night operations). Same idea behind F-15C compared to E (pilot/WSO layout unlike dual control D), where the C has presently all the E upgrades anyway so the same approximate capabilities.

From this one might infer the penetration strike mission or force interdiction is best served with a second crewmember to handle ECM and mission support, whilst a single crew member is adequate for air superiority/counter-air and escort operations in coordinated doctrine likely to feature AWACS/EWR and a variety of escorting warplane types in or available to the combat zone.

The extra crewmembers are in an AWACS, ships BattleBridge or Gound Control base. You can see this system in action watching Red Flag, where AWACS will continually enhance SA of individual fighter pilots (lookout, you’re on a collision course with MustangTwo, change alt, etc.).

The exception would be the Russian system (adopted by India with the MKI Flanker datalink), whereby PVO interceptors outside the EWR system can still function as GCI by use of airborne command/controllers escorting and directing the fighter force. These MiG-31 and Su-30 are dual crew for this reason, but other interceptors in the flight will be regular MiG-29/Su-27.

The answer to the OP would appear to be: depends on the mission requirement. For straight up fighters like the F-16 in a mundane front line role a single crew member is fine.