Israel was out numbered and caught by surprise in the six day war and still beat the Arabs, actually I remember watching Dsicovery channel about the war and them talking about how the Syrians were close to tel Aviv but the great Syrian leadership decided to stop and not proceed, also talked about how appointments in the army have more of a political nature rather than skill. The Syrian airforce? see the article above.

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Ohh please, if it wasn’t for the massive resupplying from USA in half of those wars, Israel would’ve been easily wipped off the map.

I think there might be too much emphasis on BWR combat here. The number of aircraft suggested here could probably swamp the air controllers and you might be left with one, maybe two salvos of radar missiles before the formations merged. Then you would have one hell of a furball, where manuverability and the ability to keep looking out of the cockpit would have made a big difference. I think the F-16’s HUD, manuverability, out of cockpit visibility and all aspect Sidewinders would have made it a Mig killer without equal. By the mid-eighties there was a lot of them in Europe too.

Also the SU-17 and MIG 27 is strike aircraft and than more likely to avoid tangling with fighters because of their manuverability and because it wasn’t their job to do that.

The Soviets could probably have plastered the airports in Germany, but many of their tactical birds like MIG-21, MIG-23? and MIG-29 has real short legs so I’m not sure if they would have blasted the airbases to oblivion when they needed the bases themselves!

Anyway, Great thread! I’m far more into the use of combat aircrafts, than the nuts and bolts that actually do the job

I agree about BVR, there wouldn’t be much BVR around i nthe 1980s, there was no AIM-120 or R-77 around back then and AIM-7 and R-27 are generally not the best missiles. Also how could F-16 be a great Mig killer with Mig-29s-R-73/HMS combo around? Don’t forget all the hordes of Mig-23s, Mig-21s and others.

Now as for China, if China didn’t get involved there wouldn’t be much around, North Korea would probably run over South despite Chinese support or not, I mean US would be way too occupied to help South Korea.

I also kind of agree with Golden Dragon, Russia would’ve lost in the far east against Japan and US, it’s Pacific fleet would’ve probably got run over by the US Pacific fleet and there was just a not counter to that. The million Russian troops would not be doing much in the far east unless China got involved in the war which is doubtful. But either way, Russia would’ve lost the fight against US in the far east but in Europe it would be totally different.

I would also think now that Soviet Union and Romania would run Yugoslavia over pretty easily, especially since Yugoslavia had an alliance with Austria in case Warpact ran over Austria Tito promised them he would come to their rescue(which was a stupid thing to say, I mean does he think Yugoslavia can stand a war aginst Romania and Soviet Union?), in this case Hungary and SU definitely had a plan to go through Austria and into France and Italy, this would’ve definitely drawn Yugoslavia in and it would be on NATO’s side. I wonder how long Greece and Turkey would fight on each other’s side :P. I think Turkey would be blown out of the war pretty soon because they were pretty close to Soviet Union and there was the big Black Sea Fleet there along with shi t load of Soviet Bombers right above them.

Anyways I am not going to get involved in this as I am largely uninformed about the Israeli-Arab wars. Anyways can someone actually answer my question?

Yahhh it’s probably sure that 98% of the time NATO would’ve gone on the defensive in case of a war, I mean I don’t think theres a way of stopping some 300+ Aircraft flying in huge formations with tons of fighters and bombers attacking NATO bases. I would bet that if NATO could not survive the initial hits then Western Europe would’ve been run over pretty fast

I wonder what would’ve happend in the Northern and Southern Fronts, in the North, Soviet Union would’ve want to attack Norway for sure and that would either require it to attack from captured Denmark or from the north or just through Sweden and Finland which would draw in both of them and fight for NATO, and in the South, Hungary and Soviet Union would’ve gone through Austria and Soviet Union and Bulgaria would attack Greece and Turkey, I wonder if they would’ve ever though about running Yugoslavia over, which wasn’t either a joke like Sweden.

anyways to my original question, Kfadrat were these claimed F-16s sopposidely destroyed by R-23?