Because during the Vietnam war, it showed that heavier and bigger interceptors would get forced into dogfights, therefore the Soviets armed all of their fights with short range IR guided dogfighting missiles, as well as their interdictors such as Su-17, Su-24 and whatever for self-defense. I think this was a smart move. I think it’s sort of dangerous to always depend on one kind of missile.
Thats true but the soviet interceptors had no need to tangle with fighters,there were enough mig-21/23/29 to do this job.These interceptors were designed as just platforms for launching salvoes of missiles at incoming bomber fleets.The F-4 was the primary air-superority fighter of USAF/USN not a dedicated interceptor.Even if the su-15s carry the R-60s what good will it do against fighters even against F-4E let alone the F-14/15/16.
Arming the su-17/24 makes sense the tornadoes A-7 and even A-10 carry IR homing weapons and they are more likely to encounter enemy interceptors at low-medium altitudes and R-60 can be really deadly.
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