Yip. The question is ludicrously simple; how did they fare in combat conditions?
Vietnam – failure.
Gulf I – many kills were made by AIM-7, but most were WVR. No statistics for shots:kills available either.
Allied Force – failure. A dismal failure at that, of the much vaunted AMRAAM against aircraft that had broken key systems like RWR and radar.
Gulf II – no opposition of note.
Yet we are continually told that BVR works and that all operational concepts should revolve around this philosophy. Sorry, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating and so far, its tasted of puke.
Obviously it’s by no meens the definitive truth , but some figures i’ve read long, long ago in an article about the Gulf war stated the following :
AIM-7, launched 71 for 26 kills with 31 or 33 hits (presumably more than one missile hitting some targets ?)
AIM-9, launched 76 for 12 kills with 14 hits (although i’ve read somewhere recently about allegedly 20 or 30 AIM-9 having been launched “accidentaly” because of switch failures.)
For the AIM-120, aparently the Pk seems to have been “50%”, not sure if it covers iraqi skirmishes and incidents before the 1999 war against Yugoslavia or only refers to that war only.
For AIM-54, something like 3 ( maybe 5 ?) were launched against iraqi MiG-25s in 1999 for no hits.
This is all from memory, for what it worths.
Sign In
