US pilots have claimed roughly twice as many kills as VPAF have had reported total losses incl. failures.. VPAF has had some 210 MiG-21s in total, plus 54 J-6s and roughly as many MiG-17s/J-5s. It we were to believe the claims, US pilots would have to have downed good 2/3rds of the whole VPAF strength, leaving virtually no room to mechanical failures or pilot errors..

When have Communists ever told the truth? Would you believe North Korean claims and the likes of our friend Kim Jong-un. Don’t you think if VPAF’s claimed kills were legitimate western media would have uncovered it by now, i.e. families who’d lost loved ones. These kinds of things can’t be hidden that easily. Whereas in Communist land you just threaten to shoot anyone who doesn’t follow the official line.

Please watch the ‘Wings over Vietnam – Linebacker’ documentary on YouTube. By the second week of Linebacker II, they weren’t even sending up interceptor aircraft, so one would think there was a reason for that.

MiG-23M/MF was introduced 1972..

Hard to believe for ignorants only, the explanation is simple.. Since WWII, Soviet Union were not directly involved in a war, until Afghanistan. Whatever conflict is being discussed, it’s always about proxies like Korea, Vietnam, Syria, Egypt, Angola or other countries with incomparably smaller resources and military.. OTOH, US have been often involved directly, with all their force multipliers and industrial potential..

Well, if you want to argue that an United States Naval Academy graduate receiving certified hardware maintained and stored in prescribed conditions and an ex-ETAF-MiG-21 pilot having received a few-week merc-led crash course on Su-27, flying a 2nd hand bird hastily overhauled by a group of semi-official mechanics, firing expired missiles having been stored under the baking sun covered by tarpaulins, are on the same level, then I really can’t help you.. :confused:

‘First flew’ in 1972 != Entered service in 1972.

It was actually the first truly operational variant of the MiG-23, so really the MiG-23 didn’t even come out in 1970. Interesting comments on the radar too – equivalent to 1960s US radar technology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-23#Variants

12 years after the F-4 and only 2 years before the F-14. The M was never exported. Therefore the more logical comparison is MiG-23M vs F-14. Overall the MiG-23 kill ratio was 1:30 in Bekaa valley and 16:56 is the Iran-Iraq War. It’s record is even worse than the MiG-21’s. The MiG-25 achieved the best results.

https://web.archive.org/web/20121031043534/http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?180731-Modern-fighter-combat-records

Not really, for one event you can make excuses but when the outcome is repeated many times over several decades you have to start calling a duck a duck. Soviet-Afghan War, Pakistan went 10:0 against their air force, so that was a proxy against the actual Soviet air force, surprise surprise, same result.

I mean, what’s your excuse, all Soviet proxies were incompetent and all Western proxies were competent? It’s quacking, it looks like a duck and it’s sitting in the water, it’s a duck.

Well west already interfered in Afghanistan in 1980s and Pakistan airforce believe shot Soviet/Afghan airforce. Soviet Union was unable to force Warsaw pact to fight on its behalf in Afghanistan on large scale like NATO in afghanisran. The point I am making is Soviet Union was lost cause from 70s and those things are reflected in slow and inefficient military-industrial complex.

Depends how you mean ‘intervened’. It certainly helped, but there was no official involvement, e.g. tanks on the ground, full scale air war. The Soviets fell behind when they didn’t seize on the importance of electronics and computing.

What does this have to do with the topic? The limit was there since some point after the breakup of the SU due to a lack of spare parts. It’s like saying MiG-29 and F-15 can’t dogfight as their vertical tails break off.

Well unfortunately to generate lift at high altitude you either need large wings (MiG-31 doesn’t have) or high speed (MiG-31 restricted to M1.5).

Soviet hardware vs Russian hardware.
I think the philosophy of this is totaly different. Soviet Union was very inward looking and didnt take competition of designs to serious by way of export quality and world standards. When your economy is 10 to 15 years behind in consumer electronics etc you dont get the best out of electronics in planes and other equipment. That change is significant in Russia now. Ever since the georgian war there has been rapid change in military equipment and use of it. During the cold war you would not have seen a Syria intervention by Russian (Soviet) airforces and the efficent use of as now. Although some Russians in the military say the force should be 2 to 3 times bigger.

During the Cold War, the west wouldn’t have dared intervene in Syria.