I just plain disagree with all the anti B-70 posts. Look logically at a couple of facts. The SR-71 was NEVER shot down by missles, even tho fired at several thousand times. SAMs are short range, and the B-70 would run them out of fuel before they could get to the B-70. Also we are still flying the B-52 as a viable weapon system. So tell me if the AF thinks a B-52 flying at 45,000 feet and 600 mph, why wouldnt a B-70 flying at 80,000 feet and mach 3 be more surviable? Remember these days a B-52 does not fly directly over the target, they stand off and fire weapons at the target hundreds of miles away. A B-70 would do the same thing except higher and faster and closer, and still be able to get away.

I contend that an enemy would have to fill their country with SAM sites every 10 miles all over the country to be able to shoot down a B-70. So many sites that a country would go broke doing so.

Lastly a MIG-25 was mentioned, as the USSR response to the B-70. When one was handed over to us in Japan, it was found out that it was so poor quality there was a placard on the panel that said “dont exceed mach 2.8”. Also its maneuverablity was in question. So how was a plane that was much slower and less maneuverable going to shoot down the B-70?

It remains that IMO NcNamara and his “whiz kids” that gave us the Edsel were idiots!!!!!!

With all due respect, things are not as simple as a game of Trump cards, with top speed trumping another.

You’re having an extremely simplistic look at things, and ignoring things, many of them already mentioned here, that don’t suit your narrative.
The enemy won’t just conveniently cancel all their SAMs and interceptors that are in development or entering service.

HPTs are apparently complete for stage-2 engine.
http://www.militarynews.ru/excl.asp?ex=171

Ran this through a translation programme.

Engine for aircraft of the fifth generation will be different from the previous generation increased engine specific thrust, less weight, a lower specific fuel consumption and the availability of new solutions for low visibility.

In aviation engine everything is important. One of the most difficult parts of the engine is a high pressure turbine. We were asked to make a turbine running at this level of temperature, under which metallic nickel alloys just melt. This work was successful.

The heart of the aviation engine high pressure compressor is. The level of his goodness direct are all essential characteristics of the engine. The amount of detail in the new compressor high pressure, we were able to cut almost by half compared to the previous phase of the compressor, it provided a significant increase in work by one step. The cost of producing such a compressor will not exceed the cost of manufacturing the engine BUILDUP of the fourth generation. And it is subject to the application of new materials and technologies.

The “Saturn” has experience and good results using new materials developed by the all-Russian Scientific Research Institute of aviation materials (VIAM).

First of all, it is, of course, vane motors are heat resistant nickel alloys. Turbine blade is an absolutely unique product. It is a complex spatial structure, which should work at temperatures above 2000 k.

There are also proprietary materials “Saturn”. We are ready to offer them a new generation engine. These materials allow one and a half times increase engine life for the same temperatures.

Today there is a lot of talk on the application of composite materials. In the new engine for the PAK FA are composites that are built not only on the cold part of the polymer matrix, as well as details on the high temperature created compositions. The work of the NPO “Saturn” is already quite long.

Today in “Saturn” is serious research on the development of fifth-generation engine technology, which is called “variable cycle” engine. Studies that show that a certain transformation Thermodynamics of the engine due to design changes, you can significantly improve the performance of the engine for subsonic and supersonic flight regimes. One such transformation can be the use of the third circuit. All of it is provided.

Now I understand that true meanings can get “lost in translation”, but I found some of this very, very interesting.

What about SAM sites downrange of the radar?
What about multiple SAM sites, as the Soviets did indeed employ?

The Soviets fired 3 SAMs actually, not a salvo of many SAMs.
It was one of the early variants of the S-75 (SA-2), which had also shot down a Taiwanese Canberra at 20 000m the year before.
The Soviets were obviously known to be working on developed variants of the S-75, which did enter service, and also other long ranged high altitude SAMs to complement it in service.

Not that I wouldn’t have loved to see the B-70 in service.
And I agree that it would likely have helped out on other projects.

This is why I rarely bother to visit AFm forums.

Almost no mods, and the same old usual suspect, Scooter, who will derail threads in a manic attempt to bring the F-35 into every single thread.

Moderators…where are you?

No reason not to include other AAMs like IRIS T, ASRAAM, Python 5, A darter, AAM-5, PL-10.

Indeed.

Public domain information shows the A-Darter to have a 180 degree look angle, 120 degree per second track rate, LOAL and LOBL, thermal imaging, laser proximity fuse, and thrust vecoring control allowing up to 100g’s peak.

Marcel Dassaults incomparably beautiful and long lived Mirage III, nose radar versions.

Yet you couldn’t repeat your performance against Vietnam.

Interesting

Not nearly as interesting as your reasons for starting this thread, and your contradiction about the modern Chinese military whilst using a conflict that happened in the 1970’s as an “example”…

I think it is perhaps a stretch to call the Mirage III and Mig 23 contemporaries.

Operational dates:
Mirage III – 1961
Mirage IIIE – 1964
Mirage 5 – 1967

Mig 23 – 1970
Mig 23MS – 1973

The Mig 23MS was only operational from 1974 in the Middle East.

That’s basically a decades difference, in a time when aviation was forging ahead in leaps and bounds rapidly.

The Mirage is far closer in date and is far more analogous with the Mig-21.

The fact that the Mirage III platform is still gainfully employed almost 60 years from it’s introduction (including in vastly reworked, rebuilt, and updated form) speaks volumes about how Marcel Dassault got that design neatly balanced and just right.