RockyEven the Iraqis did learn, that is was more usefull to bury that in the sands
Much like a cat in his litter box. 😀
RockyI do not care about that, i will not answer politics,
????????
but i will tell you in simple terms Iraq was not Russia.
Your knowledge of geography is impressive, but YOU were writing about Iraq.
Rockysee only 12 interceptor MiG-25, and still they were capable to fight more than 300 F-15s, F-14s and F-18s.
This is ridiculous! Look at the “success” of the MiG-25 in the Gulf War:
F-14 kills: ZERO
F-15 kills: ZERO
F-16 kills: ZERO
F-18 kills: ONE <<<<<<<<<=======
A-7E kills: ZERO
A-6E kills: ZERO
F-111 kills: ZERO
Tornado kills: ZERO
Jaguar kills: ZERO
Mirage kills: ZERO
F-4G kills: ZERO
E-2C kills: ZERO
E-3 kills: ZERO
B-52 kills: ZERO
F-117 kills: ZERO
Anything else: ZERO
We bombed the crap out of the Iraqi army and the MiG-25, or any other Iraqi fighter, wasn’t able to slow us down.
RockyWould the USAF know if that F-15 was ever overstressed during its career?
RockyDo you know how many MiG-25PDs Iraq had in 1991? see that their numbers was very limited
That explains why we didn’t kill many. :diablo:
and despite of that they were facing 20 times more F-15s, F-18s and F-14s, despite that they did an excelent job
…of running away. :p
RockyThe F-4 was not capable of intercepting the MiG-25 because it never has shot one in air to air combat.
By the same illogic, the MiG-25 was not capable of intercepting the B-52, because it has never shot one down. :rolleyes:
Iraq used their MiG-25s as fighters and achieve good results even they had very few available and fought advanced fourth generation aircraft.
They attacked formations of A-7s and A-6s and shot down an F-18 and attacked F-111s and suffered no loss and avoided even more than 5 F-15s chasing them.
The MiG-25 shot down ONE F-18 in the first Gulf War. An intercepter that spends all its time running away isn’t very effective.
Sens: To my knowledge, the F-4 never carried the AIM-7F. At least I have never heard of it doing so. I don’t think the F-4 had the right radar to use it.
RockyNo – and I am aware that you are disappointed about that. It may be intresting for you to find out the reasons for such claim.
I’m not disappointed. For certain the Typhoon is much better in a gunfight. The Typhoon does have reduced RCS too. But I would be interested in anyone’s argument why this will outweigh the advantages of the powerful radar, Phoenix and the second crewman on the F-14D.
Rockyare you sure about that? I thought at the time the Luftw didn’t and couldn’t get any medium range AAMs. I don’t recall any aircraft they have that can do that. Even their F-104s are not Sparrow capable. It really doesn’t make sense because the tactics of the day said no then you purposely take away capabilities? It’s like saying the ROEs in nam don’t favor long range missile shots so let’s put the sparrows back into storage. I vividly recall many books printed in the early 80s stated that the reason is Germany isn’t allowed to have them. Of course they could be wrong…but just doesn’t make sense to me. Also, the concept of the EFA and the introduction of the F-4F would be at least 10 years apart in the most optimistic assumption, again making that as the reason the F-4F don’t get any BVR missiles just doesn’t make sense.
“the F-4F… differs mainly in electronic equipment and systems, partly because the US devices are classified and not available for export and partly to meet the specialized needs of the Luftwaffe or German industry.”
– F-4 Phantom, by Bill Gunston, c 1977
The “not available for export” line doesn’t make sense to me. Iran got the F-4E with Sparrow and the F-14A with Phoenix not much later. Japan got the F-4EJ with Sparrow.
I think the real reason was that Germany was looking for a cheap lightweight fighter. They were going to buy a bare bones version called the F-4EF, with one crewman, only the belly tank, reduced internal fuel, simplified radar, and no Sparrow. The F-4F that they finally went with is 3300lbs lighter than the F-4E because off all the stuff they left out of it. The F-4F was a better dogfighter, and it cost less. It was the F-16 before the F-16 was invented.
RockyHmm I think the Mig-31 would fit in there.
The MiG-31 is a super intercepter, but it is a disaster WVR. I expect it could get the first shot against an F-15, unless the missile was defeated by ECM. I don’t know how that would turn out, and I doubt anyone here could (or would be allowed to) answer that question. But this raises a question that is also hard to answer: At what point does superior BVR capability fail to make up for inferior WVR capability? The F-14D has been put forward as a contender here. It has super BVR capability, but it just doesn’t have the agility of its contemporaries. How much do modern off boresight IRH missiles reduce the importance of WVR agility? If we put AIM-54C, AIM-120C and AIM-9X on an F-14D, would it be better than a Typhoon?
RockyI’ll agree with some people here that you simply missed out some great planes for a period you marked with F-15C (1992-2006). In time when Su-30MKI(and its variants), Rafale and Gripen all existed.
All are superior WVR, but ECM, the APG-63 radar and AIM-120C capability, Programmed Signal Processing (PSP), and now AESA radar, give the F-15C a lethal first shot. Rafale is very good, but like the Typhoon, I’m not sure if it really beat the F-22A into service by much.
And what about F-15E? (or you simply meant F-15E and you made a mistake and wrote F-15C for that period of time(1992-2006) cuz you already put a C model from 79-86):confused:
No mistake. The F-15E is primarily a strike aircraft. It weighs a lot more, so its performance is inferior to the F-15C. AESA radar is being put into the F-15C, so the C has the better avionics for air to air combat.
RockyWhat disadvantage would that bring?
How often do F-16 fight alone and in the dark?
In real war times nobody would switch on his radar anyways, as he gets detected before he can detect. They would switch on their radar when they are in range of their BVR missiles to calculate a firing solution. And I guess both aircraft’s radars exceed the range of their missiles (which are the same).
I suppose the F-15 and Su-27 have big, powerful, expensive radars because they need more ballast up front to keep the CG in front of the CL. :rolleyes:
(I refrain from investing time to get in prolonged foolish arguments with ignorant users).
😉
RockyMan the F-16 was the best LWf in the 1970s undoutedly it was the most agile fighter, by the 1980s it was not, the MiG-29 took the title and by 1997 the Gripen took it over, now in terms of LWF i think the best fighter is the Gripen well armed and agile.
Do you have any data on the Gripen? I read once somewhere that it wasn’t much different than the F-16. I also have to think that such a small aircraft would have a less powerful radar than the F-16.
Rockyfunny, the f-16 was the best 80s fighter -if u want to stay below 5km-….what a joke, the 16 was a small agile bomber, no an air superiority figther
It was designed to be a lightweight fighter. It may have been employed as a bomber, but it was still the best WVR fighter in the world.
really this kind of threads really sucks, again and again, this “which was the best crap”, OMG…
And you posted on the thread. :rolleyes:
RockyThen I choose a MiG-21 over an F-4D.
Fly low so he can’t use his radar.
An effective tactic that the North Vietnamese used to surprise American fighters. But the MiG-21 has to get altitude to have a turning advantage over the F-4. The MiG-21’s radar was much inferior to the F-4’s radar.
RockyI have difficulties of calling a design great that showed flawed requirements for air superiority (from navy mainly, the air force wanted a gun initially),
There were definatly mistakes in the design, but it still had great performance, despite the weight of the weapon system.
inadequate performance superiority over much simpler designs (MiG-21F)
It was still faster, and had the world’s highest rate of climb.
and had a heavy but very poor weapon system.
It was by far the best weapon system in the world at the time. You would really rather have a single Matra R.530 and a Cyrano II radar run by the pilot over four semi recessed Sparrow and an APQ-100 run by a RIO?
But the F-4B/C/D were mediocre air superiority aircraft and lacked many key design features of such an aircraft, while other aircraft had these.
The F-4C was still superior to the MiG-21 below 15,000 ft. The MiG-21PF had no gun, nobody was making jets with good cockpit visability, and all lagged in speed, rate of climb and sustained turn rate, compared to the F-4B/C/D.
Interestingly most national air forces shared my opinion: most export customers chose the F-4E or derivatives.
:confused: Well, yeah. Who is saying that the earlier F-4C is better than the more advanced F-4E???
BTW, Spain, Iran and South Korea all bought F-4C/D, and Britain bought F-4K/M.
My personal list before arrival of the slatted F-4E rather favors candidates like the F-5A/E, the MiG-21 (misses some features, especially endurance in weapons and range/time) or the Mirage III.
All were more nimble than the F-4, but the F-4C still prevails over all of them. The F-4C is better in a the vertical, faster, the second crewman gives better situational awareness, and then there is that Sparrow…
I also miss the F-16 in your list: it is the best fighter of the 1980s. Over a potential battlefield in Europe it would bring terror to most adversaries.
The F-16 is super WVR, but the F-15 is not too far behind, while the APG-63 radar and AIM-7F gave an important adavantage.
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