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Fight's On! The origins of TOPGUN and dogfights back in the day/future prospects
- Thread starter futrMarineBlueAngel
- Start date
The Navy F-4B/N/J IR gear was just the seeker head for the Sidewinder. What the Russians apparently have is IR gear that provides the same info as radar (i.e., range & azimuth) w/out putting any "signature" into the air. This is a sea-change technology-wise for ACM & AA combat in a non-GCI/AWACS environment.
Their IRST gear is NOT a replacement for radar, and gives nowhere the amount of information that radar does. A lot of this info is in open source, including the book Fulcrum: A Top Gun Pilot's Escape from the Soviet Empire by Alexander Zuyev. He was one of the last pilots to defect from the USSR and his book has some good details about the MiG-29, including the IRST.
You can have all the best fighters in the world, but if your maintenance sucks and does not keep up the gear like the Yugoslavs, and a common occurrence with many other Flanker and Fulcrum operators, or if your pilots suck and do things answer their cellphones and have conversations during the brief, then those toys ain't worth a damn.
All of the charts, diagrams and musings from armchair warriors are not going to replace a well trained fighter pilot who wants to make sure the other guy dies for his country, not him/her. So stop salivating over the last decent things that Russia ever produced and welcome back to reality.
I had forgotten all about that. (Age does that.
) Anyway, it was inop in the F-4Bs I flew, but guys in the squadron before me had used it.
Since it stopped being trained, it made for a great pre-flight question for a nugget: What's this pod do? ............. Correct answer - "nothing".
[Had to check my PI wooden F-4B model to see if it had the small chin pod underneath the radome for the system - which it does. The J model doesn't.]
I know we can't answer discuss, but this little wannabe wants to throw some questions out for size...
a) Are we ever going to go to war without AEW or GCI like we did in Cope India? How about our enemies? What's their influence on the "tron-space?"
b) If the enemy thinks about question (a) like I do... How vulnerable are our long-range tracking assets? Can we be brought down to this "level playing field" we're all speculating on wrt the IR widgits?
Next point.
Now, yes, there is still an endless supply of -21's and a good amount of -29's out there, but all the post-Cold War topflight Ruskie gear is Sukhoi. As Russia re-soviet-izes itself, all aircraft manufacturers are supposed to be brought under the auspices of the United Aicraft Building Corporation. I dunno about you, but the aircraft I grew up with bagged Fokker's, 'Messers and Schmidts, Zeros and MiGs.
Sukhoi's? UABC's? Sounds more like UAV to me...
a) Are we ever going to go to war without AEW or GCI like we did in Cope India? How about our enemies? What's their influence on the "tron-space?"
b) If the enemy thinks about question (a) like I do... How vulnerable are our long-range tracking assets? Can we be brought down to this "level playing field" we're all speculating on wrt the IR widgits?
Next point.
Now, yes, there is still an endless supply of -21's and a good amount of -29's out there, but all the post-Cold War topflight Ruskie gear is Sukhoi. As Russia re-soviet-izes itself, all aircraft manufacturers are supposed to be brought under the auspices of the United Aicraft Building Corporation. I dunno about you, but the aircraft I grew up with bagged Fokker's, 'Messers and Schmidts, Zeros and MiGs.
Sukhoi's? UABC's? Sounds more like UAV to me...
Even with AEW present, sometimes it's not up to snuff. There was plenty of AEW assets watching over VFA-81 in '91 when an Iraqi Foxbat interceptor tagged an F/A-18 from behind. Yet, a Sara E-2C gave two Sunliner F/A-18s a heads-up during the day that resulted in 2 kills.
Over Kosovo, Air Force F-15s had to run their own intercept of MiG-29s when AWACS was clueless.
Flash & HeyJoe: I hope & assume you're correct w/ your info. I'm 25 yrs out of the cockpit, seldom have the opportunity to talk to current fleet aviators & only know what I read in AW&ST. Maybe "Fresh" above can clarify some of this. The Aviation Week article I read about the Cope India exercise was that the Sukhoi's waxed the AESA-equipped F-15's & the IR gear played a big role. The Russians are famous for great scientists but lousy engineering & maintenance.
Hey Fresh, were you at VT-6 for primary??
The Indians did quite well, better than anyone gave them credit for before the excercise. But we did not bring everything we have to the fight, and you generally heard only one side fo the story, so take it all for what it is worth.
Several things to note about the Indians. They have had the unique experience of creating their own tactics for almost the entire history of their air force. They have taken a mix of Russian and western tactics and added a lot of their own original ideas into the mix, resulting in a unique set of training and tactics that you don't find elsewhere. That is unlike our NATO partners that use mainly the same tactics across the alliance, along with our other major allies that use similar tactics formulated by the US over the years. The USSR spread its own brand around the world to their allies and client states, resulting in two broad way of doing things. While India has gotten the vast majority of its arms from the USSR, they never subscribed to the Russian way of business and as a result their tactics were a big unknown to most of the rest of the world (much less so since Cope India, they have taken part in an increasing number of excercises since then with the Brits and others). Hence a big part of the surprise at Cope India, the first major aerial excercise we have done with them in a very long while (if ever?), was the new tactics.
Another thing to note is that while they fly the Su-30, as Fresh pointed out they fly their own version, the Su-30MKI. A big difference between this and the Russian Flankers is that the MKI has a lot of French and Israeli elctronics/avionics, which are slightly more dependable than the Russian equivalents. And while they might have a very capable IRST, it is by no means a replacement for radar. It is a lot easier to find someone when you have briefed it with the guy in the same room before the flight, different story when you have the whole sky to search.
Finally, while AWS&T is an excellent source of info, I think you may know that it is not the be all to end all. They, as do many in the foreign/international press, like to gloat over any supposed weakness or foible of the US and quickly pounce all over it. Not only that, it gave the Indians something to crow about, which they seemed to do with some glee (who wouldn't?). So take some of the press reports with a grain of salt. Though as always, there is a lot of truth to them. Clear as mud?
invertedflyer
500 ft. from said obstacle
Alright, I'm not an expert, but the scanarios you posted here P4 are very unlikely IMO.
In theory, how often would an SU-27 or SU-30 be faced off against an F/A-18A? Theres only a few fleet squadrons that still operate the A, and they are A+ hornets that have been modded almost up to C-model capabilities. A more likely scenario IMO is an F/A-18 E/F faced up against a sukhoi. My main point though, our a/c are gonna thwack that thing with an AMRAAM from 20+ miles away. I'm not getting into specifics, but I've read that the Sukoi's medium range missiles are only effective at around 10-12 miles.
1. Very few A models, some A+ models with good radars.
2. THE AMRAAM!
I'd like to see the threat envelopes for that.
I completely agree with you. If I could find some gouge on that (Super Hornet Vs. Sukhoi) head to head, I would. Like I said, I just really like the the jet and its beauty. Like I posted before this video...http://youtube.com/watch?v=xuNd8tKm0UA amazes me. Something about interest of the "unknown".
You are both dancing around info that is OPSEC related so enough speculation. Wait until you are in a squadron and you can live in a vault. That will make your friendly "spy" happy pulling out the pubs for you to read all you want on the subject.
invertedflyer
500 ft. from said obstacle
P4, google is not my friend today... I couldn't find a link to something showing the threat envelopes for both the Rhino and the SU-33. Somebody posted it up in a similar thread sometime last year. HJ spiked me, so I'm gonna stop speculating.