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Myth : The days of dog fighting is over

skidz

skidz

adrenaline junky
I find these opinions of how the "dogfighting" days are over very humorous. What do they think is going to happen after their precious f-22 runs out of missiles? Run away and hide? Call in Navy and Marine fighters to cover it's ass as he runs? The times of dogfighting are not gone, they are just now further down in the list of ways to engage targets in the air.
 
snake020

snake020

Contributor
skidz said:
I find these opinions of how the "dogfighting" days are over very humorous. What do they think is going to happen after their precious f-22 runs out of missiles?
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History repeating itself? From the Red Flag article on Wikipedia

The origin of Red Flag was the unacceptable performance of U.S. Air Force pilots in air combat maneuvering (ACM) (air-to-air combat) during the Vietnam War in comparison to previous wars. Air combat over North Vietnam between 1965 and 1973 led to an overall exchange ratio (ratio of enemy aircraft shot down to the number of own aircraft lost to enemy fighters) of 2.2:1 (for a period of time in June and July 1972 during Operation Linebacker the ratio was less than 1:1).

Among the several factors resulting in this disparity was a lack of realistic ACM training. USAF pilots were not versed in the core values and basics of ACM due to the belief that BVR (Beyond Visual Range) engagements and equipment made maneuvering combats obsolete, and nearly all pilots were unpracticed in maneuvering against dissimilar aircraft because of an Air Force emphasis on flying safety.
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R

Rossi

Member
skidz said:
I find these opinions of how the "dogfighting" days are over very humorous. What do they think is going to happen after their precious f-22 runs out of missiles? Run away and hide? Call in Navy and Marine fighters to cover it's ass as he runs? The times of dogfighting are not gone, they are just now further down in the list of ways to engage targets in the air.
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Yes.
 
Swanee

Swanee

Cereal Killer
pilot
None
Contributor
skidz said:
I find these opinions of how the "dogfighting" days are over very humorous. What do they think is going to happen after their precious f-22 runs out of missiles? Run away and hide? Call in Navy and Marine fighters to cover it's ass as he runs? The times of dogfighting are not gone, they are just now further down in the list of ways to engage targets in the air.
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The F-22 has a gun. It's the Navy variant of the F-35 that won't have an internal gun. :icon_smil

Plus guys: this video is probably 20 years old now.
 
Swanee

Swanee

Cereal Killer
pilot
None
Contributor
snake020 said:
The Navy F-35 has no gun? What's the rationale behind this?
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I believe the bottom line is that no internal gun means more room gas. The external gun pod will have the potential to carry more ammo also. Although right now the center chin station will only support the gun pod (as I understand it), the real question is how long will it be before someone designs a new lightning/sniper/etc... pod that will fit on that station and the F-35b and c variants start flying missions without a gun? :eek:

I can foresee some Pentagon computer geek saying," Oh, well we don't need a gun when we have stealth and good missiles. We can just shoot and run. Let's cut the funding for that Low Observability gun pod and spend it in JDAM or Missile tech" And then history repeats itself all over again. :icon_rage
 
A4sForever

A4sForever

BTDT OLD GUY
pilot
Contributor
We've heard all this before -- starting somewhere @ the Korean War. Anytime an engineer says "don't worry, trust us ... " .... you'd better watch out.

But unless they start to spay and neuter prospective "fighter" pilots in API ... you will always have the "opportunity" to "degenerate" into a dogfight, a furball, or a guns & knives engagement. Especially with ROE that becomes more and more restrictive requiring a VID of some sort ...

And why -- in our hi-tech age -- the "merge, dogfight, furball, guns & knives" ... ??? 'Cause it's something you -- as a pilot --- "want" to do .... :)
 
TurnandBurn55

TurnandBurn55

Drinking, flying, or looking busy!!
None
A few ideas I'll throw out there:

BFM engagement does not equate to "guns kill". In fact, you should be striving to get a missile kill if at all humanly possible, because a merge will probably be closer to bad-guy country than the US of A, and it'll take longer to achieve a guns solution than a heater. The real question we should be asking is why the F(not A)-22 doesn't have AIM-9X/JHMCS capability.

Primary reason to have guns? Strafing. Ground FACs are asking for it all the time in theater because of collateral damage concerns.

Good reasons to be at the merge in BFM:
"CAG told me to make a VID happen"
"He was a P-38 and I was an F/A-18F, so I could bulldoze him"
"He was between me and midrats, and I couldn't go around him so I had to go through"

Bad reasons to be there:
"I had no more missiles so I had to go at him with guns"
I'd say if I've blown my load of AMRAAMS and AIM-9X, I'm not going to BFM with a Flanker who has Archer/Python on the rail using nothing but guns and harsh language. It's time to call it a day...
 
TurnandBurn55

TurnandBurn55

Drinking, flying, or looking busy!!
None
It's in the works, for sure... at least AIM-9X is within the next year or two. JHMCS is still unfunded for the Raptor (I've heard projections it won't be seen until they can evaluate the JSF-type helmet for it)
 
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