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TimingBelt posted:I have a thing for Soviet Interceptors and Fighters; I too have a thing for Soviet fighters and interceptors. I'm surprised you haven't mentioned the Mig-31 Foxhound. Speaking of which does anyone have an idea of whether it turned out to be more capable than its predecessor the '25? I heard that Zalson radar it has was supposedly revolutionary technology. I also really like the Mig-29 but I was wondering why it has a bad combat record and why you think it's undeserved? The way I see it, I think that the exported models were inferior to what the Russians actually use in their armed forces and also they were never meant to be deployed the way they were by the 3rd world countries that used them. I think to really benefit from a Mig-29 you need an army of mechanics to ensure it's well maintained and you need good ground support in the form of radar etc and maybe an AWACS. Many nations couldn't afford that so the Mig was a flop since the opponents it ran into usually had those things. DerDestroyer fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Mar 10, 2010 |
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Mar 10, 2010 22:24
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| # ¿ May 6, 2024 02:53 |
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It's just there's always this talk about capabilities about how XYZ soviet fighter is more maneuverable or can do nice things. A common person with no experience would see them pull a cobra maneuver at an airshow and think that means the fighter is amazing. But if we look at the raw facts I don't think a single F-15 or F-16 has ever been lost in battle to a Mig-29. It's pretty much a lopsided 170-0 kill ratio. The Russians lost like 6 planes to a dinky little country like Georgia alone. Maybe the sad truth is that as much as we'd like to think the Russian planes are "good" in some way, in actual war they're just target practice. The common armament for most Mig-29s and SU-27s consists of R-27s and R-73s. The R-73 might be able to do something at short range, but most engagements are BVR. An F-15 just fires (and forgets) an AMRAAM and starts maneuvering to evade any R-27s the Russians fire. You need to maintain a radar lock on your target for an R-27 to hit and if you got a AMRAAM on you, you're gonna be running for your dear life to evade those missiles losing the lock and causing your R-27 to fall harmlessly to the ground. Not to mention R-27s are supposedly notoriously unreliable. Meanwhile that AMRAAM doesn't need a radar lock from the F-15 that fired it which means while that missile is chasing you and you're trying really hard to avoid it, the F-15 pilot can sit back and have a coffee. I honestly don't think American pilots have had a real challenge since Vietnam. Only thing to really worry about nowadays are SAMs. DerDestroyer fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Mar 10, 2010 |
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Mar 10, 2010 22:43
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Yeah I think I share that opinion viking. I think that an SU-27 or Mig-29 might pose a major challenge against a US plane in a dogfight provided their pilot got enough flight hours. But in any given engagement it'll never come to that. The missiles will end it long before that. India is probably the best example of how to properly employ Mig-29s. I think if you got the money to put the pilots through the necessary training hours, develop the appropriate tactics, and build the appropriate support for it you can have something on parity with most American 4th generation fighters. However if you got all the money to do that, you're probably a nation on Americans green list for arms sales and are likely a launch customer for the Joint Strike Fighter.
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Mar 10, 2010 23:00
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I noticed the US has Mig-29s, SU-27s etc for things like aggressor training. Do the Russians have things like F-14s or F-16s?
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Mar 11, 2010 00:46
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What can they do with flattened lumps of scrap from the F-117 anyway? Isn't the F-117 retired now?
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Mar 11, 2010 00:52
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| # ¿ May 6, 2024 02:53 |
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A bit off topic bit still somewhat related it's pretty incredible how people handled the NATO bombings in the former Yugoslavia back in 1999. My grandfather who spent most of his days in a pretty rural area explained it to me the other day. They were meticulous in following a preset schedule for the bombings so everyone on the ground knew approximately where the planes were and what they were doing. My grandfather being an old school big wig communist politician knows a lot of people in his city so he was able to see some of the crazy poo poo people did. For example a bunch of college students passed the time by assembling a series of radio transistors or microwaves and setting them up in fields and stuff. I'm not sure exactly what it was but it emitted radio waves. They'd basically sit on lawn chairs on a hillside drinking beer and would turn on the contraption they built and in a very short time a rocket or bomb would blow it up. Apparently the radio waves generated created the impression that there was a SAM site or radar installation and the planes would make an attack run on it. In fact all sorts of civilian type activities like this were going on all over the countryside. The less technically inclined people were taking pipes and stuff and building fake tanks. If I recall correctly the Yugoslav forces were successful in concealing the bulk of their mechanized forces and most of the bombs only hit decoys. A lot of this was voluntary too and not coerced by the government in the slightest bit. One of the airfields in the area had the locals wheel out the planes and hide them in barns and stuff. The airfield would get bombed and cratered but apparently the farmers would gently caress with the Americans by laying out black tarp over the bombed out runways. The next day they would hit the field again and I can only imagine the pilots and intelligence officers analyzing the satellite footage wondering how dem dirty Serbian mud people managed to rebuild an airfield over night. I guess despite the NATO bombings succeeding in their objective, the general populace still felt they won a few symbolic victories like the F-117 downing or the fact that they managed to make fools out of the USAF by causing them to waste expensive bombs on fake targets. It's just interesting to see how a people can cope with what was essentially a war with an overwhelming and unstoppable force and how they found ways to make the most out of it and stay positive despite seeing parts of their home going up in flames. EDIT: Here's what the Russians think about the F-16 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHuml9pZJ5E DerDestroyer fucked around with this message at 07:41 on Mar 13, 2010 |
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Mar 13, 2010 07:20
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