D-Scythe

Actually, those Dutch F-16AMs were on CAP.

Stop twisting my words. I said being out-numbered allows a pilot to be more aggressive, not suicidal. But sure, anything to prove your point.

There are 26 F-15Cs - 20 stationed at Cervia AB, Aviano. If you're gonna use your OWN data to support your conclusions, please do NOT try to skew it in your favor, ok? Six of those F-15Cs are stationed at RAF Lakenheath - doubtful that they'll be doing too much intruding into Serbia. F-15Es do NOT count as F-15Cs - nice try though. Points for effort. Not hard at all to be aggressive - just blast whatever they can in the sky. It's a target rich environment - it may be hard to stay alive, but it shouldn't be too hard to be aggressive. I fail to see your point. Nobody's denying that NATO wouldn't make use of their airpower. However, to say that Serbian MiGs faced 80 to 4 odds is equally absurd, if not more so. The MiGs were never too badly out-numbered by enemy CAPs - 2 vs 1 at worst. In fact, in such a situation, the MiG would have the benefit of being able to go weapons free on whatever's flying, while the F-15Cs would have to make sure they don't shoot a friendly by mistake.

There is nothing to indicate what type of missile Shower's shot in his final engagement - in fact, it's the only engagement where this is the case. Could be an AIM-9M - in Desert Storm, pilots were taking shots at 8 miles. Well, it's common practice to extend after you A-pole - and Showers never "spammed."

Kulachin was engaged by Mike Showers, commanding a two-ship element of F-15Cs. This is Shower's testimony of the night: Mike Showers has been credited with shooting down Major Nikolic, and engaging Kulachin - that's ONE F-15C element, or two aircraft in total. Furthermore, the F-15Cs were escorting F-117s and B-2s, which pose no threat to Serbian MiGs and would be unlikely to be picked up by Serb radars - how would they possibly know they stumbled upon 20+ NATO aircraft then? Arizanov was shot down by the F-15C pilot Col. Rodriguez, with one AMRAAM - again, in a two-ship F-15C element. Milutinovich was shot down by another two-ship of Dutch F-16s (or according to the Serbs, by a friendly SA-6). So I implore you - where is this numerical supremacy that you guys speak of?

Everywhere - literally, just about any book, publication, squadron webpages, magazine, paper, TV, media etc. on Allied Force that would contain an ORBAT that would confirm that only twelve F-15Cs (from the 493rd FS) were involved directly in Allied Force and penetrated Serbian air space. You had TV reporters and camera crews literally lining up on both ends of the runways at Cervia, Aviano and god knows what other airbases in the region. The public can see with their own eyes what was and was not deployed.

And once AGAIN, there were only TWELVE F-15Cs in theatre during the war. ONE TWO. From the 493rd Grim Reapers Fighter Squadron of the 48th FW, home base Lakenheath and stationed at Cervia AB, Italy during the war. This is PUBLIC data that can be confirmed in MULTIPLE channels. Your dates don't match up. The F-16AMs claimed first blood on the first night of war - March 24 - there were no engagements before them, and F-16AMs did not participate in any A/A combat after. NATO claimed no kills on the 30th of March. March 26th saw one F-15C pilot shoot down 2 MiG-29s simultaneously with two AMRAAMs using TWS. NATO's last kill came on April 5, 1999, bringing the total kills claimed by NATO to six.

Um, Israeli F-15s killed 3 MiG-25s - the last MiG-25 kill being a shared kill with a HAWK battery. The IqAF at least had battle experience from the Iran-Iraq war. That is unquestionable - their Air Force was pretty battle hardened, if not well trained. Furthermore, in every Air Force, no matter how bad or how small, you'd find a handful of aces. Again, yes, there were many more NATO fighters than MIG-29s, but in the actual engagements the numbers have always been pretty even. And the MiGs may not have operated in pairs, but they were definitely engaged as pairs. And nobody likes F-16s anyway. Just ignore them.

Absolutely agreed. Again, it wasn't fair, but it wasn't because there were more F-15s - i.e. it wasn't because of a numerical superiority - was the point I was trying to get across :) That "argument" on whose AMRAAM actually killed a MiG happened only once, on the third day of war - and it was between the flight lead and his wingman - the only 2 F-15s that participated in that 2 Vs 3 engagement, ironically the only engagement where in Allied Force where F-15s were out-numbered. Making mountains out of mole hills?

I'm sorry, how exactly do cruise missiles contribute to air-to-air combat? The fight was unfair because it was 1 or 2 or 3 MiG-29s going up against 2 F-15Cs with AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles and AWACs support. Numerical superiority had nothing to do with it when you're going up against such formidable opponents, no matter how badly you and your people try to make the F-15 or F-16 look.

There is evidence for the AMRAAM. Everyone knows the AMRAAM is more effective in real life than in the sim - however, if you wanna start questioning the performance of the ET and 77 IRL, then go ahead. Thought we'd apply the same logic to all missiles. But look, that's us being all fair again :music_whistling:

What GG said. Those 100 F-15s would not be in the air all at the same time, and those that are flying would be split across the entire theatre of battle for Escort, MiGCAP and fighter sweep duties. Or did you really think air battles are fought when both sides deploy their entire fleet of their best fighters and duke it in the sky over the course of one day. USAF General: "Hey, I'll send all 100 of my F-15s 40 miles South of Belgrade, I'll see ya there bud!" Serb Air Force General: "Great, I'll send all 20 of my MiGs there too. Loser buys the next round!" Sorry to burst your bubble Kuky with a little sprinkle of reality. In Allied Force, the number of (permanently stationed) F-15Cs and MiG-29s in the theatre were about the same - IIRC there were 12 single-seat MiG-29As in the SAF and 12 F-15Cs from the 493rd FS deployed to Cervia Air Base. In Desert Storm, about 120 F-15Cs were deployed to the Middle East, to fight an Iraqi Air Force of 600+ fighters. Again, the F-15s never enjoyed local numerical supremacy in 95% of its battles.

Are you still on about that? The F-15s enjoyed NO NUMERCIAL superiority in any battle - just because there are 100 F-15s in the theatre versus 20 MiG-29s doesn't mean that 5 F-15s will simultaneously engage 1 MiG-29 in every battle. The F-15 has never enjoyed a significant local numerical supremacy - ever. Wrong again. The AIM-120/F-15C combination enjoys a MASSIVE technological supremacy over first generation MiG-29s and Su-27s - just like a Su-27SM would enjoy technological supremacy over the first generation F-15A. Get over it.

It might be better to work with the real world combat figures for the AIM-7F/M, as it allows us to work with bigger numbers =/

Um, even in the U.S., not all pilots can participate in Red Flag or Fighter Weapons School. If you look at the detachments, each participating squadron usually sends about 6 jets and their associated pilots. These pilots can in turn return to their home base and not only share what they learned with their squadron mates, but also structure their practice around what they learned. Thus, the value of Red Flag is not *just* limited to the people who participate. The original argument that Red Flag only trains a select few pilots at the expense of others can logically be extended to the USAF as well - one can make the argument that the money spent on Red Flag can be used to improve the overall quality of training of the entire Air Force. Just like how the original argument was that the money spent on sending Gripen pilots to Red Flag (a LOT less than actually RUNNING Red Flag) can be better used to improve training of a wider sub-set of pilots. Which is false. Believe what you want, but the idea that Red Flag trains a few select pilots at the expense of overall training of the rest of the fleet is ridiculous.

At the expense of Swedish pilot training/skills? What other type of training in the world offers the kind of DACT/large-scale exercise exposure than Red Flag?

Is there any information on this? Officially, according to the USAF, all the MiGs that had AMRAAMs fired at them resulted in their eventual shoot-down. Three (of 6) MiG kills required more than 1 AMRAAM - three AIM-120s were fired by an F-15C on the first night to kill a MiG-29, another AIM-120 was fired by a F-15C on March 26th at a two-ship of MiG-29s before both Fulcrums were splashed by his flight lead and finally a couple weeks later 2 AIM-120Bs were fired by an F-16CJ that killed another MiG-29. No other AMRAAMs were fired in the conflict AFAIK.

183 are gonna be upgraded. All are gonna be equipped with the APG-63V3, like the rest of the F-15E fleet, AFAIK. Though it's not planned, it's been rumored they might get a re-engined - hopefully with Dash 229s, but probably with Dash 220Es.

Eh, LOMAC comes close to achieving that impossibility. Missiles in Lock On are generally Missiles.

Pretty much by feel - when in doubt, just stick with the orthogonal roll. It's not LOMAC lingo, it's what real fighter pilots use too :) Notch is putting your enemy directly on your 3 or 9 o'clock line. Basically, you wanna fly *exactly* side-ways relative to your enemy. F-pole is basically the things you can do to keep the bandit away as far away from you as possible until your missile hits/misses. For example, after you shoot your missile, you can fly a bit off to the side, and because you're no longer flying directly at the target, you reduce the closure rate between you and the target (hence preserving separation/distance between you two). A-pole is the exact same thing, but applies to active radar missiles - only now, you don't have to wait for missile hit or miss, just until the missile goes active. Slammer is a nickname for the American AMRAAM missile.

There's not much a difference between 40% and 44% is there? Hmm maybe the "missing" range increased is explained by the faster missile achieving a greater loft altitude during missile fly out? Even a 200 kmph increase in speed can result in a >2000 m (over 6500 ft) increase in loft altitude, where missiles aren't penalized as severely by drag induced by the greater air densities at lower altitudes. Transonic drag is a bigger factor in the missile flight end-game, as I see it. Especially for the R-77, whose potato mashers induce a ton of drag in this speed regime.

Well, for one, how would you even know the MiG-29 "egressed?" Common practice after shooting something down is to sanitize the target area - make sure nothing else is flying. Furthermore, the drone was destroyed prior to egress. In addition, even if the drone did capture the initial egress path of the MiG, the Fulcrum didn't have to make a bee-line to it's home-base - in fact, most egress routes DON'T. Moreover, why would the MiG not land where it took off from? Finally would the MiG (taking into account that it was already airborne with no drop tanks) even have enough fuel to make it all the way back to Krymsk? In conclusion, the MiG might very well have landed at Krymsk/Krasnodar, but in no way can that statement be confirmed or even stated with any reasonable amount of certainty. In fact, such a statement would not even hold up in a discussion of conjecture. Oh, I'm also running out of linker phrases, so I'm gonna stop.

I fail to see how you can possibly make such an assumption.

More realistic? Care to validate that opinion?

Well, from a frontal shot when both the M1 and its attacker are on even ground, any armored penetrator still has to travel through 500-600+ mm of RHAe, due to the fact that the glacis is sloped at something like ~80 degrees. Also, because it's sloped so steeply, it's a rather small target to hit. Thus, the glacis protection should be adequate from the front, but obviously against top-attack weapons - or just attacks from an enemy at a higher ground - it leaves much to be desired. Just a design compromise, I guess, with emphasis on frontal and side protection.