Any news on the Mig-23?

[addman]

Yeah, won't be a great dogfighter but with it's crazy good speed and acceleration it will be perfect for ambush and hit and run attacks. So for a seasoned player it will be quite potent I recon but for novices it might be a nasty surprise if they try to get in to turn n burn fights.

[Art-J]

19 hours ago, Pavlin_33 said:

I am trying to figure out what all hype is about. Maybe I am missing something, please forgive if so.

It's going to be the only post-1960's era Red side full fidelity fighter module available in DCS in forseeable few years future.

Yes, I know Mag3's MiG-21 Bis is a 1972 plane, but systems-wise it's not different from older versions. Plus, it's a bit of a shoddy module compared to today's DCS standards, in dire need of a thorough overhaul, which might never come.

Beggars can't be choosers in full-clickability department, and so the -23 is going to be a critical addition to DCS no matter if it was a good airplane or not.

Edited December 6, 2023 by Art-J

[Volator]

I agree with the above. Let's just hope it will get maintained better by Razbam than their other Soviet aircraft MiG-19.

[æck]

23 hours ago, Pavlin_33 said:

Didn't the MiG-23 turn like crap IRL?

I am trying to figure out what all hype is about. Maybe I am missing something, please forgive if so.

that was true for early variants, but MiG-23MLA has a G limit of 8.5 and wing loading comparable to other contemporary fighters. (370 kg/m² compared to 544 kg/m² on MiG-23M, they literally removed a ton of weight overall)

Western pilots who inspected the MLA did criticize the cockpit visibility and fuel consumption, but it wasn't all negative. There's a quote I often post about this:

• "Dutch pilot Leon van Maurer, who had more than 1200 hours flying F-16s, flew against MiG-23MLs from air bases in Germany and the U.S. as part of NATO's aerial mock combat training with Soviet equipment. He concluded the MiG-23ML was superior in the vertical to early F-16 variants, just slightly inferior to the F-16A in the horizontal, and had superior BVR capability"

[Pavlin_33]

10 hours ago, æck said:

• .. just slightly inferior to the F-16A in the horizontal, and had superior BVR capability"

If it was "just slightly" inferior to Viper A, then my impression of it is completely wrong.
Heard somewhere that the 23 (not sure which variant), could offer about 1G per 100kts, which would put it nowhere near F-16 when it comes to turn performance.

[MickV]

16 hours ago, Pavlin_33 said:

If it was "just slightly" inferior to Viper A, then my impression of it is completely wrong.
Heard somewhere that the 23 (not sure which variant), could offer about 1G per 100kts, which would put it nowhere near F-16 when it comes to turn performance.

In DCS the MiG-23 should shine as a high-speed hit & run aircraft with good BVR capabilities compared to its peer aircraft (primarily the F-4E). It should also have the acceleration to withdraw from an unfavourable position and then re-set the fight.. It's not going to out-turn a Viper, obviously, but I suspect it'll be a monster in the Cold War servers. In a Fox1-only environment it should also be able to hold its own against 4th gens if flown to its strengths. 

 

Hopefully we see some more late 70's and early 80's -A variants of the teen-series down the line, and the MiG-23 will be a natural dance partner for those modules.

[HWasp]

On 12/6/2023 at 10:39 PM, æck said:

that was true for early variants, but MiG-23MLA has a G limit of 8.5 and wing loading comparable to other contemporary fighters. (370 kg/m² compared to 544 kg/m² on MiG-23M, they literally removed a ton of weight overall)

Western pilots who inspected the MLA did criticize the cockpit visibility and fuel consumption, but it wasn't all negative. There's a quote I often post about this:

• "Dutch pilot Leon van Maurer, who had more than 1200 hours flying F-16s, flew against MiG-23MLs from air bases in Germany and the U.S. as part of NATO's aerial mock combat training with Soviet equipment. He concluded the MiG-23ML was superior in the vertical to early F-16 variants, just slightly inferior to the F-16A in the horizontal, and had superior BVR capability"

 

Even though I wouldn't bet any money on the 23 against the F-16 in a turn fight regardless of that quote, I think many people will be shocked, how much better our MiG will be compared to the general expectation.

I think there are too many debates about turn rates, when discussing the 23, while real question is, how good the R-23 and R-24 and the radar will be.

If the R-24R is close to the R-27R, as expected, and the radar works well within it's useful engagement range, with the insane transsonic acceleration of the MiG, it will be very deadly in DCS. Reading through some debates, I think many people don't realize, how important the kinematic advantage is in these SARH fights, and the 23 will be very good in that aspect. 

Other than that, the MiG-23 can really choose, which fights to take, while most adversaries won't have that luxury. There is no running away from the MiG. This is my favorite thing about the MiG-29 we have, I think the 23 will be the same.

My current bet is, that it will hold it's own against some weapon limited 4th gens (meaning AIM-7 and R-27R only) if flown the right way, and will be the best among 3rd gens in air to air in general. People, who think they'll have a good time against it in an F-4E, with Jester in the back, because they've read some stories somewhere, will have a rude awakening.

[Dragon1-1]

Everything has superior BVR capacity to the F-16A, except for other heater-only jets. In BVR it will have trouble against a Mirage F1, although dodging a single R.530 isn't particularly difficult, it'll put it in a bad position when the Mirage closes in. So that claim is not particularly impressive. Early F-16A also had much weaker engine than ours, so I can see the MiG having a slight edge in vertical. That said, I still wouldn't expect it to be a particularly good dogfighter. Not completely useless, sure, but not a good choice for guns only WVR.

[WinterH]

13 minutes ago, Dragon1-1 said:

In BVR it will have trouble against a Mirage F1, although dodging a single R.530 isn't particularly difficult, it'll put it in a bad position when the Mirage closes in.

That is very much debatable, and I say this as someone who has been forever unimpresses by MiG-23s for the most part. It only holds water when F1 gets Super 530F, which I believe wasn't all that common among its customers (though Iraq had it afaik). Also, even then, it is about on par.

MiG's radar is more powerful, they are both supposed to have limited look-down capability, but R-24R is at least on par, perhaps better than Super 530F. Then, on top of these, MiG will have an IRST, and a medium-ish range IR missile option in R-24T. Granted, IRSTs in general overperform in DCS, it is still an advantage than can be leveraged under right circumstances.

Finally, the other important factor in BVR, speed and acceleration. F1 is no slouch in this department, but MiG-23 is a class of its own in these departments.

So, WVR is debatable, but BVR, more often than not my money will be on the 23 between the two. Likewise compared to F-4E. APQ-120 isn't really an amazing radar, and at least right now in DCS, even the most updated AIM-7s remain rather unimpressive weapons.

One can argue it can even be somewhat competitive vs an 80s Mirage 2000 or MiG-29 in BVR, or indeed an early Hornet.

If Mirage only has the regular R530 as its "BVR" weapon, there isn't even a competition to speak of imo.

Edit: Having said all that, while yes, BVR vs early F-16 is a thing, I stil wouldn't put a lot of money on any MiG-23 vs any F-16.

Edited December 10, 2023 by WinterH

[Dragon1-1]

3 hours ago, WinterH said:

That is very much debatable, and I say this as someone who has been forever unimpresses by MiG-23s for the most part. It only holds water when F1 gets Super 530F, which I believe wasn't all that common among its customers (though Iraq had it afaik). Also, even then, it is about on par.

I probably wasn't clear, I was talking about the F-16 in that sentence. The regular 530 can definitely ruin an F-16A's day, because the Viper had nothing but heaters then. It'll start the fight defensive.

MiG-23 will naturally waste the Mirage F1 with Super 530s in BVR, mostly owing to superior speed, allowing it to launch much faster flying shots. Even if they both launch at around the same time, the MiG's missile will time out first, and with Mirage's missiles being Fox 1s, that means his shot will be trashed. In fact, I'd bet on MiG-23 against an A model Viper any time, provided it's a heater only version. The MiG is faster, can launch from further away, and even if the F-16 dodges both R-24s, it can just run away unless the F-16 is showing it its tail, then it can finish the job with an R-60. The MiG-23 can't win every fight, but it's fast enough to be able to choose them in most cases.

[Кош]

null

[addman]

Looks fast.

Edited December 12, 2023 by addman

[Kaktus]

On 12/10/2023 at 5:58 PM, Dragon1-1 said:

The MiG is faster, can launch from further away, and even if the F-16 dodges both R-24s, it can just run away unless the F-16 is showing it its tail, then it can finish the job with an R-60. The MiG-23 can't win every fight, but it's fast enough to be able to choose them in most cases.

first of all i agree with you completely, second of all ppl really think about this 1 vs 1 too much, you must understand doctrines and numbers and economics.. how many units could USSR pump out in a hot conflict situation, i bet it will outnumber the NATO side by a large margin, second of all, how effective would air superiority of early f16 be? with SA6, shilka and ground hugging aircrafts.. i think the advantage has to be with a machine capable of accelerating fast, having speed advantage, ruggedness to land on bad surface and being much cheaper and easier to maintain..in a war, a real gruelling war.. mig23 wins. so for that great machine, like many USSR machines

[Viper33]

On 12/17/2023 at 11:13 PM, Kaktus said:

first of all i agree with you completely, second of all ppl really think about this 1 vs 1 too much, you must understand doctrines and numbers and economics.. how many units could USSR pump out in a hot conflict situation, i bet it will outnumber the NATO side by a large margin, second of all, how effective would air superiority of early f16 be? with SA6, shilka and ground hugging aircrafts.. i think the advantage has to be with a machine capable of accelerating fast, having speed advantage, ruggedness to land on bad surface and being much cheaper and easier to maintain..in a war, a real gruelling war.. mig23 wins. so for that great machine, like many USSR machines

Mig-23 was nowhere near cheap or easy to maintain, hence why basically none are in operation today - even compared to Mig-21's. The whole numbers things wasn't as stark as some make it out to be and the numbers of ML's and up were rather limited when compared to MF and M. Especially once you got reserves into the picture. 

If you take actual war and combat employments no soviet machines really have too great of a record.

[Ramius007]

How good Mig 23 entirely will be depend on server admins to give realistic planes to Mig 23 setup, IMO linening up Mig 23 with Mig 29/Su27 and F-teens on same server is bad, it should be preety much on top of redfor and overall foodchain on cold war servers with only coming phantom and mirage F1 being competetive. Syria 80's server would be natural enviroment. I think Razbam modules have problem with timing and lack of support from servers in general, Mig 19 lack natural blufor peer that should be Mirage 3 on Sinai and Syria, F-5 we have is in some ways too advanced and is plane from mid 70's, F-15E is too modern for cold war, but becouse of abundance of 15C is not as popular as F-16 and F-18. I really wish Razbam more luck, but I agree Mig 23 will be most advanced full fidelity real redfor plane we get for years

Edited December 20, 2023 by Ramius007

[Ramius007]

19 hours ago, Viper33 said:

If you take actual war and combat employments no soviet machines really have too great of a record.

3-4x less training hours compered to Israeli/Nato pilots was taking it's toll, for comparison, East German pilot was flying 60h a year, West German 240

During desert Storm, 2k h experianced pilots were not uncommon, OTOH Iraquis had 10-20% of this at best

Edited December 20, 2023 by Ramius007

[Viper33]

19 hours ago, Ramius007 said:

3-4x less training hours compered to Israeli/Nato pilots was taking it's toll, for comparison, East German pilot was flying 60h a year, West German 240

During desert Storm, 2k h experianced pilots were not uncommon, OTOH Iraquis had 10-20% of this at best

 

That plays a role of course along with multi-ship large scale exercises and formations, as well the the very basis of an operational doctrine. Given these low flight hours said eastern jets were also heavily GCI supplemented and the top down command chain was rather on the ground. But you could ramble on about this topic for hours as it can get very complex.

As far as DCS goes obviously the Mig-23 can and will be flown using better and more adapted tactics like any other jet in DCS. And depending on what it'll face it will fare either quite well or quite bad. 

[æck]

On 12/19/2023 at 8:28 PM, Viper33 said:

the numbers of ML's and up were rather limited when compared to MF and M

they made 1100 MLA airframes alone, that's more than all F-14s combined. it was a very common variant.

for comparison they produced 1353 MiG-23M and 278 MiG-23MF, which is more but not by much.

[Kaktus]

most analysis are very bias against USSR air force due to propaganda, i will not go into detail why this is so but it is, again, to think USSR planners are dumb af and build a plane and doctrine that will be annihilated in case of air war is stupid, but whatever, you think all of them would melt in 1 day and f15 would be flying all over siberia with air superiority)) 

 

reality is no, it would not be so, look at vietnam, vietnam fought with a measely how many mig15, mig17 and mig21? under 50x or 100x, don't know exact number but it definitely wasnt an air force of 2000 or 5000 that usa had at its disposal.. and what happened?

 

ppl talk crap all they want reality is war is hard, difficult and you need economic logic behind a design and economic ability to replace losses and stratregy to employ planes in accordince with defensive assets, and abilities.

 

mig23 was perfect for the role, much much again cant emphasise MUCH cheaper, and for hit and run you don't need pilots to train as much as nato pilots with their air superiorty tactics, 

 

big question is could nato suppress complex Air defense systems in a CONTESTED hit and run environment with mig23, mig21, mig29, su27?? no, it could not do it successfully meaning no losses to its planes, yes looses would be on USSR too, but their planes are cheaper and training acceptable enough to restore the number easier than western counterparts.

 

But alas i can't argue 50+ years of propaganda with my fellow westerners, many of you will even say abrams is best tank and second best is leaopard, i end it here. 

 

back to DCS gameplanning, plane economic weight has to be put equation when making missions, and doctrines too, otherwise it makes completely no sense to have MP games, for instance mig23 would be employed in numbers and with GCI and Air defense zones where it can hide, western air force would deploy in smaller numbers with SEAD to try suppress enemy AD while air superiorty tries to hunt and supress fighters. its complex but only realistic scenario that would make flying any of these planes sensible.. putting mig23 vs f16 1 vs 1 is idiotic and not logical.

 

 

[HWasp]

I'd argue, that MiG-23 vs F-16A is not a bad comparison even in 1v1.

It's much more problematic, when people compare it against the F-15 and F-14 directly in 1v1. That is when the economics and numbers really come into play, and that is completely disregarded in so many cases.

By any metric (price, production numbers, deployment numbers), these top jets should be able to win the fight against superior numbers to pay for themself.

Most arguments are about STR, missile and radar ranges, etc, only 1v1,  but can the F-15/14 reliably beat MiG-23s in a 2v4 for example? Maybe, but it won't be an easy fight with Sparrows.

[Kazansky222]

On 12/7/2023 at 12:23 AM, Pavlin_33 said:

If it was "just slightly" inferior to Viper A, then my impression of it is completely wrong.
Heard somewhere that the 23 (not sure which variant), could offer about 1G per 100kts, which would put it nowhere near F-16 when it comes to turn performance.

The Soviets had the 1521st Aviation Base which had their elite Aggressor squadron, you can think of it as their "Topgun" or "Fighter Weapons School"

But when they operated Mig-23ML variants they were known to outfly their students flying the Mig-29.

[Kazansky222]

On 12/10/2023 at 5:20 AM, Dragon1-1 said:

Everything has superior BVR capacity to the F-16A, except for other heater-only jets. In BVR it will have trouble against a Mirage F1, although dodging a single R.530 isn't particularly difficult, it'll put it in a bad position when the Mirage closes in. So that claim is not particularly impressive. Early F-16A also had much weaker engine than ours, so I can see the MiG having a slight edge in vertical. That said, I still wouldn't expect it to be a particularly good dogfighter. Not completely useless, sure, but not a good choice for guns only WVR.

The Dutch mostly operated the F-16A Blk15 and Blk15 OCU variants. The Blk15 had AIm7 capability, infact most of the early F-16 variants built had the capability to fire the Aim7, the US just didn't order them with that option I suspect they didn't want congress getting any ideas on cutting F-15 orders because the F-16 could shoot Aim7s too. It however was an a fairly easy option to "activate" the ability to fire AIm7s if the need would arise.

[Dragon1-1]

2 hours ago, Kazansky222 said:

The Blk15 had AIm7 capability, 

You sure about that? I haven't seen any references to AIM-7 in Block 15 docs I've seen, except for OCU and MLU variants, which came later. Even if it was an easily enabled option, I doubt they came that way out of the box. Not sure which radar was on those Dutch birds, but if it was AN/APG-66(V)2, it couldn't guide the Sparrow at all. That capability came with the -66(V)3. 

[Mainstay]

Man I really hope this aircraft gets the same visual and technical quality as what the F-15E gets. I’m really gonna get sad if this turns out to be a sideline project…

[Krez]

On 12/30/2023 at 8:19 AM, Mainstay said:

Man I really hope this aircraft gets the same visual and technical quality as what the F-15E gets. I’m really gonna get sad if this turns out to be a sideline project…

What are you basing that fear on?