F-4E Air to Air Weapons/Capabilities Discussion

[Omega417]

2 hours ago, G.J.S said:

Will only ever (mostly) work on a 1v1.

Any more than that, and you are just going Winchester quicker.

But I'm not a youtube chad who can take on 5 jets at a time. If I go for that A/A engagement I am going to RTB instantly unless im flying wing in a flight of 4.

[G.J.S]

24 minutes ago, Omega417 said:

But I'm not a youtube chad who can take on 5 jets at a time. If I go for that A/A engagement I am going to RTB instantly unless im flying wing in a flight of 4.

Apologies?

 

‘Yeet’ away.

[Omega417]

In this world it is Yeet or be yeeted

[G.J.S]

6 hours ago, Omega417 said:

In this world it is Yeet or be yeeted

 

[Dragon1-1]

17 hours ago, G.J.S said:

Will only ever (mostly) work on a 1v1.

Any more than that, and you are just going Winchester quicker.

I guess it'll depend on your opponent. If your opponent is heaters-only, like most Vietnamese MiGs, then it's worth going for a NEZ launch, they won't shoot back at you. If it's not, then you may need to sacrifice a missile to prevent the bandit from getting you. Particularly if it's a MiG-23, it might suck at dogfighting, but it's wicked fast and it has better Fox 1s. It'll be interesting to see those scenarios play out.

[Bremspropeller]

A lot of this discussion is academic what-iffery and highly depends on the set conditions and ROE. Of course you can plonk that Fishbed head-on at 10miles without fear of repercusson, but is it really a Fishbed? As soon as you have to V-ID, which you historically would have to, you're in an entirely different game. Will we get Combat Tree?

In the F-4E, chances are you're the strike package, so you'll get two Sparrows - three at most - and maybe (!) heaters. Hence, launching Sparrows in wild abandon isn't quite the way to go. The IDF tried to tackle the heater-issue by putting a Sidewinder (or Python 3, see below) with an adapter into oneof the FWD Sparrow-recesses:

That was a post YKW mod, though.

 

The way the MiG-23MLA is assumed to be a lead-zeppelin WVR makes me wonder how many people are in for a nasty surprise. It brings some arrows in it's quiver that will make you reconsider your BVR game-plan. The Flogger can shoot you in the face quite well and the radar (plus it has an IRST) will give the pilot a pretty good pre-merge SA.

[Omega417]

2 hours ago, Bremspropeller said:

A lot of this discussion is academic what-iffery and highly depends on the set conditions and ROE. Of course you can plonk that Fishbed head-on at 10miles without fear of repercusson, but is it really a Fishbed? As soon as you have to V-ID, which you historically would have to, you're in an entirely different game.

But that being said, this is a simulator. Unless someone is gonna create "War Crimes Tribunal World" where I can be locked up for my actions in shooting down an airliner in DCS, I'm not as concerned with visually IDing a target.

[Bremspropeller]

At the end of the day it's down to what your personal user experience is going to or supposed to be. If you're flying offline or on less than die-hard realistic MP servers, sure. But on other servers, people might raise an eyebrow or two, when you're slashing through a furball guns-a-blazin or lobbing Sparrows at anybody you manage to lock onto.

 

When talking *capabilites*,  we'll kind of need to establish the boundaries first. Are we talking about gamey setups, or are we talking about milsim historical mission design with realistic sets of ROE.

Edited June 27, 2023 by Bremspropeller

[Omega417]

21 minutes ago, Bremspropeller said:

At the end of the day it's down to what your personal user experience is going to or supposed to be. If you're flying offline or on less than die-hard realistic MP servers, sure. But on other servers, people might raise an eyebrow or two, when you're slashing through a furball guns-a-blazin or lobbing Sparrows at anybody you manage to lock onto.

 

When talking *capabilites*,  we'll kind of need to establish the boundaries first. Are we talking about gamey setups, or are we talking about milsim historical mission design with realistic sets of ROE.

 

I already have a sub-par reputation with the group i fly with for having shot down 2 Tomcats and 3 Hornets by mistake. 2 times due to 120s going pitbull and targeting the wrong person, and 2 heaters that I never got IFF on in a furball. Which all feeds back to my dislike for A/A combat.

[Bozon]

2 hours ago, Bremspropeller said:

In the F-4E, chances are you're the strike package, so you'll get two Sparrows - three at most - and maybe (!) heaters. Hence, launching Sparrows in wild abandon isn't quite the way to go. The IDF tried to tackle the heater-issue by putting a Sidewinder (or Python 3, see below) with an adapter into oneof the FWD Sparrow-recesses

Visual ID depends on situation. In the Israeli air force, the CGIs keep a very tight monitoring of all friendly aircraft - this allowed them to authorize BVR “fire at will” in many cases for the Sparrow totting F-4Es in 1973 and the F-15As in 1982. 

As part of a strike package sparrows are not useful at all. Your job is to strike and GTFO - if you are forced to engage enemy fighters, given 1970s technology, it will be from a range too short for a BVR game.

The Israelis had little faith in the Sparrows anyway, maybe that is the reason for this interesting field mod to take heaters in their place. On the other hand in 1973 they still had a lot of faith in the cannon.

[Bremspropeller]

There weren't too many Sparrow kills in the first place: Three Sparrow kills during the War of Attrition. 25 kills total during that time. Four definate Sparrow kills during the YKW. 85 kills total during YKW. 6.5 kills after the YKW (none by Sparrows).

=> 7 out of 116.5 kills made with Sparrows. Source: S. Aloni. (Some kills mentionend don't mention the missile-type, though).

35 minutes ago, Bozon said:

As part of a strike package sparrows are not useful at all. Your job is to strike and GTFO - if you are forced to engage enemy fighters, given 1970s technology, it will be from a range too short for a BVR game.

It's not an uncommon loadout nonetheless.

 

[Snappy]

On 6/27/2023 at 3:36 PM, Omega417 said:

I already have a sub-par reputation with the group i fly with for having shot down 2 Tomcats and 3 Hornets by mistake. 2 times due to 120s going pitbull and targeting the wrong person, and 2 heaters that I never got IFF on in a furball. Which all feeds back to my dislike for A/A combat.

More important than your reputation though: Did you get the appropriate kill markings on your jet? :)

[Temetre]

Am 27.6.2023 um 15:37 schrieb Bozon:

The Israelis had little faith in the Sparrows anyway, maybe that is the reason for this interesting field mod to take heaters in their place. On the other hand in 1973 they still had a lot of faith in the cannon.

As has been talked about before, even in Vietnam, the Sparrow is what won the air war, despite all of its issues. Got as many or more more kills than Sidewinders, despite its early problems and the tendency towards close combat.

And Desert Storm was just sparrows downing Iraqi aircraft with high reliability.

Tbf maybe the environment in and around Israel was just too different and american equipment wasnt adapted for that? IIRC they eg declined early M16s and FALs as well, because they werent really optimized for sandy environments.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Temetre

[SgtPappy]

4 hours ago, Temetre said:

As has been talked about before, even in Vietnam, the Sparrow is what won the air war, despite all of its issues. Got as many or more more kills than Sidewinders, despite its early problems and the tendency towards close combat.

And Desert Storm was just sparrows downing Iraqi aircraft with high reliability.

Tbf maybe the environment in and around Israel was just too different and american equipment wasnt adapted for that? IIRC they eg declined early M16s and FALs as well, because they werent really optimized for sandy environments.

 

At least a part of the reason was the US realizing that they had to maintain the AIM-7's very well between sorties which took lots of time and care. By 1972, Sparrows were doing much better and Steve Ritchie was in the position to hand pick the best Sparrows for his missions.

The books I've read on the Israelis suggest that they were maintaining the Sparrows the same way the US was before 1972 - not too well - and that by the time of the Yom Kippur War, there simply wasn't enough time, infrastructure/training in place to change that. It was considered a low priority during a 2 front war, especially while the Mirages were the primary A2A asset and the F-4's had to pull double duty (attack and CAP).

[Temetre]

vor 18 Minuten schrieb SgtPappy:

At least a part of the reason was the US realizing that they had to maintain the AIM-7's very well between sorties which took lots of time and care. By 1972, Sparrows were doing much better and Steve Ritchie was in the position to hand pick the best Sparrows for his missions.

The books I've read on the Israelis suggest that they were maintaining the Sparrows the same way the US was before 1972 - not too well - and that by the time of the Yom Kippur War, there simply wasn't enough time, infrastructure/training in place to change that. It was considered a low priority during a 2 front war, especially while the Mirages were the primary A2A asset and the F-4's had to pull double duty (attack and CAP).

I see, I wasnt aware the Mirages were doing most of the A2A work, that probably explains why the Israelis didnt see much need to get the Sparrow right anyway. Probably wanted to preserve the limited stock of F-4s for strike missions as well, considering supply was limited.

edit: So that would be the Mirage 3? Tbh I wouldve imagined Sparrows would do better than R530s or so^^

Edited June 29, 2023 by Temetre

[LanceCriminal86]

8 hours ago, Snappy said:

More important than your reputation though: Did you get the appropriate kill markings on your jet?

Sometimes the kill markings stuck with the jet, sometimes the pilot could carry it along with them. Have seen both examples for Navy and Air Force. Sometimes it was on the CO's jet representing the squadron's combined kills.

[Omega417]

9 hours ago, Snappy said:

More important than your reputation though: Did you get the appropriate kill markings on your jet?

Yessir, my current livery has 2 hornets a tomcat, Mig 29 and 2 sukhois

 

[Bozon]

2 hours ago, Temetre said:

edit: So that would be the Mirage 3? Tbh I wouldve imagined Sparrows would do better than R530s or so^^

The R530 was considered useless. It got exactly 1 kill on an unsuspecting Mig-19 from behind, and the Israeli Mirage 3s hardly ever carried it. 

In fact the whole radar of the Mirage III was considered as dead weight and the Israelis requested its replacement with a simpler range-finder in the Mirage V (Nesher).

Mirage III was considered a better fighter than the F-4E and was responsible for air defense and air superiority during Yom-Kippur. On the other hand the Phantom was hands down far superior striker, no question. Dany Shapira, Israel’s chief test pilot at the time, says in his book he used some personal connections to get a flight in a Phantom before they were even being considered to be sold to Israel. He was impressed, but when the American instructor asked him what he thought he answered tacktlessly “In a dogfight, I’d rather be in a Mirage”.

[Biggus]

The US Navy certainly found that the Sidewinder was the more reliable weapon in the second half of the war, despite quite a few successes in the 1965-66 period.  From ~1970 onward, my recollection is that the only Sparrow kill the USN recorded was a night engagement, the other 25 or so being -9Ds, Gs and possibly -Hs.  Given the stresses that both the missiles and fire control systems endured, it's not really very surprising.

[Spurts]

It doesn't help the AIM-7s case that VID was required

[Bozon]

Though I am not a great believer in the Aim-7s I do understand their true value - they had a low Pk in reality, but they had it where heaters of the period had a Pk of flat 0. That was not only BVR - in combat conditions Aim-9B up to J still struggled even at 90 degrees aspect, where the Aim-7 would guide just fine at any aspect as long as you can keep the radar on target.

[Temetre]

The way people also use the PK is also just nonsensical.

Its like giving a rifle to a bad shot, have him miss 100% of his shots, and then concluding that the rifle is inaccurate from that.

Or have the LMG-guy do suppression fire, and conclude the gun is inaccurate because most shots hit nothing.

Edited July 1, 2023 by Temetre

[MysteriousHonza]

On 6/26/2023 at 2:27 PM, Omega417 said:

If I YEET an AIM-7 at them and they don't maneuver, I gets a kill. If they do maneuver, they are no longer able to target me and I can trash my first missile for a better solution with another 7 or a heater. Win-Win.

 

In the Hornet, I almost always Yeet my first 120 just a few seconds outside of max range, knowing the range is going to get a lot closer in head-on engagements. Gets them turning and not targeting me.

Yeah.... same thing can be said about R530 or R3R... both rather short ranged, yet radar guided or in case of comming MLA, R23. R530 even gets slight range advantage over you with way tighter turn. And these three are most likely candidates to face you in CW settings. You cant afford merge with smaller stuff like mig19 and MiG-15/17 and they can give position due to how heavily they outmatch F-4E in BFM. Its Win - Win ONLY in case you manage to connect your missile first as R530 wont simply miss and rest is able to easily match F-4E in BFM or overcome it. 

 

Edited July 2, 2023 by MysteriousHonza

[HWasp]

I think, against human opponents, the F-4 won't have too much success in BVR, even against 21s because of the radar. People will either stay low or dive once engaged and loose the lock. 

After that, in WVR, it's a huge beast with smoking engines, and that will be more important than exact turn rates imo. 

Usually, the one who spots the enemy first, wins.

Wouldn't be surprised if the F-5 would be more successful in air to air in practice. At least in DCS.

 

[SgtPappy]

9 minutes ago, HWasp said:

I think, against human opponents, the F-4 won't have too much success in BVR, even against 21s because of the radar. People will either stay low or dive once engaged and loose the lock. 

After that, in WVR, it's a huge beast with smoking engines, and that will be more important than exact turn rates imo. 

Usually, the one who spots the enemy first, wins.

Wouldn't be surprised if the F-5 would be more successful in air to air in practice. At least in DCS.

 

I agree. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I do hope that the early F-4 will have that characteristic smoke.

Though I believe if the radar is used correctly, the F-4 crew may maintain more SA. I used to never use the radar in the F-5 but I've found my SA is much better when I turn it on and look where GCI/AWACS has vectored me. Split throttles or min burner for both engines could mostly eliminate the smoke (as the MiGs are also a little bit smokey and I've spotted them from a distance from smoke or long after burner tails). Also Jester has been invaluable for me in the F-14 during a merge. I think Jester 2.0 will be just as useful.

The AIM-7E is barely a BVR missile but I think it may find use as an all-aspect WVR weapon, like an R-3R on steroids. 

Some people will surely be turned off when they realize they're not wiping the skies of MiGs, but there will be others who will find out how to use the Phantom properly and be very successful, as is the case for every module in the right setting.