F-4E Air to Air Weapons/Capabilities Discussion

[Harlikwin]

10 hours ago, Bozon said:

The Israelis did not test the defected Mig-23 against their F-4E directly AFAIK. The flights were against their F-16A and maybe also F-15A, I don’t remember. They were unimpressed by the Mig-23 capabilities except the acceleration which was excellent. The cockpit visibility was entirely unsuited for dogfighting. They concluded it was not really a match to F-16A or F-15A, but more in the league of the Phantom and Kfir.

They concluded that it was better than the phantom, which also had poor cockpit visibility, poor ergonomics etc. And also the 23 had a better radar in terms of look down at least. The interesting bit there is that at higher altitudes they concluded it wasn't so bad vs a viper which is interesting. 

I mean in its context of gen3 vs gen3 the 23 seemed to do fine vs the phantom. And obviously neither did well vs gen4 stuff.

6 hours ago, Alpha said:

I´m pretty sure that whoever wrote that funny text has never flown a real military fighter. It´s not about translation, the whole lingo is as off as are the statements given. I trained and flew with dutch Viper Drivers, they´d never mix up commonly used concepts like names, terms, visibility, ergonomic aspects and avionics the way that fake-quote does. The Floggers radar was never praised, their whole concept of GCI-centric intercepts obviously not a testament of what some people on the internet think air combat for them looked like. Their RWR-Gear was bad, training minimal etc. Anything can kill you and complacency has no place in Air Combat - but the internet is attaching a value to the Flogger the real military aviation on both sides knew never existed. Which is, as I said, also what our very own Flogger-rated Pilots said. Their strength was in the numbers employed, not the individual capabilities.

 

Yeah, logistics were one reason - but by far not the dominant one. Way more important was their uselessness - bad avionics (radar and RWR-gear were a joke), minimal Range/Endurance, whole different design-concept (point defense fighter), extremely bad visibility, bad flight characteristics, yada yada yada. There was nothing those two birds offered in 1990 that other jets already in western inventory couldn´t do better. They were used for some time for intel gathering, quite good training - and that´s it. 

Radar in the HUD (when you want to call those two birds´ rudimentary radar-hud-interface that way) is a bad idea - and only partially usable if the radar supplies as little information as theirs did....  Swing Wing might be nice in some Air-Mud tasks or for getting long times onstation like for the big Cat - it´s not an advantage in the air-air world. Well, for the adversary it was always nice to get a huge signal in the sky about the others energy state - and the swing-restriction under G was helping anybody fight a flogger - but I digress...

 

Oh, and there´s way more layers of complexity IRL than "get to M1.5, shoot, kill" - gosh, what easy our job would have been were it as simple as that

 

Clearly the south African F1 and other pilots shot down by mig23s were crap then, by western standards at least. Also the Angolans weren't exactly using peak soviet GCI/lazur at that time.

 

8 hours ago, TLTeo said:

It's in the highlighted post

 

 

Yeah, aside from Smyh's acceleration diatribe, there is no actual mig23 EM data there. Unless I'm blind, but I went through it 3x looking for it. 

Edited October 15, 2023 by Harlikwin

[Smyth]

2 hours ago, Harlikwin said:

Yeah, aside from Smyh's acceleration diatribe, there is no actual mig23 EM data there. Unless I'm blind, but I went through it 3x looking for it.

I don't have proof whether the document I cited is pre-1980, so I am being careful about posting full pages from it as I don't know how ED feels about that. You can find the whole thing pretty easily on the web, graphs are on pages 242-245 but they are not useful to compare to other aircraft carrying different loads at different altitudes without some kind of correction.

What I posted is a calculated value, but calculated as directly as possible from the original data. It is obviously not "official," but whether or not that counts as "actual" is entirely a value judgement.

[Kalasnkova74]

On 10/14/2023 at 2:10 PM, Dragon1-1 said:

MiG-23 was a mighty fine plane, but never a dogfighter, neither in Soviet nor US sources. Sure, it could go up against the F-16A and win, easily, even. Lock up the Viper with the radar, go M1.5, shoot, crank, then watch as it tries to shake your radar-guided R-24s while cursing the old man Lockheed who decided he'll be fine without Sparrows. You're holding all the cards as long as your Fox 1s last (and by the time you run out, he's probably bingo anyway). That's how the MiG-23 was supposed to go against Viper, and as far as Fox 1 platforms go, it should be pretty great. Just try not to get into any dogfights with anything more agile than a C-130.

The MiG-23 Flogger was designed to stop bombers. The mission was to take off from a short field -hence the swing wings- call to a GCI station, and be vectored to stop B-52s from nuking The Motherland. In that role, the 4477th TES people acknowledge it was probably effective. 
 

The 4G or less turn limit and dangerous handling qualities precluded effective visual fighting. The 4477th team documented that as well, and it’s a point the Egyptians underscored in the 80s by knocking down Qadaffis Floggers with the “obsolete” MiG-21 in a border skirmish. By the time the Soviets fixed the Floggers issues, the world had moved on. Even a well flown F-4E has little to fear from a MiG-23MLD, much less the 4th generation kit. 

[Dragon1-1]

5 minutes ago, Kalasnkova74 said:

Even a well flown F-4E has little to fear from a MiG-23MLD, much less the 4th generation kit. 

Agreed with everything except this. While the MLD isn't particularly hard to outfly, it hardly qualifies as a non-threat in BVR regime. It goes fast, and it can give this speed to the R-24 it's launching at you. This will be a high energy shot, and the R-24 is much harder to outfly. If you survive to the merge, you'll be fine (though a smart Flogger driver will just blow through and try to set up another BVR pass), but that's a big if.

MiG-21 is certainly a better dogfighter, and it can knock MiG-23s down all day using ambush tactics, like they did with Phantoms. This depends on terrain, though. Otherwise, the Phantom is actually better suited to dueling a MiG-23 than the A model Viper is, mostly on account of having Sparrows, which the F-16A lacks.

The main target of the MiG-23 were B-52s, but remember that the Viper is also perfectly capable of nuking the Motherland, if a lot less than a B-52. Using proper tactics, it should be pretty effective Fox 1 fighter. A bit of a one trick pony, but it should be good at that one trick.

[Harlikwin]

2 hours ago, Kalasnkova74 said:

The MiG-23 Flogger was designed to stop bombers. The mission was to take off from a short field -hence the swing wings- call to a GCI station, and be vectored to stop B-52s from nuking The Motherland. In that role, the 4477th TES people acknowledge it was probably effective. 
 

The 4G or less turn limit and dangerous handling qualities precluded effective visual fighting. The 4477th team documented that as well, and it’s a point the Egyptians underscored in the 80s by knocking down Qadaffis Floggers with the “obsolete” MiG-21 in a border skirmish. By the time the Soviets fixed the Floggers issues, the world had moved on. Even a well flown F-4E has little to fear from a MiG-23MLD, much less the 4th generation kit. 

LOL none of that applies to the 23 that we will get in DCS. The MLA was 8G capable and turned better than a slatted phantom. 

2 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

 

MiG-21 is certainly a better dogfighter, and it can knock MiG-23s down all day using ambush tactics, like they did with Phantoms. This depends on terrain, though. Otherwise, the Phantom is actually better suited to dueling a MiG-23 than the A model Viper is, mostly on account of having Sparrows, which the F-16A lacks.

 

The 23MLA handles better in terms of BFM than a 21bis.

[Kalasnkova74]

2 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Agreed with everything except this. While the MLD isn't particularly hard to outfly, it hardly qualifies as a non-threat in BVR regime. It goes fast, and it can give this speed to the R-24 it's launching at you. This will be a high energy shot, and the R-24 is much harder to outfly. If you survive to the merge, you'll be fine (though a smart Flogger driver will just blow through and try to set up another BVR pass), but that's a big if.

 

The -MLD is fast and has a capable suite of offensive avionics (unlike its predecessors). But the APG-120 still out ranges the High Lark, so without GCI or outside guidance an F-4E can still track and engage the Flogger from beyond the MiG’s sensor envelope. Yes, it goes fast…but the MiG-23 is not stable or controllable at top speed either. Throttle interlock kicks in above Mach 1, so slowing down means pulling up to airbrake enough to deactivate the throttle coast-down interlock. Speed brakes are phased out as well, so if a Flogger goes fast they’re committed until they can climb high enough to slow down for another pass. 

[Dragon1-1]

5 minutes ago, Kalasnkova74 said:

But the APG-120 still out ranges the High Lark, so without GCI or outside guidance an F-4E can still track and engage the Flogger from beyond the MiG’s sensor envelope.

Track, maybe, engage, probably not. As good as APG-120 is, you've still stuck with the Sparrow. I'm not quite sure if you can launch with any sort of PK before the MiG can track you (maybe if it's already going at full tilt, but then, it probably has you on GCI). Yes, the MiG is basically committed once it goes past Mach 1, but going around for another pass is not a concern for it. It has two Fox 1s (or even just one, if it's got one R-24T) and very limited gas, meaning it either kills the Phantom, or it is winchester and probably bingo anyway, even if it didn't eat a Sparrow after it missed. One pass and haul ass, either way. One thing's for certain, there are some epic Fox 1 fights coming to DCS.  

[Harlikwin]

1 hour ago, Kalasnkova74 said:

The -MLD is fast and has a capable suite of offensive avionics (unlike its predecessors). But the APG-120 still out ranges the High Lark, so without GCI or outside guidance an F-4E can still track and engage the Flogger from beyond the MiG’s sensor envelope. Yes, it goes fast…but the MiG-23 is not stable or controllable at top speed either. Throttle interlock kicks in above Mach 1, so slowing down means pulling up to airbrake enough to deactivate the throttle coast-down interlock. Speed brakes are phased out as well, so if a Flogger goes fast they’re committed until they can climb high enough to slow down for another pass. 

Lol no it doesn't at least not for the MLA/MLD. And certainly not in look down. Also don't forget the flogger has decent IRST set as well so depending on the speed of mr Phanter and aspect it could see it from quite a ways away.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Harlikwin

[Omega417]

NGL, the constant arguing about the MIG-23 on the Phantom forum is exhausting.

[Harlikwin]

3 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Track, maybe, engage, probably not. As good as APG-120 is, you've still stuck with the Sparrow. I'm not quite sure if you can launch with any sort of PK before the MiG can track you (maybe if it's already going at full tilt, but then, it probably has you on GCI). Yes, the MiG is basically committed once it goes past Mach 1, but going around for another pass is not a concern for it. It has two Fox 1s (or even just one, if it's got one R-24T) and very limited gas, meaning it either kills the Phantom, or it is winchester and probably bingo anyway, even if it didn't eat a Sparrow after it missed. One pass and haul ass, either way. One thing's for certain, there are some epic Fox 1 fights coming to DCS.  

Yeah fox1 fights will be interesting. The Mig should be able to see the F4  from a pretty good distance, 70+ km is a detect distance for 3m2 target for the N003, and of course the F4 has a larger RCS 6-10m2. As for the fuel situation its interesting, the 23 had pretty good range performance especially up high, and given that it could very rapidly accelerate I don't forsee too many "bingo" problems for it. But yes only 2 big sticks means the most likely tactic will be 1 pass haul ass.  

[SgtPappy]

3 hours ago, Omega417 said:

NGL, the constant arguing about the MIG-23 on the Phantom forum is exhausting.

I mean it it's been pretty civil I would think.

In that case, isn't a forum full of nerds obsessed with aircraft going to have constant debates around aircraft matchups? I suppose the comparison talk should be kept to the proper Phantom vs XXX thread though.

I'm not trying to be crass here but I feel like complaining about this is like watching a football game and being annoyed at all the fans of the other team for existing.

Then again this is an online forum so maybe people complaining is something I should get used to 

Edited October 17, 2023 by SgtPappy

[Omega417]

13 hours ago, SgtPappy said:

I mean it it's been pretty civil I would think.

In that case, isn't a forum full of nerds obsessed with aircraft going to have constant debates around aircraft matchups? I suppose the comparison talk should be kept to the proper Phantom vs XXX thread though.

I'm not trying to be crass here but I feel like complaining about this is like watching a football game and being annoyed at all the fans of the other team for existing.

Then again this is an online forum so maybe people complaining is something I should get used to 

 

I am not complaining about the enthusiasm or the civility (you are right, by forum standards this has been calm) . Rather, the constant rehashing of what the different Mig-23 variants may or may not be capable of. The whole "on paper vs IRL" thing is a bit frustrating when our sim version will probably land somewhere in the middle of the two and we wont know for a few years. I'd much rather we be constantly fighting about how capable/Incapable the AIM-4 was. Or the employment envelopes of the AIM-7. etc. etc. etc.

[Kalasnkova74]

18 minutes ago, Omega417 said:

I'd much rather we be constantly fighting about how capable/Incapable the AIM-4 was…

I’m not sure there’s much to debate here. The USAF System Command generals got upset that they didn’t have full control of the follow on Sidewinder iterations after the AIM-9B - being a Navy project and all- so they kludged the AIM-4 onto the F-4D & F-4E as a “take yer Navy missile and Shove It” tack. It failed miserably, because the AIM-4 was designed to use a Hughes guidance system at altitude against Soviet bombers attacking North America. Thus the hit to kill setting- a proximity fuse is a bad thing when you’re trying to bring down a four engine bomber with 7lbs of explosive. You want the missile to hit and get deep into the bomber before detonating to maximize damage. A Tu-95 will just shrug off a proximity detonation. 
 

Without the Hughes MG series guidance computer included on the Air Defense Command aircraft like the F-102, F-101, and F-106 the pilot had to initiate the AIM-4 launch sequence manually- including cooling the seeker head. It’s like bolting an AIM-54 to an F-5 and making the pilot manually steer the missiles radar and trigger the launch. Good luck with that. 

While all of Rolling Thunder was an exercise in using nuke bomber killing missiles as air superiority tools , the AIM-4 was an egregious case of this . It’s a testament to the F-4 crews’ skill that they killed five MiGs with a weapon and aircraft system combination totally unsuited for that mission. 

 

 

 

[Omega417]

11 minutes ago, Kalasnkova74 said:

I’m not sure there’s much to debate here. 

You see, you can say that but I guarantee you someone will have only read your first paragraph and try to make an argument about how the 106 and others were able to make good hits with it.

I agree with you, wrong missile in the wrong place on the wrong platform.

[Harlikwin]

4 hours ago, Omega417 said:

You see, you can say that but I guarantee you someone will have only read your first paragraph and try to make an argument about how the 106 and others were able to make good hits with it.

I agree with you, wrong missile in the wrong place on the wrong platform.

So not much to debate

[Omega417]

14 minutes ago, Harlikwin said:

So not much to debate

Just give it time, there is always a heretic in these forums.

[Gunfreak]

F-4 vs MiG23 is uninteresting.

F-4 vs Sopwith Camel, now that is a discussion worth having.

[Harlikwin]

30 minutes ago, Gunfreak said:

F-4 vs MiG23 is uninteresting.

F-4 vs Sopwith Camel, now that is a discussion worth having.

null

[MAXsenna]

Haha! What can I say. Had my first encounter with the Red Baron through Peanuts.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[G.J.S]

13 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

F-4 vs MiG23 is uninteresting.

F-4 vs Sopwith Camel, now that is a discussion worth having.

Lol. Camel max speed below F-4 min speed . . . 

[Dragon1-1]

Well, one Po-2 once managed to score a kill on an F-94 that way.  That said, Phantoms themselves scored a few An-2s in Vietnam. Similar to fighting helicopters, I suppose.

[Gunfreak]

54 minutes ago, G.J.S said:

Lol. Camel max speed below F-4 min speed . . . 

Yes, hence a much more interesting fight than mig-23.

How well will the F4 radar pick up the camel, how well will the old sidewinder Bs and Ps pick up the heat from the lawnmower engine. How much damage will 2 .303s do to the F4.

 

It will be spitfire turning vs 109 boom and zoom taken too the extreme.

[Smyth]

On 10/17/2023 at 6:57 AM, Omega417 said:

I'd much rather we be constantly fighting about how capable/Incapable the AIM-4 was.

On 10/17/2023 at 2:49 PM, Gunfreak said:

F-4 vs MiG23 is uninteresting.

F-4 vs Sopwith Camel, now that is a discussion worth having.

12 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

Yes, hence a much more interesting fight than mig-23.

How well will the F4 radar pick up the camel, how well will the old sidewinder Bs and Ps pick up the heat from the lawnmower engine.

I mean if you think about it, the Aim-4D is probably the only missile from the 60s actually capable of taking down a Sopwith Camel. The passive IR proximity fuse on the early sidewinders wouldn't work against such a small/cold target even if the seeker head could track it. Prior to the development of active optical fusing, the hit-to kill optimized Falcon was the only viable solution for that class of target. It's long-wavelength seeker even demonstrated capability to lock truck engines on the ground, which is a very similar tracking problem to a low-flying Camel.

Oh wait, you guys weren't serious? I'm always serious...

[Gunfreak]

5 hours ago, Smyth said:

I mean if you think about it, the Aim-4D is probably the only missile from the 60s actually capable of taking down a Sopwith Camel. The passive IR proximity fuse on the early sidewinders wouldn't work against such a small/cold target even if the seeker head could track it. Prior to the development of active optical fusing, the hit-to kill optimized Falcon was the only viable solution for that class of target. It's long-wavelength seeker even demonstrated capability to lock truck engines on the ground, which is a very similar tracking problem to a low-flying Camel.

Oh wait, you guys weren't serious? I'm always serious...

Oh I'm deadly serious. I honestly feel DCS should do WW1. As that other sim isn't interested at all at fixing all that is wrong with their ww1 stuff.

Given the simplicity a good 3rd party developer should be able to actually release packs of 3-4 ww1 planes in the same time as 1 ww1 plane(or 20 in the time it takes to release the Corsair)

If you have like 8 or ww1 planes, some basic ground assets and a map. Just imagine how fun it would be once the dynamic campaign stuff comes.

 

Not to stray completely off topic. I do belive the F4 would be a great plane to become a ballon ace in. 20mm should do short work of the balloon. If not. I'm sure 16 Zuni rockets will do the job.

[Dragon1-1]

Well, you don't need a time machine to become a balloon ace, apparently:  

Supposedly, this is a military observation balloon in Afghan, in 2011. Probably US, but the Chinese have also became somewhat known as avid balloon users, so to speak.  Either way, in the era of GPS and drones, they have not gone out of use. They merely faded into the background, but they're cheap and can stay up long, so they remain an important intelligence gathering tool.