F-16 vs MiG-25
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- 2 x F-16C-Blk42 formation has no clearance to fire, but AWACS and tanker support. 2 x AIM-120A and 2 x AIM-9M, ECM pod and fuel.
- 2 x MiG-25 formation: safe Heaven north of 32nd Parallel, crossing south to intercept. Likely armed with a combination of R-40R/T medium range and R-60 short range missiles. Some CGI for the interception (they know where the F-16s are).
The MiG-25's fire first, at least one missile, jammed.
The F-16s get clearance to fire. Fox3 at 3nm from the merge.
One MiG-25 is down. What about the other? Why didn't the F-16s engage it? They had 3 AMRAAMs and 4 AIM-9Ms left.
Assuming they could not lock on it due to close formation with the other one, let's say the pilot hit the afterburners and run after the merge. How far would it be when the F-16s turned 180?
http://www.sci.fi/~fta/amraamsrc.htm
- 2 x MiG-25 formation: safe Heaven north of 32nd Parallel, crossing south to intercept. Likely armed with a combination of R-40R/T medium range and R-60 short range missiles. Some CGI for the interception (they know where the F-16s are).
The MiG-25's fire first, at least one missile, jammed.
The F-16s get clearance to fire. Fox3 at 3nm from the merge.
One MiG-25 is down. What about the other? Why didn't the F-16s engage it? They had 3 AMRAAMs and 4 AIM-9Ms left.
Assuming they could not lock on it due to close formation with the other one, let's say the pilot hit the afterburners and run after the merge. How far would it be when the F-16s turned 180?
http://www.sci.fi/~fta/amraamsrc.htm
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Mig-25s would've been carrying R-40s. The F-16s would've been flying at a lower altitude, but the Mig-25 with its limited look down capability would've detected them a lot sooner. Not only this, but there is no way a F-16A WILL EVER shoot down a Mig-25 at a higher altitude with any AIM-9 version. Even Sparrows will have huge problems launched from a lower altitude to hit a fast flying Mig-25.
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Iraqi Foxbats are PD exports which as it turned out got rebuilt Smerch radars and not the Sapphire the Soviet/Russian PD got. There's no doppler "lookdown/shootdown" but keep in mind Phantoms didn't have doppler either. It just means you have to break out signals from clutter and ghosts, so diving on the deck or into clouds has good success ratio against locks but it's more about changing the kind of tactics most likely to help, than the bees knees and obsolescence.
It also means in clear sky notching doesn't work against them. The Smerch is also impossible to jam inside of something like 50M. It piggybacks two wavelengths only the very latest ECM pods can cope with today and is so powerful it apparently fried solid state circuit boards during development and they had to use valves. If it locks you at close range and you're in clean air you're dead.
Foxbats are speed and altitude restricted with a full load of R40 missiles but R60 double racks I don't think were given Iraqi ones. It's likely they had 1x R40R and 1x R40T each, or possibly R4R and R4T (uses smerch, cheaper and less complicated). These would be ripple fired for better hit probability following Soviet training doctrine, again it's a fairly close range tactic since you fire close enough to get IR lock on the pylon. What is likely is the missile fire notification from the Foxbats were two missiles but perhaps one was a dud, either or both didn't track, etc.
What all this translates to is combined with airframe performance qualities the Foxbat is a very dangerous plane up close, so long as it doesn't become a turning fight.
Eagle encounters found a pair handling roughly as good as an F4 right on the deck which dispelled one myth and they're very supersonic down low which dispelled another. The low altitude performance and fighter versus fighter performance of the Foxbat was demonstrated to be far greater than had been comfortably assumed after Belyenko's description and examination of his aircraft (which wasn't comparatively flown).
Something else consistently demonstrated is the ability of the Foxbat to enter or leave combat virtually at will using its speed capabilities. In some cases they've simply outrun missiles by turning tail after weapon release and using their speed capabilities. In one encounter east of Baghdad a pair of Eagles fired four sparrows and two sidewinders at two Foxbats racing past them during an exchange (the Eagles avoided two missiles fired at them), the MiGs outsped them and their launching aircraft who called two more Eagles to head them off. These managed to effect an intercept and fired four more sparrows, which the Foxbats outsped along with the launching aircraft, then escaped to Iran.
So combine the fact the Foxbat is very dangerous to a Block 42 Viper if in its element, with the fact the Foxbat is next to impossible to catch if he turns and runs, with the fact crossing into enemy territory before you've taken down his SAM/AAA networks and early warning is suicidal, it's fairly obvious why a Viper patrolling a no-fly zone south of a meridian neither is supposed to cross will be satisfied splashing one bandit whilst turning away the challenge successfully.
If you're postulating the export-PD Foxbat versus Block 42 Viper scenario, the dirty little secret is there are some circumstances or just plain bad luck where the Vipers could find themselves in serious trouble. But we are comparing a MiG-21/Phantom era warbird against a Mirage-2000/Hornet era one here. There are some distinct advantages to work with if you can keep the fight limited to those.
It also means in clear sky notching doesn't work against them. The Smerch is also impossible to jam inside of something like 50M. It piggybacks two wavelengths only the very latest ECM pods can cope with today and is so powerful it apparently fried solid state circuit boards during development and they had to use valves. If it locks you at close range and you're in clean air you're dead.
Foxbats are speed and altitude restricted with a full load of R40 missiles but R60 double racks I don't think were given Iraqi ones. It's likely they had 1x R40R and 1x R40T each, or possibly R4R and R4T (uses smerch, cheaper and less complicated). These would be ripple fired for better hit probability following Soviet training doctrine, again it's a fairly close range tactic since you fire close enough to get IR lock on the pylon. What is likely is the missile fire notification from the Foxbats were two missiles but perhaps one was a dud, either or both didn't track, etc.
What all this translates to is combined with airframe performance qualities the Foxbat is a very dangerous plane up close, so long as it doesn't become a turning fight.
Eagle encounters found a pair handling roughly as good as an F4 right on the deck which dispelled one myth and they're very supersonic down low which dispelled another. The low altitude performance and fighter versus fighter performance of the Foxbat was demonstrated to be far greater than had been comfortably assumed after Belyenko's description and examination of his aircraft (which wasn't comparatively flown).
Something else consistently demonstrated is the ability of the Foxbat to enter or leave combat virtually at will using its speed capabilities. In some cases they've simply outrun missiles by turning tail after weapon release and using their speed capabilities. In one encounter east of Baghdad a pair of Eagles fired four sparrows and two sidewinders at two Foxbats racing past them during an exchange (the Eagles avoided two missiles fired at them), the MiGs outsped them and their launching aircraft who called two more Eagles to head them off. These managed to effect an intercept and fired four more sparrows, which the Foxbats outsped along with the launching aircraft, then escaped to Iran.
So combine the fact the Foxbat is very dangerous to a Block 42 Viper if in its element, with the fact the Foxbat is next to impossible to catch if he turns and runs, with the fact crossing into enemy territory before you've taken down his SAM/AAA networks and early warning is suicidal, it's fairly obvious why a Viper patrolling a no-fly zone south of a meridian neither is supposed to cross will be satisfied splashing one bandit whilst turning away the challenge successfully.
If you're postulating the export-PD Foxbat versus Block 42 Viper scenario, the dirty little secret is there are some circumstances or just plain bad luck where the Vipers could find themselves in serious trouble. But we are comparing a MiG-21/Phantom era warbird against a Mirage-2000/Hornet era one here. There are some distinct advantages to work with if you can keep the fight limited to those.
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First we need to know the RCS of the F-16 is, for simplicity Mig 25 is a sniper, not one gladiator (F16), I heard the F16 class RCS is very small because of its size. F16 has proven effective BVR (AIM-120) of it in the Yugoslav wars, when already knockout a Mig 29.Mig 25 has a similar record, Mig 25 shot down one of the F/A-18 on the first day of the 1st Gulf War
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The Foxbat is no slouch, as the Gulf War proved.
Those Eagle vs. Foxbat dogfights were tough, at least insofar as how the Eagle drivers described them (Dogfights of Desert Storm on Youtube). One wonders (at least I do, LOL) what it would have been like going up against Mig-31's!
Those Eagle vs. Foxbat dogfights were tough, at least insofar as how the Eagle drivers described them (Dogfights of Desert Storm on Youtube). One wonders (at least I do, LOL) what it would have been like going up against Mig-31's!
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mixelflick wrote:The Foxbat is no slouch, as the Gulf War proved.
Those Eagle vs. Foxbat dogfights were tough, at least insofar as how the Eagle drivers described them (Dogfights of Desert Storm on Youtube). One wonders (at least I do, LOL) what it would have been like going up against Mig-31's!
The Foxbat has lost every single engagement vs a Western Fighter. Except for the F/A-18 Hornet during the first night of Desert Storm. Even in that case the USN Strike Package was in the dark in a highly congested and disoriented environment. Hell, it was years later before anybody really had an idea what happen to the lost Hornet Pilot.
Regardless, the point is the Foxbat combat record is hardly stellar.
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vanir wrote:Iraqi Foxbats are PD exports which as it turned out got rebuilt Smerch radars and not the Sapphire the Soviet/Russian PD got. There's no doppler "lookdown/shootdown" but keep in mind Phantoms didn't have doppler either. It just means you have to break out signals from clutter and ghosts, so diving on the deck or into clouds has good success ratio against locks but it's more about changing the kind of tactics most likely to help, than the bees knees and obsolescence.
It also means in clear sky notching doesn't work against them. The Smerch is also impossible to jam inside of something like 50M. It piggybacks two wavelengths only the very latest ECM pods can cope with today and is so powerful it apparently fried solid state circuit boards during development and they had to use valves. If it locks you at close range and you're in clean air you're dead.
There is definitely no such thing as radar that is impossible to jam. Smerch is powerful for sure, but that doesn't make it impossible or even that difficult to jam. It just requires more power to jam it effectively (which naturally is an advantage for the Smerch). Also using two different wavelengths is not really unique or even advanced at the time. It was not frequency hopping or anything, but one wavelength was for training and another for combat operations AFAIK. I'm sure a lot of jamming equipment by DS could jam it effectively at longer ranges. Sure, all radars can burn through most self protection jammers at shorter ranges. Of course more modern jammers could easily confuse older radar (including Smerch) using deception jamming techniques which would work very well against such an old radar system. Even far more powerful ground radars can be effectively fooled by them.
Soviets used vacuum tubes in the system, because they could not produce suitable solid state components and they had a lot of experience with vacuum tubes. Solid state components were very new then, especially for Soviet Union.
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