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MiG-21 - still unpleasant surprise at Cope India exercise

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  • #46
    One of the last things that point to it not happening is that Saddam never took credit for it. Or put it in the news. Something you would have thought would have been done. A bit of good news for the home front.

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    • #47
      Originally posted by zraver View Post
      His RWR should have detected the Mig, but with the speed imbalance there isn't a lot the hornet could do.

      Chogy, is there any reason to doubt that the Iraqi pilots in the Mig 25's and Mirage F1's were not the best Iraq had? These guys had been fighting Tomcats and Phantoms for years.

      Also I think the listed range on the AAM carried by the Mig is too short. Its the biggest AAM of all time, about the size of a HAWK and Russian rocketry is no joke. If the Russian missile was faster or launched first [or launched from outside the Sparrows engagement envelope] the FA-18 might have had to turn away breaking lock and still eating a missile. Listed Soviet doctrine was to salvo two of them at a time 1 IR (fired first) and a second that was a SARH [so the IR missile wouldn't lock on the SARH exhaust]. I assume that trying to dodge two missiles is harder than 1. Even if both had to turn away the Iraqi IR missile is still in the fight.
      How much fighting did Iranian Tomcats do? They had only a handful of working jets and the missile inventory was down to the single digits early in the war. Of course the Iraqis didn't know that. All the Iranians did was scramble their available F-14(s) and the Iraqis turned back. The saber rattling went on for years. And that's all it was. No one wanted to call the other's bluff.
      "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

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      • #48
        How much fighting did Iranian Tomcats do? They had only a handful of working jets and the missile inventory was down to the single digits early in the war. Of course the Iraqis didn't know that. All the Iranians did was scramble their available F-14(s) and the Iraqis turned back. The saber rattling went on for years. And that's all it was. No one wanted to call the other's bluff.
        A lot of fighting and for most of the conflict they had far more then a handful. Osprey put out a nice coffee table book on it a few years ago.
        To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

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        • #49
          Sounds to me like Adriann should be telling everyone how "bad" the Mig 25 is. It really is a bad in some cases - like if you're in an F-18 without your wingman on a bad day.

          Its hard to buy into the Mig 21 being a serious threat to a modern US aircraft. it is a useful aircraft and in training exercises working combat aircraft are necessary, if you've got these in service why not use them for this - it makes sense that they should get to win the game sometimes to keep everyone wanting to play.
          Last edited by USSWisconsin; 04 Jan 13,, 04:18.
          sigpic"If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees.
          If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children."

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          • #50
            Originally posted by gunnut View Post
            How much fighting did Iranian Tomcats do? They had only a handful of working jets and the missile inventory was down to the single digits early in the war. Of course the Iraqis didn't know that. All the Iranians did was scramble their available F-14(s) and the Iraqis turned back. The saber rattling went on for years. And that's all it was. No one wanted to call the other's bluff.
            The (public-open) books & reports I read, mainly on the history of the F-14, said the Iranians used the F-14 as sort of AWACS. Not surprising, considering the radar it had.

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            • #51
              Originally posted by zraver View Post
              His RWR should have detected the Mig, but with the speed imbalance there isn't a lot the hornet could do.
              Again, though, the speed imbalance works both ways. The MiG can accept or decline combat, but if he decides to engage, he'll get one pass at best, and to make that pass undetected by both the hornet(s) and AWACS is unlikely.

              Chogy, is there any reason to doubt that the Iraqi pilots in the Mig 25's and Mirage F1's were not the best Iraq had? These guys had been fighting Tomcats and Phantoms for years.
              I see no reason to assume they weren't anything but the cream of the IAF. But the air forces they faced were brought into being during Reagan's era... We had the training budgets and programs necessary to create a performance peak that has probably never been matched. The answer to the lop-sided air war is simply that the Iraqis were outmatched in every regime... technology, weapons, sensors like AWACS, and the pilots themselves. At least w/regards to the air to air war, pilots I know shrugged it off as less tasking, easier, than a Red Flag, albeit far more intense emotionally.

              Also I think the listed range on the AAM carried by the Mig is too short. Its the biggest AAM of all time, about the size of a HAWK and Russian rocketry is no joke. If the Russian missile was faster or launched first [or launched from outside the Sparrows engagement envelope] the FA-18 might have had to turn away breaking lock and still eating a missile. Listed Soviet doctrine was to salvo two of them at a time 1 IR (fired first) and a second that was a SARH [so the IR missile wouldn't lock on the SARH exhaust]. I assume that trying to dodge two missiles is harder than 1. Even if both had to turn away the Iraqi IR missile is still in the fight.
              Big missiles equate to more range, but less maneuverability. The Phoenix and Soviet analogues are bomber killers, not fighter killers. Additionally, the export Iraqi MiG-25 is looking down, into ground clutter, and I have my personal doubts about the ability of that aircraft to detect, lock, and successfully engage a BVR target. Remember, the MiG-25 was designed to specifically counter the B-70. SAC philosophy of the 1950's and 1960's was to penetrate Soviet airspace very high, and as fast as possible. The SAM in particular forced us to alter that philosophy to low-level penetration, but the MiG-25 was already on the drawing boards and entered production in the 1960's, IIRC. The MiG-25 was/is a short-ranged, high-speed/altitude, unmaneuverable interceptor, created to protect the Rodina from high-altitude nuclear bombers. It was definitely not a look down, shoot down pulse-doppler air superiority fighter.

              Wikipedia has a good article about the development of the MiG-25, and its capabilities.

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              • #52
                Originally posted by Chogy View Post
                Wikipedia has a good article about the development of the MiG-25, and its capabilities.
                Little side note: my favourite Mig-25 story is about the one that defected to Japan. Apparently, he not only got into Japan pretty much undetected, he also managed to fly from one base to another, looking for a big enough runway, without being caught!

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                • #53
                  Viktor Belenko collaborated with John Barron, who wrote a book (MiG Pilot) about the entire episode, and the insights into the reasons for his defection are enlightening.

                  The data gleaned from the MiG was incredibly valuable, and turned the notion that the MiG-25 was a maneuvering monster on its head.

                  Apparently, Belenko is living a decent life in California, and occasionally travels to Russia.

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                  • #54
                    Originally posted by jlvfr View Post
                    Little side note: my favourite Mig-25 story is about the one that defected to Japan. Apparently, he not only got into Japan pretty much undetected, he also managed to fly from one base to another, looking for a big enough runway, without being caught!
                    Yeah, except Belenko STILL went off the end of the runway at Hakodate!
                    "There is never enough time to do or say all the things that we would wish. The thing is to try to do as much as you can in the time that you have. Remember Scrooge, time is short, and suddenly, you're not there any more." -Ghost of Christmas Present, Scrooge

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                    • #55
                      Originally posted by Stitch View Post
                      Yeah, except Belenko STILL went off the end of the runway at Hakodate!
                      Yep, but by then he was flying on fumes, so not much choice...

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                      • #56
                        Firat, I am only arguing the possibility, not the facts which we don't know.

                        Originally posted by Chogy View Post
                        Big missiles equate to more range, but less maneuverability.
                        Yes, but if the F/A-18 was running it would be a lot harder to evade if the pilot could not see it incoming. Even harder if the pilot had to evade to missiles coming in on his six, 1 SARH and 1 IR.


                        The MiG-25 was/is a short-ranged, high-speed/altitude, unmaneuverable interceptor, created to protect the Rodina from high-altitude nuclear bombers. It was definitely not a look down, shoot down pulse-doppler air superiority fighter.
                        Chogy, the original Smerch Radar may not have been look down shoot down, but the Safir radar introduced in the late 1970's in the Mig-25PD was LD/SD pulse doppler. It was a bigger improved version of the radar used in the Mig-23. This is the model of Mig-25 that Iraq had at least in part either Mig-25PD or a Mig-25P upgraded to the PD standard as a PDS known as the Foxbat E.

                        Never been a big fan of the hornet for this very reason. Its not fast enough to control an engagement. Against almost anything but a Mig-25 you eagle drivers could refuse or force combat if you wanted to. At max speed (assuming very light armament or clean configuration the Hornet gives up .7 mach to an eagle and .9 to a Mig 25. If the Hornet is travelling slower than max and the Foxbat is near full speed the difference could be as high as the Hornets maximum speed mach 1.8

                        Also, per the wiki article, the Mig was only short ranged in comparison to the size of Russia and the idea it would have to sprint to catch bombers. In an arena where it wasn't automatically playing tail chase it has nearly the same range as the early hornets. If Spriecher was on his way home and low on fuel and traveling subsonic (assume this is normal) then a Mig doing a dash with big long ranged missiles could [at least theoretically] run him down.

                        Also AWACS isn't full proof, I know some older NATO platforms were able to penetrate AWCS screens in the 80's and deal some nasty surprises in exercises. IIRC a couple of old Canberras bounced a pair of eagles. A Mig at mach 2.5 would cross the E-3's coverage area from detection to the Sentry in 8 minutes, if the F/A-18 was on the outer edge of the E-3's coverage or outside of it the warning could be less than a minute if at all. So the possibility that the F/A-18 could have been engaged by an unseen mig.

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                        • #57
                          The US claims no missile damage to the wreckage. So the Mig 25 would have forced the F 18 down evading its missiles - rather than shot it down (if thats what happened).

                          Is that a correct distiction? Or would that be considered a shoot down (your missile forces the enemy to crash trying to escape it)?
                          sigpic"If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees.
                          If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children."

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                          • #58
                            Originally posted by USSWisconsin View Post
                            The US claims no missile damage to the wreckage. So the Mig 25 would have forced the F 18 down evading its missiles - rather than shot it down (if thats what happened).

                            Is that a correct distiction? Or would that be considered a shoot down (your missile forces the enemy to crash trying to escape it)?
                            Still waiting on the source for the claim of no missile damage, also aircraft tend to burn so it might be a case of lack of evidence not being evidence of lack. The various arguments on the net tend to cancel each other out. The incident team claims no mig, pancaked into the ground the wing man claims there was a mig and the wreckage doesn't show a pancake type thing. As far as I know the actual AWCS or Hawk Eye tapes are classified and so unable to shed light on the subject.

                            However it remains in the realm of realistic possibility that an Iraqi Mig-25PD firing a salvo of AA-6 Acrid missiles (1IR, 1 SARH) at either a slower retreating Hornet or head to head could bring it down.

                            Also to consider. IIRC Chogy has said the USAF fighter pilots tended to do nasty things to navy pilots for the simple fact the air force's dedicated fighters spent more time in DACT than the navy which spent more time on carrier landings. That is for top tier F-15 v F-14 type things. How much more was the imbalance for bomb trucks which had to do not just carrier landings and DACT but also training as a bomber both strike and CAS. Add in most of Ltcmdr Spriecher's carrier was as a F/A-18 flight instructor with even less time for DACT if more over all cockpit hours. It is certainly possible that a very good Iraqi fighter/interceptor pilot [while less skilled than dedicated American fighter pilots] could be better at using his aircraft in its regime, as compared to an American pilot who normally spent his time practicing carrier landings or bombing runs. Especially in a possible over-match situation (mig using speed, surprise range and altitude).

                            All I am saying is the Mig-25 is the one aircraft Iraq had that had a chance to do it. Iraq's next best fighter was either the Mig-29 was a knife fighter. They had the early version which were very agile but had very short ranged radar and were a dedicated day fighter much like the F-16A. Or the Mirage F1 EQ-2 which had some successes and failures against Iranian F-14's.

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                            • #59
                              I hoping one of our pilots can answer the general question (is called forced down or shot down if no missile impact but attempts at evading the missile caused the crash).

                              What do you think? I'm not sure.
                              Last edited by USSWisconsin; 05 Jan 13,, 00:37.
                              sigpic"If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees.
                              If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children."

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                              • #60
                                Originally posted by USSWisconsin View Post
                                I hoping one of our pilots can answer the general question (is called forced down or shot down if no missile impact but attempts at evading the missile caused the crash).

                                What do you think? I'm not sure.
                                Yes, forcing an enemy pilot to crash is a kill. The only F-111 A2A victory came when a USAF F-111 forced a Mirage F1 into the ground.

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