Have to disagree on historical grounds...

Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
Hardly. A F-4 costed many times as much as a MiG-17 and had no real chance (other than retreat) against two of them. The MiG-17 was fast enough to close in with bombers and fighter-bombers and force them to emergency drop their loads.
Fuchs, not true. The F-4 had the ability to take the fight vertical, or extend, disengage, and then re-enter at high speed.

The big issue was training. Early on, the USN and USAF pilots were not adequately trained and tried to fly the F-4 like it WAS a P-51 or F-86... not smart. Later on, when TOP GUN and USAF Fighter Weapons School had refined the tactics, thigns went better.

OBTW, at the end of the war the F-4 was able to employ BVR again based
Combat Tree. That's how Steve Ritchie became an ace. With Tree, the F-4 was again dominant - as they could employ BVR and hold their own WVR.

Every aircraft has advantages and disadvantages. The key is knowing how to fight your jet where you have an advantage and the other guy doesn't. The smart fighter pilot will also evaluate the enemy's tactics and use tactics the other guy probably hasn't seen.

A good book to read is Fighter Combat: Tactics and Maneuvering by Robert Shaw. He takes you through how an F-4 can beat the MiG-17, or even two MiG-17s.

The F-4 is rather notable like the Bf 110 or P-38 than like the P-51 (the P-51 was an efficient airplane which was able to engage all enemies on equal footing).
Your opinion. The P-51 had issues just like any other fighter. For example, low caliber armament and a vulnerable cooling system.

In fact, the F-4 had quite exactly the double purchase cost, maintenance hours/flight hour, fuel consumption, crew requirement of a Draken, Mirage III or Mirage F.1 - but it wasn't better than them in air combat, even in the later versions. The lower cost F-8 was also a better fighter.
What are you basing this assertation on? F-8 may have been a better dogfighter, though even that is questionable if you look at the E-M diagrams... Draken/Mirage - no way. Especially the F-1... piece of junk.

The F-4 was meant to be a bomber interceptor for the navy's carriers, complemented by the dogfight-capable F-8 Crusader.
It was forced on the air force as a fighter because the air forces' '100' series had yielded no useful fighter (F-104 was utterly useless for all but short range nuking or photo reconnaissance). As an air force fighter it was OK at low or no visibility and at high altitude, but it was terribly inefficient as a fighter in support of a land war.
Again, what is this based on? The F-4 had decent loiter time, a ton of weapons, and could take a lot of punishment. Yes, back seat vis was not as good as other fighters... but that was later fighters, not those of it's generation. The Mirages you sight had horrible vis!

Likewise, the F-22 is best at tactical dancing - supersonic launch of AMRAAM at target, turn and run at supersonic speed to avoid incoming missiles, repeat.It's like a boxer with long arms who ties to throw jabs all the time to keep the enemy at long distance because he's not good in the infight. He needs to have a great leg work and needs to cede ground all the time.
This mode is an impossible luxury if you need to protect assets, for the enemy could keep pressing forward and could only be stopped with a more decisive engagement (a launched AMRAAM doesn't equal a kill at all).
The F-22s will therefore be forced into a suboptimal combat style whenever they need to protect assets, such as a ground target, a fleet, slow support aircraft or a strike package.
Again, this is similar to how F-4s had to leave their preferred medium range engagement fantasy and were forced into dogfights in which they weren't good despite their high cost.
(The F-22 is superior to F-16s in dogfighting thanks to TVC, but afaik that advantage dwindles when the F-16s have HMS and AIM-9X).
Fuchs, you forget the part where the F-22 uses the oldest tactic in the book, the unobserved entry, to roll in at the F-16's six and gun its brains out. Stealth is a pretty sweet capability. While you're right on the pK of the AMRAAM, you discount the ability of the Raptor to use it's advantages (stealth, supercruise) to get to a position of advantage.

The F-22 is superior to even an F-16CCM with HMS and 9X. If the pilot knows what he is doing, he will have no issues - even if outnumbered. I've fought the Raptor with the weapons above, and it is the toughest opponent I've ever faced.

Like I said before, the F-22 is not the end-all, but it is the best fighter in the world, at least for the next 10-15 years. Training is still almost as important though, like I said before.

V/R,

Cliff