Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
This isn't very relevant in certain missions such as escort or low level attack, though.
You cite the book (have it, but didn't read all of it yet) for how a F-4 could defeat two MiG-17s (not going to happen with equal quality crews imo). You also stress the importance of pilots, training and tactics. What you didn't mention is that the F-4 had no LD/SD capability to speak of (before Germany upgraded some with APG-65 and AIM-120) and two MiG-17s were thus able to deny a F-4's BVR capability whenever they were protecting mobile (army) targets that couldn't be attacked from high altitude.
True on the radar's look-down-shoot-down, although the limitations are somewhat overrated. A lot of that depends on the operator, and there are still modes where an F-4 could shoot look-down.

About mock combat vs. F-22s; surprise becomes rather rare in large formation air combat. As WW2 aces said; loss percentages were lower in great air battles (wing vs. wing) than in small ones (flight vs flight). Few fighters were able to surprise anyone in large air battles, and surprise was involved in about 80% of the air/air kills of the time (80% of kills happened without target having seen the attacker). It's difficult to surprise a F-16 from behind with a visually huge F-22 if there are multiple other F-16 plots able to see that position.
What are you basing this on? I would argue that surprise is MORE likely when there are a lot of planes around... you say that few fighters were able to surprise, but 80% of kills resulted from surprise... the F-22 can surprise someone because it is stealthy!

Mock air combat in NATO - even Red Flag - is typically about rather small engagements afaik. That favours surprise tactics.
There's rarely a training like a pulse (saturation) attack of 300 combat aircraft at once on a 200x200 km area. I doubt that VLO/LO characteristics help much in such a situation, and IIRC a RAND study published in 2010 about F-22 capabilities over East Asian waters pretty much reinforced this point.
Again, I doubt that real peer/peer air war would look anything like the preferred scenarios for F-22 employment. The F-22 may face especially great obstacles on offensive missions (over red territory). Fighters are merely a component in a combined arms effort these days, after all.
No one has the aircraft or ability (these days) to put 300 aircraft in one airspace. Airfields are a big LIMFAC, as you can't exactly take an F-22 or T-50 off from a grass strip like a Mustang or Spit. Even if you could launch that many aircraft it would be almost unsafe - coordination would be difficult at best.

That said, Red Flag (Alaska and Nellis), Northern Edge, and like exercises typically involve large numbers of aircraft. Northern Edge involved 60+ aircraft at a time, which is about as large a force as anyone is likely to be able to concentrate at a given location.

Surprise still works. Yes the F-22 can be swarmed by other aircraft... so can any airplane. Numbers matter. That said, you would be better off going 2 v 10 in an F-22 than 2 v 6 in an older jet...

There's also the issue of contrails. Certain atmospheric conditions create contrails reliably (at high altitude) and there's little chance to surprise anyone in WVR combat in such a zone if fighter pilots cooperate properly. Sensors (such as certain missile warning sensors) can even be programmed to detect contrails at large distances and direct extra sensor attention to the contrails' ends. The USAF doesn't do this, of course (afaik). It doesn't attempt to defeat a F-22.
Cons typically occur only at certain altitudes. Anyone looking outside will see them and direct their sensors there. Cons can be avoided.

It doesn't give its other aircraft the tools to defeat a F-22. Even West Europeans don't do that (at least not much). The Russians and Chinese on the other hand try hard to defeat it, and that's all-important for the appraisal of a F-22's quality.
I think you underestimate how good the USAF Aggressors are, Fuchs! Why do you think anyone would publicize how to defeat their own systems?

I based the comparison of F-4 and Mirages etc on the fact that
fuel - twice engine power = roughly twice fuel consumption
maintenance - 30-50 hrs/hr vs. 15-20 hrs/hr
crew - 2 instead of 1
How many Mirages do you lose a year due to (single) engine failure? What's that cost you?

We also need to remember that kill statistics are questionable when discussing the F-4's qualities. The North Vietnamese exaggerated their kills (and had an impressive array of supposed aces) and the U.S. did most likely exaggerate air combat kill statistics as well. This happened in WW2 unintentionally and even with strict rules up to a factor of about two. BVR combat hasn't exactly made BDA more simple post-WW2.
The thing is that we KNOW how many US aircraft were lost... so the Vietnamese might have been lying but they still did some pretty good work. Kill ratios went up a lot after TOP GUN and USAF FWS improved training. As for US kill verification, both gun cameras and other means of verification were a lot better in Vietnam. The limited number of kills meant that they were very closely looked at... Modern kills (like those in Allied Force) are even better scrutinized, as there is almost always some sort of surveillance asset that can verify what the gun camera film shows.

V/R,

Cliff