Ameircan Planes vs. Russian Planes

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

*trails off into rant about the Soviet Union*

You're just jealous Mig-29 and Su-27 (first plane ever to shoot down any type of Mig, from Mig-3 to Mig-31) are far superior to Merikan planes!

[Admiral Johnason]

*trails off into rant about the Soviet Union*

You're just jealous Mig-29 and Su-27 (first plane ever to shoot down any type of Mig, from Mig-3 to Mig-31) are far superior to Merikan planes!

At least our spacecrafty aren't make for balsa and ducktape. And an F-80 was the first time a Mig met an enemy fighter and the Mig lost. An F-15 or 22 could rip a Mig-29 a new one.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

At least our spacecrafty aren't make for balsa and ducktape.

Just toilet paper I believe.

And an F-80 was the first time a Mig met an enemy fighter and the Mig lost.

Bah, American Propaganda!

An F-15 or 22 could rip a Mig-29 a new one.

The only thing a F-22 would giving a Mig is another kill!

[Admiral Johnason]

First, our spacecraft are made of the best damn coat hangers in the world. Second, look at what has recently been released about the Korean War by the Russians. Oh look, they lost a huge amount of plane. I wonder how that got there. Maybe, it's because of the F-86. Second, deferctors' planes have shown us that Russian aircraft are not up to par with the American. And let's not forget that the Russains did lose the Cold War, do tothe victor gowth the spoils.

[Vympel]

[

At least our spacecrafty aren't make for balsa and ducktape.

FULCRUMs and FLANKERs are hardly made out of balsa and ductape. Regardless their combat performance is excellent. Which is what matters. Please do not subscribe to style over substance fallacies.

And an F-80 was the first time a Mig met an enemy fighter and the Mig lost.

MiGs and Western planes have been shooting each other down for decades. So what? Stupid thing to say. MiG-15 versus F-86 Sabre, anyone?

An F-15 or 22 could rip a Mig-29 a new one.

LOL. That's like comparing an F-5 Tiger to an F-4 Phantom II. I.E: stupid. The MiG-29 is not in the class of the F-15, let alone the F-22. It's proper enemy is the F-16. Still, an F-15 is toast against a MiG-29 in WVR combat, because it doesn't have the missiles or the fire control for off boresight work like the MiG-29 and Su-27.

Also, the F-15s proper Soviet equivalent is the Su-27. And the Su-27 outperforms the F-15. So suck it

[Lord Pounder]

This seems to be going Way off topic. Maybe a mod should split the Migs F-14's etc stuff.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Done.

[theski]

GAT, I agree about the Su-27 its capabilties exceed the F-15 which is its main comparision. The Mig-29 is a great dog fighter, but including the limited stealth capabilty I give the nodd to the F-22. I think the Russians can design a great aircraft but quaility control is a problem.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

the Soviets admitted to 345 or so MiG-15 losses in the Korean War. The United States admitted to 100 or so F-86 losses.

On the other hand, supposedly the Soviet scheme of loss-marking is a little different. There's a huge belt of gap as to what is a "combat loss." The Soviets supposedly define it as when the plane comes back in an unsalvageable shape. The Americans supposedly define it as such only when the plane pretty much drops out of the sky in the dogfight.

I could easily see hundreds of badly damaged planes on both sides limping their way home on top of the flamed in combat ones. If the Soviets dump all those damaged planes into their Combat Loss list and the US doesn't...

In any case, the Soviets have some other problems, such as their idea of using Korea as a kind of "weeding ground" for 40 or so sorties.

http://aeroweb.lucia.it/~agretch/RAFAQ/SovietAces.html

[Iceberg]

MiGs and Western planes have been shooting each other down for decades. So what? Stupid thing to say. MiG-15 versus F-86 Sabre, anyone?

13.5:1 kill ratio in favor of the F-86 Sabre, anyone? (source: USAF)

Also, the current generation of United States fighter jets [F-14, F-15, F-16 and F/A-18] have an undefeated record in combat against Soviet-designed jets. Lotsa luck.

An F-15 or 22 could rip a Mig-29 a new one.

LOL. That's like comparing an F-5 Tiger to an F-4 Phantom II. I.E: stupid. The MiG-29 is not in the class of the F-15, let alone the F-22. It's proper enemy is the F-16. Still, an F-15 is toast against a MiG-29 in WVR combat, because it doesn't have the missiles or the fire control for off boresight work like the MiG-29 and Su-27.

Also, the F-15s proper Soviet equivalent is the Su-27. And the Su-27 outperforms the F-15. So suck it

Of course, lots of luck trying to GET the MiG-29 WVR of the F-15.

The Su-27 outperforms the F-15, but the F-15 uniformly has better pilots than any Su-27 it might face.

American fighter pilots typically have at least 500 hours of flight time before they graduate. After graduation, they'll log hundreds of hours of training time (at least) for every hour that they face real danger.

We have better fighter pilots because we can afford to keep them in the air longer, honing their skills to a razor's edge before they ever fight the enemy.

[salm]

the possibility that an american rookie pilot in an f15 gets into a fight with a soviet union ace fighter pilot in an su27 are still there. it´s not like ALL ami pilots are better than ALL russian fighter pilots.

<eidt>of course that scenario is before the end of the cold war</edit>

[Montcalm]

With the maneuver i saw Mig 29 and Su 27 can do i say Russian would win the fight.

[Iceberg]

Obviously, if a rookie American pilot were to get in a dogfight with a Soviet veteran, there would be problems for the American. However, ceteris paribus, an American pilot had many times more cockpit experience than a Soviet pilot of equivalent seniority. The disparity is far more obvious today, because the Russian air force doesn't have enough money to fly its planes anywhere near as much as the USAF does.

[salm]

Obviously, if a rookie American pilot were to get in a dogfight with a Soviet veteran, there would be problems for the American. However, ceteris paribus, an American pilot had many times more cockpit experience than a Soviet pilot of equivalent seniority. The disparity is far more obvious today, because the Russian air force doesn't have enough money to fly its planes anywhere near as much as the USAF does.

well, anyway, i thought this thread was comparing the technical qualities of the planes not the pilots.
of course in the end it´s also a matter of the pilots experience.

[phongn]

OTOH, during the Cold War the USAF had a rather horrid AAM: the AIM-7 Sparrow (even the final versions with that multimode IR/SARH sensor) which put us somewhat at a disadvantage.

[Iceberg]

With the maneuver i saw Mig 29 and Su 27 can do i say Russian would win the fight.

Maneuvers only tell part of the story - the Su-27 can perform more extreme maneuvers than the F-15, true, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the Su-27 will win the fight. The F-15 has better sustained-G performance, bleeds less energy in prolonged turns, and has a higher top speed and larger performance envelope. All of these characteristics are of far greater importance to air battles than instantaneous, one-off maneuvers that impress the crowds at air shows.

[Montcalm]

With the maneuver i saw Mig 29 and Su 27 can do i say Russian would win the fight.

Maneuvers only tell part of the story - the Su-27 can perform more extreme maneuvers than the F-15, true, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the Su-27 will win the fight. The F-15 has better sustained-G performance, bleeds less energy in prolonged turns, and has a higher top speed and larger performance envelope. All of these characteristics are of far greater importance to air battles than instantaneous, one-off maneuvers that impress the crowds at air shows.

Well i guess we`ll have to wait until there is an actual combat between the two planes to know wich is the best.

[The Dark]

At least our spacecrafty aren't make for balsa and ducktape. And an F-80 was the first time a Mig met an enemy fighter and the Mig lost.

That was the first jet-to-jet kill. First kill of a MiG was by an F4U Corsair, the WWII prop fighter.

The MiGs overall were lighter and more maneuverable than American fighters, but tend to have inferior sensors and are harder on their pilots. While we may have had the pathetic AIM-7 Sparrow during Vietnam, the Soviet Frescos and Fishbeds carried only cannon and Atoll, the equivalent of our Sidewinder. The MiGs also required more effort on takeoff and landing due to using compressed air rather than hydraulics. Each MiG had various strengths and weaknesses compared to its Western counterpart. Much depended on the situation, and also on the pilot training.

phongn: True, the AIM-7 never worked well. Why do you think we developed the AMRAAM? And try reading up on the Amos and decide who went more overboard on the SARH missiles .

Montcalm: A-10 rules all! All kidding aside, it took an average of four F-16s to kill one A-10 50% of the time in wargame situations. Almost always, two of those Falcons would be destroyed by the 30mm. It's so slow and hard to lock onto that most interceptors can't handle it. If the usual two or four man hunting parties were roaming for tank kills, it could well require more than a full squadron to adequately battle them. It's hard to extrapolate from many-against-one situations, but mutual support from A-10s would make runs against them exceedingly dangerous.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

...is not very useful for the average fighter jet. In fact, you could argue it is one of the least, unless you want to run to intercept some bomber trying to get at one of your targets - an interceptor. The average fighting zone is subsonic or transonic for the average 70s-90s jet fighter. Your turn radius really goes up after your corner velocity and your turn rate goes down.

If you really like top speed, you might like the MiG-31. Real fast.

The Su-27 and F-15 once had a mock dogfight (actually a UB trainer versus a D model.) They did it at least twice. I would suppose both sides picked a pretty good pilot for the fight. It was apparently a friendly contest, but both sides would want to look good. I suppose both sides would put in maximal effort - that's sportsmanship and they want to look good.

Anyway, first they put the Su-27 in an advantageous six position. The Su-27 supposedly didn't even have to make a real effort to maintain his advantage - min reheat or even just full mil, without exceeding 18 degrees.

When it was the F-15's turn to begin in an advantageous position, the Russian pilot quickly maanaged to escape the D and began to counter. Apparently he identified a F-15C and attacked it. Oops, wrong fighter, wasted time, and because the Russkie had to align himself with the C to shoot it down, he is probably temporarily locked in plane with the C and allowing the D in principle to try a split plane maneuvering attack as in a 2 on 1. No problem, the D still hadn't regained an advantageous position. Head for the D, bust it.

If the F-15 had an advantage, it sure didn't have time to show it in that battle. We must also remember that the Flanker comes with superior dogfight missiles. In principle, it would have to turn less to get into a weapons envelope. The F-15's advantage, if any, must be in the BVR arena ...

Let's make it more clear, since there are many versions of the Sidewinder. The K-13A/AA-2 Atoll is a AIM-9B basically. The main Soviet bane had always been in electronics. On the other hand, weapons such as the R-73 are superb, rated that way by both sides. Some American pilots even wanted to try to fit R-73s onto their planes instead of that AIM-9M until the Americans produce a "decent WVR missile," which probably means the AIM-9X.

In any case, American fighters are more successful, but I always wonder how much of it is with the fighter, and how much of it is superior numbers, how much of it is training versus what often is a third-rate Third World Nation that nevertheless decided to play with the air force, and how much is the support (like AWACS that gives you a nice superior position to begin the fight and ECM planes that blot out the other guy's attempt to see you on his radar.)

[Sea Skimmer]

OTOH, during the Cold War the USAF had a rather horrid AAM: the AIM-7 Sparrow (even the final versions with that multimode IR/SARH sensor) which put us somewhat at a disadvantage.

The AA-7 was worse, its best models where worse then the mid 60's Sparrows. It's practically disappeared from service in many nation that bought hundreds, you almost never find MiG-23's carrying the things. And while the Sparrow wasn't that great, 90% of what it would have faced had AA-2-2's for radar missiles.

[Sea Skimmer]

Let's make it more clear, since there are many versions of the Sidewinder. The K-13A/AA-2 Atoll is a AIM-9B basically. The main Soviet bane had always been in electronics. On the other hand, weapons such as the R-73 are superb, rated that way by both sides. Some American pilots even wanted to try to fit R-73s onto their planes instead of that AIM-9M until the Americans produce a "decent WVR missile," which probably means the AIM-9X.

Much of the AA-11's performance has turned out to be myth. The effective range is basically the same as the AIM-9M, and the seeker is inferior in some respects because of lower optics qaulity. It however have a somewhat bigger warhead going for it and vectored thrust which bleeds off less energy then using all fins.

[Sea Skimmer]

With the maneuver i saw Mig 29 and Su 27 can do i say Russian would win the fight.

That's an incredibly one dimensional and stupid train of thought. The impressive looking maneuvers the Su-27's do often pull like the Cobra are useless in combat, hell the Cobra is possibly the worst thing you could do with a missile in the air or enemy on your six. beyound that I've never seen them do anything an F-teen can't.

[Sea Skimmer]

The real Russian advantage has always been numbers, and a suburb ground based system to back up what is in the air. The individually quality of the systems wasn't that great, but with air defense all too often it doesn't matter how good each piece is so much as simply covering the country with them.

When you can throw more assests at the threat then it has missiles, fuel or decoys your going to win.

[Col. Crackpot]

what it really boils down to is the USAF and US Navy have much more money to update the avionics and engines and keep the airframes in top fighting condition. my money is on an f-22 vs any 2 other fighters in the world. F-15's are getting old but avioncs upgrades keep them up to snuff. the greatest deciding factor is the US has money to train its pilots constantly whereas the Russians don't.

[irishmick79]

The americans enjoy a decisive edge in training. Russian pilots on average get nowhere near the amount of training flight time the average American pilots get. That's where the americans have the advantage, and why the russians, no matter how good their equipment is, would be overmatched.