Travellar,
The F-15 makes good pilots great ones and hamburger into decent wingmen. Most of that is throttle and stick under CAS with the 220E+ engine. But the
MPCD and the later MFD fitted to some Eagles (as the analogue radar display was replaced in PDM) is still important as are the basic HUD mode BVR
displays.
The MiG-29 makes great pilots equal to the good in an F-15. But ONLY in the physical performance department.
OTOH, how hard is it for the best to get the best out of their airframes is going to be a lot about the operational environs.
The Fatback only gain about a 1,000lbs more fuel, over the Fulcrum A which means it's still going to be a CAP-the-airfield-beacon machine.
Similarly, MiG-29s rarely drop the centerline due to tunnel flow issues. They are severely G limited with it full. If they are still operating with
the original wings (which, in the C, WERE NOT wired for radar missiles on the midspan pylon, even though the C's A2G weapons load was increased to
something like 4,000kg with new tandem pylons) carrying the wing tanks is going to cost you your BVR option. Wing tanks don't clear well at
supersonic speeds and again, the jet is severely G limited with the wings wet and full.
Work their gas options, make them sprint early and then fade to come back off the tanker in your own time. Make the strikers look like fighter air
and then pop the QRA response with a prepositione sweep (kill a radar or two with Cruise).
Some Russian pilots are still getting 60-80hrs a year. Most are under 20. Compare this to U.S./NATO standards which mandate 180-200hrs per year and
are 'feeling the strain' of maintaining competencies at 120 while supporting a fairly hefty ops cycle.
None of the Russians (to my knowledge) train to fight at night. OTOH, our F-15 units have pioneered NVD use as a function of at least basic ACT
skills.
If the threat has 4 Adder, I want 6 AMRAAM and I _will_ be firing from the outer pole inwards. Meep, Meep, Meep, coming thru, honor my lob shot or
wish you had because there's 3 more spaced out behind it.
If I don't have AIM-9X/JHMCS and a decent flare, I _won't_ be giving them the daylight visual merge from an FQ position. EVER. I will work at
night or quiet vector conversions and even then I will be looking for a 2v1 or 4v2 numeric advantagement after the last AMRAAM shot.
If I am fighting in a SAM-dense environment where I have to play lawnmower, I will want an IFDL so that I can do illuminator/shooter drills with my
eyes considerably higher up and further back than my spear chuckers. Obviously I will also need a 'lethal decoy' (WOE) flight to keep the Russians
from looking where they shouldn't be.
Again, this implies numeric AND technologic advantages.
I wouldn't give the Adder shooter even odds by going in with any AIM-120 before the C5. And I would prefer the C-6/7 or later. Because that gets me
the new autopilot and superior shotclock calcs as well as a better warhead. Possibly even remote MCG (depending on which source you read about the
two-way tethers).
If the 'S' is actually the 9.13-SD (mod-C) as I recall it, radar volumes will remain crippled so long as the system is still based on the No-19 and
not the Zhuk based (planar array, new DSP) radar. I just don't believe any jet which still uses the 'Slot Back' antenna system is going to be
doing real 10 plane TWS with two Adder shot support. The scan cone and notch magins are just too fixed. And can be exploited.
Conversely, APG-63V(2) would be nice but the sorting datalink is more important, IMO.
Given you -do have- a post MSIP-2 C model aircraft, all these are 'simmable' as a function of coding technology into an extant game engine
irrespective of the tactical finesse of the players. The question then becoming how much the /other/ side is going to want in turn.
I don't think much of the Russian Gardeniya or their expendables. But that is where it's going to have to start for them in BVR warfare.
I want to slaughter them like sheep with the full court press of all my support agencies so that I can blast their airfields and destroy their DCA
effort on the ramp, they want to reduce things to pure 'SUW' equivalent (element and division) level warfare hoping to add friction while they bring
in other TVD assets.
Give them a monster missile like R-37 and/or a MiG-31 spread. And maybe they can get the chaos they want.
>>
you explained it yourself Ch1466, ergonomics and training aren't accurately reflected in most flight sims. With those factors removed, is it really
any suprise that both aircraft would have similar stats?
>>
I would have to see the weapons stocks and the wing pylons before I believed any 9-13S (modified C) equivalent airframe could carry more than one
Adder per wing.
Or that the Russians have enough of these missiles to 'make a fight of it' in a protracted theater war. Not least because I am going to be going
after those weapon bunkers with Cruise from Day-1-1.
That on it's own would indeed be a decisive difference because, to me, better bullets win over newer scopes and rifles. Provided you can shoot
enough of them. Always.
And Adder is not better than AIM-120 forward of the motor, while the boxkite tails make for a large base drag penalty which exacerbates losses in any
extended midcourse maneuver. Work the missile and count on your wider scan volumes and better sort to keep /more of them/ under fire. Than you are
suffering turn signalitis from.
KPl.
LINKS-
State Of Russian AF
aeroweb.lucia.it...
MiG-29 Variant Breakdown
en.wikipedia.org...
Cockpits
www.richard-seaman.com...
www.sweb.cz...
Interesting if Unrelated Comparison
www.aviation.ru...