Well as far as that F-15 vs Mig situation...lets not leave out a couple of things 1. 15's don't work alone 2. alone means with awacs 3. f-15E's would know he was coming long before leaving themselves as sitting ducks (which they aren't .... really trust me on this one). 4. What countries have mig's that we have to worry about that a. wont be destroyed before they are off the ground b. have pilots with more than a couple of hours flying that month and c.well maintained aircraft with enough fuel and munitions, let alone running engines, that we have to worry about....
Thanks for the turn radius...but proves my point...
-ElRoy

If start saying that the mig 25 would also have its support.

TCat
Such AS? What other countries that sport the mig also have airborne c2 capabilities (realize that ground based c2 would be long gone)? Any other support?
-ElRoy

Russia with its own awacs like planes and ground support perhaps?

What are they called? How many do they have? Do they exist? Are they as capable as the US's? I need some specifics here...the ball is in your court.
ElRoy

Good job
Now, about how many do you think that they have? How many do you think that they can keep flying, for how long, how many refuelers? I know that this conversation could go on forever. Lets look at it like this: The US military (not just a F-15) would win in this situation, we have more resources, better maintained and designed equipment, and a bigger budget. This in total would mean that any hopes of a Russian military machine coming through...it would break down real quick.
BTW, Russia is selling/leasing a whole lot of those mainstays right now...they need money. Same goes for other MWSs.
-ElRoy

The only way to get to know which one is better. Both planes need to have the same level of support and such.

But the US has guarenteed support...it is what we do...we call it doctrine. I think we should call this one quits b/c it is going no where and we could argue till we are both blue in the face and this thread gets shut down.
ElRoy

Indeed the point you and i make cannot be proven as there hasnt been a fair fight between the mig 25 and the F15.

Alright, last post on this topic.,...agreed?....but you might want to consider why we fight wars and how we want to fight wars....you said the following "fair fight" Think about it. Catch you later
ElRoy

F-15 -vs- MiG-25? Well, as one was based on 'tother in first place...

If we are in this situation though, I assume with that big AWACS plane it would be Russia fighting. Hence, MiG-31 in action, so i'll use that. I assume we mean in todays modern theater of war, and not hypothetically back in the day?

Oh, the US came up against a MiG-25 or a few in first Gulf War. MiG-25 got the first A2A kill. Just a fact... It also escaped unharmed, and outran the missiles. It really is an awesome plane, especially for its age.

F-15 is good. No doubt about that. MiG-31 is good too. It'd be a case of luck really. MiG is faster, and heavier armed. F-15 has agility on its side moreso. MiG is a bigger, heavier plane. Its a case of who's better on the day, and can use their planes abilities to greater advantage. The MiG also has a higher service ceiling, and in A2A combat, thats a bonus. If you can drop out the sky on your opponent, your on a winner.

And lets face it, if the US and Russia went to war, it would end in a messy stalemate with no winner, both sides leaving when they agreed the slaughter had gone to far.

Originally posted by just_a_pilot


DE: The Soviets seem to have difficulty implementing modern technology.
Would you comment on that?

Belenko: Well, let's talk about aircraft engine lifetime. When I flew the
MiG-25, its engines had a total lifetime of 250 hours.

DE: Is that mean-time-between-failure?

Belenko: No, the engine is finished; it is scrapped.

DE: You mean they pull it out and throw it away, not even overhauling it?

Belenko: That is correct. Overhaul is too expensive.

DE: That is absurdly low by free world standards.

Belenko: I know.
-- an interview with Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976
"Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 102

Russian jets (meaning the engines) have always trailed western jet technology. I don't know why this is, but it's true for every aviation segment be it miltary or commercial. On the commercial side you have Tupolev and Antanov planes with a generally good airframe and wing designs that have been hampered by crappy low-bypass engines (or very inefficient high-bypass). On the military side.. well just read this thread...

Osiris

Originally posted by Dima
well, yea, hell yea, the SR-71 is really fast, but it regretfully flies like a rock, if a missile was actually fired at it(well, it depends what missile)its screwed, nice and simple, most missiles can go around Mach 3, but some, like the new Russian AA-12 Adder is capable of Mach 4.5, so i think, that the reason why the russians didn't shoot down any SR-71's is because, they simply didn't have any missiles that were fast enough, but now they do, so, the US is using satellites,

and i doubt that the ameicans flew a lot of sorties across russian air space, because, the americans, were never aware of the massive biological plants and chemical plants as well as the numerous and countless hundreds of facilities that the russians used for scientific research, the americans never really could get a clear description

and just like amerca has Area 51, russia has Saratov base(although, unlike the american base, its actually a better kept secret)

Basically a Foxbat doesn't need all this crap with top speed for hours..

A) Its radar can track the Blackbird fast enough.. A blackbird would in practic go against the foxbat, and it wouldnt turn around fast enough to avoid the Radar. And we're not even talking about the MiG-31 radar... Plus the speed is more than enough counting with the missiles

B) The foxbat/hound is led by ground radars, so even in case the onboard radar cant do it, the ground one easily can.

C) Missiles will take the SR-71 out, no matter if its ground or plane radar guided... Its like a defence net





[edit on 13-3-2005 by Angrykirill]

The russians tried to shoot down SR-71`s with mig-25`s staged out of tripoli - on at least one occasion they had good intercept info , the SR-71 changed course and the foxbat burned its engines out trying to close to launch range.

Mig-25`s were never designed for chasing blackbirds - they were designed for going against the valkerie

As to the original point of this thread...the SR-71 was fired upon on more than 1000 occasions, having everything you can imagine hurled at it...It remains untouched...and as Harlequin mentioned there was at least one incident where 3 mig 25s were positioned, one above, one in front and one beside for an intercept...it is recorded history that in order to evade, the SR-71 crew did absolutely nothing, not even advance throttles....

well, maybe they waved

the "interceptions" made by the mig25s and mig31s were done out the russian aero-space, shotdown an blackbird at such conditions would be initiated an stupid international conflict,i dont know about the "tripoly incident" maybe is another cold war tale, but the point is that the sr71 was intercepted (hell if this guys are right the blackbird was surrounded!!!!:lol
) and had an very limited capacity in the recon missions over the su, but the sr71 had an very intensive missions over china, the foxbat had the capacity to down the sr71, and was designed against the A12-sr71, not against the Valkirie.

about the bypass engines, thats relative, low bypass=engine performance; high bypass=fuel savings

I dont think the MiG-25 was meant for A2A combat. It was suppose to be a recconaisance plane and to chase the Blackbird. But its manueveribility wasn't very good at lower speeds because its design is just to go very fast.

yes the foxbat wasnt designed mainly as an maneuverable plane, but also wasnt designed mainly as an interceptor (the plane is between both concepts), the same for the mig21 -that was designed primary as an high altitude interceptor-, but the soviet doctrine had big importance the planes agility, in the 50-60s the main "interceptor" airframe was an tailess delta, later that evolutinated in medium aspect ratio wings, the "evolution" is like from mirage 3 to mirage f1, the foxbat is based in that aerodynamic (but performed more to high speeds), it have an high-supersonic g limit of 5 gs and a ultimate g limit of 11gs before plastic deformation, so isnt an very low maneuverable plane, but obviusly isnt also an su27.

maneuverability is also an relative concept, one could say that an tornado with 7.5 g limit is less maneuverable than an f15c with 9gs, yes, but that at low level, at medium-high levels the tornado have an advantage with the low bypass engines (at least over the mayority of f15cs f110-f100 engines) and variable geometry (saving maneuvre energy and reducing lose of heigh and get into the combat with more energy -speed and heigh-), the same for the mig25 that was designed to be an medium-high altitude fighter-interceptor by that huge turbojet t/w and speed-heigh design that help to keep better at more heigh in combat speeds, but also not to depend comletely in these conditions (medium aspect ratio-tappered wing), -in fact that was the reason of some f15 pilots scary moments in the gulf war against the foxbat-

so is relative in which arena your fighting