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And this type of fantastic delusion is why the USA have lost control over 90% of Iraq while Americans back home believe the war is won and 'all over'. Thousands of Americans are being wounded each month and yet you just have no idea...
Stellar
Originally posted by danwild6
Why? Didn't you see how the Iraqi army performed in its first go around with the US Army?
As far as the German agents could you provide a source detailing the intelligence they delivered to the US? I've know that a couple of German intelligence agents assisted the US in a number of ways during the march to Baghdad but as far as giving the US a look at the Iraqi playbook thats a new one.
Then why did they sue for peace? Did they just say "the hell with it Kosovo isn't worth it". Not likely from what I've read about its place in their history.
Originally posted by rogue1
LMAO FFS, you're the one who made this grand statement that tehy could have outfited the MIG-25 with solid state electronics in teh 1970's, simple fact is they couldn't.
I love your tactics when you are proven wrong , you love to say " oh it's irreevant "
As for your last stament about military comparisons, what complete bollocks.
LOL right, so somehow all the Soviet radars are immune from nuclear attack and from interferance.
Come on, this is really getting laughable. As I said the MIG-25 is usless without ground control, n any nulcear war ( per your fanatsy ) these ground stations would be gone, wiped out.
Therefore the MIG-25's if their airfield actually survived would be flying around basically blind. Completely useless.
And no LOL, US planes would no be dropping like flies ( IU ssume ) from EMP.
So your whole argument is the Soviets will win a nuclear war because they build crappy military equipment.
AS I said, they had short endurance and flying at maximum speed shelled their enines.
Not to mention of course they had to go subsonic to launch ther maiiles. Their were unmanouverable and carried no internal gun. Only an ignoramus would be impressed by them.
LOL right, so where exactly did they fly rings around the US. How many planes did MIG-25's shoot down, and how many MIG-25's were sht down LOL.
Well gee that's definately flying rings around them LOL. nce again your grandiose statements are false.
Originally posted by StellarX
After 8 years of war with Iran and then 15 years of sanctions and American intelligence gathering /destruction of infrastructure am i supposed to be surprised to any great extent?
Originally posted by StellarX
Well according to Alex Jones they compromised the plans SH had for defending Baghdad. He had a interview with someone on the topic so i don't have a link to it atm.
Originally posted by StellarX
Because NATO was bombing the crap out Serbia's civilian infrastructure ( a war crime) and industry and obviously Milosevic's rich backers were not interested in losing their wealth in a battle that could not be won. The whole point of invasion was to further fragment the region so as to destabilize Eastern Europe as has always been the MO of the Western European powers.
Originally posted by StellarX
There is more but you really should check out who on the balance should be considered the true criminals/genocidal maniacs. I'll give you a clue and tell you it's not the Serbs...
Originally posted by sweatmonicaIdo
I think the important thing here is to realize that the Russian Federation is pretty much a totally different country from the Soviet Union.
You cannot look back and judge the Soviet Union based on what the Russian Federation is today.
Its quite interesting how as the years go by, people are slowly knowing less and less about the Soviet Union and what it was.
I stick with what many in the know conclude, which is that the Russian Federation is not even a shadow of what it once was.
That's the kind of depths it has descended to. Sometiems I'm a bit surprised they can still sustain a war in Chechnya.
And most of all, never judge something that's never seen action or has never happened.
Originally posted by RetinoidReceptor
I am just really going to respond to this.
If you live in the US you must be BLIND AND DEAF and if you don't (which it says you are in South Africa), then you are just ignorant of American affairs.
Because...nobody in the US thinks the Iraqi war is all won and all over. The midterm election is riding on the Iraqi War.
Most people dying now (like the hundreds of bodies found around Baghdad) are not due to American forces. Nor are the newly found torture chambers.
By the way, what is your opinion on why the US would plant bombs in the Shiites and Sunnis mosques?(which has never been proven).
Originally posted by danwild6
Well you said you were.
Well by the time US forces had reached Baghdad the it was pretty much over for Saddam. And from what I've seen from news reports Saddam didn't really have a master plan for the defense of Baghdad.
He never even beleieved that the US wanted to remove him or wouldn't have been aloud to by the rest of the world.
Or that the Serbian army in Kosovo couldn't continue operations because every time they'd come out in the open they'd get the crap bombed out of them.
And I don't believe that it has ever been the goal of NATO or the western european powers to destabilize eastern europe before or after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Oh and lets just forget about the Kosovars Milosevic brought that war on himself and his people. That very fact puts the main responsibilty
Originally posted by StellarX
He thought he could invade Kuwait and then negotiate a deal concerning their slant drilling and other issues. He did NOT expect to get bombed at all and in fact tried his best to get out of situation without losing too much face. The truth seems to be that the American government suckered him into the invasion and then refused to allow him to leave with his pride even remotely intact; the USA WANTED a excuse to move in the ME with gusto.
Evidence that they were not successful in their primary aim of destroying KLA infrastructure and manpower concentrations? As far as i know they were in fact very successful. They lost very little equipment ( somewhere between 5-10% due to all causes) and if it was not for NATO choosing to bomb Serbian civilians and Serbian infrastructure ( power plants/industrial sites/water sanitation/hospitals bridges etc) their military could have gone on conducting operations for probably as long as it would have taken to put the KLA back many many years.
Then you need to study history. There really is so much information and it's pretty hard for me to try sum it up simply due to you not having much of a clue. ...
Serbians ( and everyone else who got bombed, by NATO by accident hardly deserved that and there is still no evidence of anything even remotely genocidal looking. Milosevic brought the war on himself in as much as he thought he could pursue a terrorist organization outside his borders with the use of regular armed forces.
Originally posted by Cruizer
The alleged MiG 25 shooting down the F/A 18 has never been confirmed and no Iraqi has claimed the kill.
Iraq is believed to have obtained about 20 MiG-25PDs and eight MiG-25RBs in the 1980s. The MiG-25RBs were apparently used in a considerable number of air strikes on Iranian targets during the Iran-Iraq War during the 1980s.
Many Iraqi Foxbats were destroyed on the ground during the Gulf War in 1991, and two were shot down in air combat by F-15s. One MiG-25PD shot down a US Navy F/A-18 Hornet on 20 January 1991, the only air-to-air kill scored by the Iraqis during the entire conflict. Another MiG-25 was shot down by F-16s on 25 December 1992 as a Christmas present to Saddam Hussein. A few MiG-25s were found after the US invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003, with some included in a batch of aircraft that had been buried under the sand for concealment.
www.vectorsite.net...
The Iraqis never established air superiority and the MiG 25 never dominated any combat situation ever in its history of existence.
# ^ Atkinson, Rick. Crusade: The Untold History of the Persian Gulf War. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993, pp 125-126. Quote: But as the Ravens began their second orbit in a counterclockwise turn toward the Syrian border (over Al-Qaim), a MiG-25 suddenly darted toward them at high speed. The Iraqi fired one air-to-air missile at the lead Raven and two at his wingman. The missiles flew wide, but the Ravens dived to escape and then, uncertain where the MiG was lurking, turned back to Saudi Arabia.
# ^ Atkinson, pp 230-231. Two quotes:
* Eighty miles south of the CAP (Coalition Air Patrol), AWACS called a third time "Bandit west, seventy mile. High. Fast." This time it was real. A pair of MiG-25 Foxbats, flying at 42,000 feet and astonishing one thousand knots - faster than an F-15's top speed - streaked from the Iraqi capital toward Cindy CAP. The two Eagle pilots on CAP, flying under call signs Vegas and Giggle, turned to face the enemy fighters. Giggles, slighty in front of his wingman, fired two Sparrow air-to-air missiles at the lead Foxbat, which in turn fired at Vegas. The foxbat banked north in a sweeping turn at twice the speed of sound, outrunning both Sparrows. Vegas peeled south to avoid the enemy missile. He then re-entered the fight and fired three Sparrow missiles at the second Foxbat, but for reason never determined, none of them left the Eagle wings. Vegas, alarmed, broke south. Giggles fired a final, futile missile at the fleeing MiGs and turned to protect his wingman.
* Now Bigum (Lieutenant Colonel Randy) fired. The Sparrow darted from under his plane and climbed sharply before knifing back toward the ground, a sign that the missile had locked onto his target. Bigum watched as the first Iraqi landed and rolled down the runway. "Come on, Bitch" he urged the missile repeatedly. But the Sparrow never made it. The Foxbat had slowed to a forty-knot taxi, and the radar-guided misile could no longer distinguish between aircraft and ground clutter. Then the trail Foxbat floated into view a mile from the western end of the runway, landing gear down. Bigum squeezed off another missile. Again the Sparrow climbed and dived. By this time Bigum had descended to eight thousand feet, directly over the airfield. Only concern at hitting the MiG, he guessed, had kept the Iraqi gunners from firing at such an easy target. As he banked left to escape, the second Foxbat touched down. Bigum saw the curve of the pilot's helmet and puffs of smoke spurt from the tires. Ten feet from the Foxbat's left wingtip, the Sparrow plunged into the runway and exploded. The Iraqi taxied unscathed toward the flight line. The Eagle pilots had fired ten missiles to no effect.
# ^ Atkinson, p 75. Quote: Some of the targets missed or only damaged in the first wave were attacked again. Four F-111s, headed north toward Tikrit, Saddam's summer home, left unscathed on the first night. One turned back, one fled from a pursuing MiG-25, one missed the target, and the fourth put a 2000-pound bomb through the palace skylight.
en.wikipedia.org...
War? It dropped an F-18C on the first night of the war--then went on to fire another missile at an A-6 and buzz an A-7, all while avoiding escorting F-14s and F-15s.
An isolated incident? How about the single Iraqi Foxbat-E that eluded eight sweeping F-15s then tangled with two EF-111As, firing three missiles at the Ravens and chasing them off station. Unfortunately, the Ravens were supporting an F-15E strike, and the EF-111's retreat led to the loss of one of the Strike Eagles to a SAM. Oh BTW, the Foxbat easily avoided interception and returned safely to base.
There's more. When F-15 pilots were fighting for the chance to fly sweeps east of Baghdad late in the war, itching for a chance to get a shot at an Iraqi running for Iran, they weren't expecting the fight that a pair of Foxbats put up. Two Foxbats approached a pair of F-15s, fired missiles before the Eagles could get off shots (the missiles were evaded by the Eagles), then outran those two Eagles, four Sparrows and two Sidewinders fired back at them. Two more Eagles maneuvered to cut the Foxbat's off from their base (four more Eagles tried, but were unable to effect an intercept), and four more Sparrows were expended in vain trying to drop the Foxbats.
The Iraqis had a total of twelve MiG-25PDs at the beginning of the war, of which maybe half were operational at any given time. Imagine what trouble they would have caused if there had been more. The Foxbats, when well flown, proved capable of engaging allied fighters and avoiding them at will. Only the limitations of their weapons proved a problem.
aeroweb.lucia.it...
Any serendipitious victory over Iraq. There is no way to put a spin on pilots running for their lives to escape as being dominant in any stretch of the imagination. For all we know Speicher was hit by AAA and was in his chute when the MiG got a lock on a pilotless plane. At the very very best, if the kill was made by a MiG it was a fluke.
A-12 and the B-70 Mach 3 machines were both impetus for the Russkies to slap together the crate. It used the only engines available that could do the job half way well. Sergei Turmansky had developed a engine for a high altitude drone that due to Sov metalurgical problems was a huge all steel unit that sucked fuel ravenously.
That said, the MiG-25's published 4.5G limit (2.2G with full tanks and weapon loadout) is believed only to exist to satisfy safety regulations; the airframe is widely reported to have a slightly more-respectable 'without deformation' handling limit of 5.0-6.5G. Either way it is considerably less puny when one considers it applies throughout the Foxbat's entire speed range. How many aircraft can pull 4Gs at mach 2.5? One one occasion, during dogfight training a Foxbat was inadvertantly subject to 11.5G stress without breaking up, although the airframe had to be written off due to deformation.
The MiG-25 also used to hold a speed record of 2,319.12km/h or 1,449.45mph over a 1000km closed circuit with 1000kg and 2000kg payloads, set on March 16, 1965. These records were both beaten by a considerable margin by the SR-71 and the YF-12A respectively on July 27, 1976 and May 1, 1965. Presumably the USAF didn't see fit to bother trying for the 100km closed circuit record, which the SR-71 would have undoubtedly shattered.
If the SR-71 and A-12 aircraft didn't have such stringent manoeuvring envelopes they could probably easily beat the MiG-25's time-to-altitude record. Things being as they are, such an attempt would probably cause the aircraft to break up.(15) Operating within limits, it takes an SR-71 about 14 minutes to reach 80,000ft and mach 3 in full afterburner. Go figure.
Note that the MiG-25 performance records were all set by prototypes. The prototypes all had designators beginning Ye-155 or Ye-266 and for the record attempts were designated either E-266 or E-266M, should you wish to look these records up. The difference between the E-266 and E-266M is improved engines in the E-266M, as noted earlier.
everything2.com...
These engines had poor throttle response since they were never designed for pilot control. Didn't matter for an unmanned drone but for a front line combat craft it did. Sov pilots were forbade to exceed Mach 2.5 because the engines usually accelerate out of control. Nearly every time they did their engines were pure junk for the scrap heap afterwards.
"In terms of speed, MiG-25 can fly at mach 3.2 but after that flight - and it will be short one, I don't know how long but it will be short one - but after that flight you must change its engines."
-Viktor Belenko
"Above Mach 2.8 the engines would overheat and burn up. The Americans had clocked a Mig-25 over Israel at Mach 3.2 in 1973. Upon landing in Egypt, the engines were totally destroyed."(10)
"...at speeds of Mach 2.8 or more the engines tended to run out of control and burn up. There were tales in the West that Foxbats that did fly at Mach 3+ for an extended period needed an engine swap when they came back down. "(11)
"When I was in Europe training on the MiG 21 and 23 I spoke with a few pilots who had flown the '25 and they without exception stated that in order to go Mach-3 the engines were subsequently scrap. Serious overtemps." (15)
everything2.com...
The plane had only a combat radius of 186 miles using the AB even at best altitude in intercept mode! It could barely scramble, climb out to altitude and make ONE pass.
Range: 1,730 km (1,075 mi) with internal fuel
en.wikipedia.org...
range (subsonic) 1,730 kilometers 1,075 MI / 935 NMI
range (supersonic) 1,250 kilometers 775 MI / 675 NMI ( for mig-25 PD post defection upgrade)
www.vectorsite.net...
The Americans didn't believe Belenko either at first. The Sovs could make a max of 744 miles using no after burner flying in a straight line but almost never tried to exceed 558 miles. There was no provision for external fuel. At low altitude fuel consumption was worse!! To state that the 25 could "sustain" high mach is simply an inappropriate choice of verbiage.
One MiG-25PD was modified with a 25 centimeter (10 inch) nose plug to accommodate a retractable inflight refueling probe, and was also fitted with additional navigation gear to help it find a tanker. It was given the designation of "MiG-25PDZ". Although some sources claim that a number of operational machines also received this modification, in reality the scheme also foundered on lack of resources, particularly a scarcity of tankers.
www.vectorsite.net...
The BACKFIRE is a long-range aircraft capable of performing nuclear strike, conventional attack, antiship, and reconnaissance missions. Its low-level penetration features make it a much more survivable system than its predecessors. Carrying either bombs or AS-4/KITCHEN air-to-surface missiles, it is a versatile strike aircraft, currently intended for theater attack in Europe and Asia but also capable of intercontinental missions against the United States. The BACKFIRE can be equipped with probes to permit inflight refueling, which would further increase its range and flexibility.
www.fas.org...
The missiles originally slated for the MiG 25 were 2 R-40R radar-guided and 2 IR R-40Ts. With all 4 missiles on the rails it couldn't climb over 68,900 feet.
Thomas said that the Foxbat can carry its full weapons load to Mach 2.8, while a clean recon version can do Mach 3+. Actually, the recon versions have the same limit as the interceptors: Mach 2.83. This is not a thrust limit. You might note that the RB versions of the Foxbat can carry four bombs(!) to Mach 2.83. The Mach 2.83 is a theoretical stability limit on the airframe (which has been safely exceeded on numerous occasions by test pilots). At speeds greater than Mach 2.6 however, throttle control must be precise to keep the engines from overspeeding.
Western Fighter Comparisons -
Lest you think that I am implying that the Foxbat is not a capable aircraft, especially in performance, you might consider the abilities of Western fighters. The F-16 can just barely squeak past Mach 2.0 with a pair of tip 'winders. The F-14 can only manage Mach 1.81. And the mighty Eagle is only good for Mach 1.78. The Foxbat can outclimb all of these fighters by a healthy margin, and has a mauch better supersonic endurance than the best Western fighter. Furthermore, the Foxbat has demonstrated the ability to outrun all U.S. frontline fighters at _low_ altitude. The Foxbat is hardly a dud.
aeroweb.lucia.it...
With 2 it could hit 78,700 feet. The missiles didn't function at all above 88,500 feet so they could have never brought down the A-12/SR-71.
They had short ranges anyhow- 40 miles and 13 miles respectively- far shorter than any US counterpart.
SARH
Speed: Mach 4
Range: 44 mi (70 km)
en.wikipedia.org...
SARH
# Speed: Mach 4.5
# Range:60 km (37 mi)
en.wikipedia.org...
SARH
#Speed Mach 3.5
#Range 160 km (100 mi)
en.wikipedia.org...
SARH
#Speed Mach 3.5
#Range 280 km (175 mi)
en.wikipedia.org...
IR
# Speed: Mach 2.5
Range: 1-18 km (0.62-11.3 mi)
en.wikipedia.org...
IR
# Speed: Mach 4.5
# Range: 30 km (19 mi);
en.wikipedia.org...
While radar was powerful but with a normal acquisition range of 31 miles it was short and it couldn't discern grond clutter in a look-down-shoot-down scenario below 1,700 feet.
With full tanks manevering was limited to Mach 2.2!! With nearly empty tanks anything above 5 Gs was prohibitely dangerous. It couldn't out turn an F-4!!
That said, the MiG-25's published 4.5G limit (2.2G with full tanks and weapon loadout) is believed only to exist to satisfy safety regulations; the airframe is widely reported to have a slightly more-respectable 'without deformation' handling limit of 5.0-6.5G. Either way it is considerably less puny when one considers it applies throughout the Foxbat's entire speed range. How many aircraft can pull 4Gs at mach 2.5? One one occasion, during dogfight training a Foxbat was inadvertantly subject to 11.5G stress without breaking up, although the airframe had to be written off due to deformation.
The MiG-25 also used to hold a speed record of 2,319.12km/h or 1,449.45mph over a 1000km closed circuit with 1000kg and 2000kg payloads, set on March 16, 1965. These records were both beaten by a considerable margin by the SR-71 and the YF-12A respectively on July 27, 1976 and May 1, 1965. Presumably the USAF didn't see fit to bother trying for the 100km closed circuit record, which the SR-71 would have undoubtedly shattered.
If the SR-71 and A-12 aircraft didn't have such stringent manoeuvring envelopes they could probably easily beat the MiG-25's time-to-altitude record. Things being as they are, such an attempt would probably cause the aircraft to break up.(15) Operating within limits, it takes an SR-71 about 14 minutes to reach 80,000ft and mach 3 in full afterburner. Go figure.
Note that the MiG-25 performance records were all set by prototypes. The prototypes all had designators beginning Ye-155 or Ye-266 and for the record attempts were designated either E-266 or E-266M, should you wish to look these records up. The difference between the E-266 and E-266M is improved engines in the E-266M, as noted earlier.
everything2.com...
The fire control system of the F-4 was miniturized and far more precise and accurate than the MiG's.
It's all steel constuction with a couple leading edge tittanium wing shields was not in the spirit of hi-tech with sloppy welds and rivet heads sticking up.
From an elevated-temperature strength:weight perspective. Ti is tough to beat. If it were not for the elevated temperature factor however, alloy steels would stomp Ti. In order to make steel structures competitive with Ti structures for high speed aircraft, you've got to use exotic designs like the B-70's honeycomb. Kelly Johnson knew enough about the nightmares NAA was having with fabricating SS honeycomb to write off this option for the design of the A-12. One has to wonder however, if Kelly knew how much trouble he was going to have with the Ti manufacturing, would he have reconsidered the SS honeycomb?
The Soviets rejected SS honeycomb for the same reasons that Kelly did. I'm sure they would have loved to make the MiG-25 out of Ti, but this was impractical given the current level of Soviet Ti technology, the imposed schedule and the required number of Foxbats to be built. Nickel steel was a compromise, but not nearly as much of one as the aviation press would suggest. The Western press was used to seeing Al and Ti airplanes (they conveniently ignored the X-15, B-70, F-103, F-108 and other high Mach designs) so a steel airplane was a foreign concept to them. Perhaps the USAF was still sore that they seriously screwed-up the F-X design by requiring it to combat super-Foxbats (the CIA had miscalculated the weight of the Foxbat by incorrectly assuming it was made from Al), so they went along with the Foxbat bashing.
Yes, the Foxbat would have better performance if it were made of Ti. At high Mach, however, the difference would be minor. A Ti Foxbat would perhaps have a ceiling a few thousand feet higher. You could also probably tack another couple thousand feet onto its already amazing climb rate. Lest we forget however, nothing made of Ti has come anywhere close to the Ye-266's absolute altitude record. You might also consider that the Ti F-12B was limited to 1.5g at high Mach, while the steel MiG-25P is cleared for 4.5g maneuvers at high Mach.
aeroweb.lucia.it...
* Welding was done by hand and construction was relatively crude. As in many Soviet aircraft, rivet heads were left exposed in areas that would not adversely affect aerodynamic drag.
* The aircraft was built of a nickel-steel alloy, and not titanium as was assumed (though some titanium was used in heat-critical areas). The steel construction contributed to the craft's massive 64,000 lb (29 ton) unarmed weight.
en.wikipedia.org...
The Foxbat was barely the equal of the 15 year old F-4 save for short burst of speed!! The F-15 and F-16 could out climb, out turn, out accelerate, out see, out hide and out shoot the MiG 25.
The MiG 25 had one role only and that was to intercept The non-existant B-70 and the SR-71, which its missiles couldn't reach anyway.
The MiG-25 was designed as a counter for the A-12, not the XB-70. It had been widely held that the MiG-25 was a counter to the XB-70, but recent revelations by the MiG OKB (notably by R.A. Belyakov, the OKB's current head) have dispelled this myth.
aeroweb.lucia.it...
In principle, a MiG-25 could intercept an SR-71 if everything was right, though the window of opportunity was narrow. However, it was apparently still wide enough to discourage the US from performing deep overflights of Soviet territory with the Blackbird.
www.vectorsite.net...
In any air to air fighter vs fighter scenario the MiG was doomed. Where's the invincibility of the vaunted paper tiger MiG 25? Nowhere. It was all myth and propaganda.
The Israelis shot down two Syrian MiG-25s in 1981, while some non-Western sources report that a MiG-25 downed an Israeli F-15 in 1981. Another Syrian MiG-25 was shot down by an Israeli HAWK surface-to-air missile in 1982.
The MiG-25 was in service with the Iraqi Air Force during the Iran-Iraq War, but its combat results are unclear.
During the 1991 Gulf War, two MiG-25s were shot down by U.S. Air Force F-15Cs. After the war in 1992, a U.S. F-16 downed a MiG-25 that violated the no-fly zone in southern Iraq.
US military officials initially claimed that no American aircraft was lost in air-to-air combat during the war. However, later investigations indicated that a US Navy F/A-18 piloted by LCDR Speicher was shot down by an air-to-air missile on the first night of the war.[2] The kill was reportedly made with a R-40DT missile fired from a MiG-25PDS flown by Lt. Zuhair Dawood of the 84th squadron of the IrAF.[3]
In another incident, an Iraqi Foxbat-E, after eluding eight USAF F-15s, fired three missiles at EF-111 electronic warfare aircraft, forcing them to abort their mission.[4] This may have led to the later loss of an F-15 to surface-to-air missiles (which resulted in the capture of its pilot), due to the lack of electronic jamming (assuming the Ravens would have been successfull in jamming, had they been there).
In yet another incident, two MiG-25s approached a pair of F-15s, fired missiles (which were evaded by the F-15s), and then outran the American fighters. Two more F-15s joined the pursuit, and a total of ten air-to-air missiles were fired at the Foxbats, though none could reach them.[5]
According to the same sources, at least one F-111 was also forced to abort its mission by a Foxbat on the first 24 hours of hostilities, during an air raid over Tikrit.[6]
In December 2002, four months before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an Iraqi MiG-25 shot down a U.S. Air Force unmanned Predator drone.
en.wikipedia.org...
If anyone here has ever worked for an aircraft manufacturer which produced warplanes they would know that systems and equipment DOES vary for export models. My best friend put in time with Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas. We have such an array of adequate radars and fire control systems and such there is no reason to put the latest ones in export models. The Sovs don't either as has been witnessed by their satellites in the Cold War. Eastern European nation of the Soviet Bloc were found to have inferior systems and equipment in most cases than when planes like the MiG 15, 17, 19 IL-28 and etc. were front line USSR crates.
I can tell you most assuredly that that inferior structural materials are not substituted in export aircraft anywhere. Just how many reorders would anyone get by supplying inferior, dangerous products?
Originally posted by Cruizer
Ok the bottom line is that if an Iraqi got a lucky hit on the F/A 18 it was just that- a fluke. One kill don't make no air superiority or turn the tide of a battle. MiG 25s did not dominate the battle field in Iraq so I completely reject any portrayal of it as some super plane.
The MiG 25 was a throw-together crate cobbled up out of the desperation of OUR Cold War propaganda. The USSR and the USA swallowed each others propaganda! No MiG 25 was supposed to fly at Mach 2.5 and do 5 G manuevers and neither was any American ship. I can tell you without doubt that Duke Cunningham and Steve Ritchie both manuevered against MiGs at that rate of G and more- not at Mach 2, of course!
He insisted the MiG was not a fighter and not an air superiority plane. It was an interceptor, nothing more. "It did that job reasonable well but it would be virtually helpless against even the F-4." Viktor ended our interview with- "No F-14, F-15 or F-16 pilot need fear the MiG 25. Every system and countermeasure they have is superior to the equal ones of the MiG. Any fighter pilot shot down by a MiG 25 would be either unlucky or asleep."
Originally posted by WestPoint23
I think you missed his point, he said in 1991 Iraq was more advanced than Iran, which is true, and the US back then still whooped Iraq. Before GW1 Iran fought Iraq to a stalemate over years, the US beat Iraq in weeks. And if you want other historical match ups look at Operation Praying Mantis.