There was a post in HN some weeks ago where a comment claimed that US fighters were always superior to Soviet fighters.
I didn't have the energy to dispute it then, but this piece does a pretty good job. The MiG 15 was very much comparable to the Sabre, and the MiG 17 and MiG 21 were better than the F-100, F-105 and the F-104 (ha!)[1].
It was only when the F-4 became available that the US could match the MiG-21 (which was one of the reasons that the Israelis mostly flew Mirages until the mid-1970s).
I think the consensus was that the Mig-15 had the slight edge on the F-86, but US pilots were better trained than North Korean pilots. As it turns out Soviet pilots occasionally flew in Korea and gave US pilots a run for their money.
Mig-15,17, and 19s were giving F-4's a run for their money in Vietnam until Phantom pilots quit trying to turn with the smaller Migs and just used their giant J79 engines w/ afterburner to fight vertically. I believe the Phantoms always had the advantage but it was obscene to lose a 2 crew multirole state of the art fighter like an f-4 for every one or two outdated Mig-15s that were shot down.
The Mig-21 was a point defense interceptor intended to zoom up to altitude quickly and intercept US bombers. It was a reasonable fighter because it's wing. Delta wings don't have a sharp stall angle like other types of wings, they just start piling on drag as the angle of attack increases. The closest US fighter is terms of design is probably the f-104, but the Mig-21 was really in the same class performance wise as the f-4.
The Mig-29, SU-27 and on are solid first class fighters and probably have the edge on the F-16 and F-15.
The training thing is addressed in the article, as near as historians can tell when facing soviet pilots the kill ratio was 1.4 to 1 (favouring the Sabre) but rose to 9:1 when flying against non-soviet pilots.
> The Mig-29, SU-27 and on are solid first class fighters and probably have the edge on the F-16 and F-15.
As a pure dog fighting aircraft possibly but as an air intercept fighter I think the F15 (with the except of the F22 and the EF2000) is still the thing to beat.
Probably true. The f15 has shot down a satellite, landed without one of it's wings, and has never lost a fight. Not bad for something that first flew 43 years ago.
The F15 is an interesting story, it was created in part as a reaction to the terrifying intelligence they had about the Mig25, they went all out to create something to beat something that turned out not to exist in a sense (The Mig-25 existed of course but it's actual characteristics where very different to what intelligence suggested, it was big and fast and that was about it, if it ran at full speed the engines ate themselves).
In doing so they created the best air intercept fighter of it's generation and a design that is still considered premier-tier, the US consider it obsolete because it lacks stealth but not every country has fully adopted the stealth mantra (the Russians never really did or possibly didn't have the manufacturing capability).
It will be interesting to see if they continue it's development, there where nominal plans for new variant called the Silent Eagle which adopted some radar reduction measures and upgraded it's electronics to state of the art, I think once you except stealth that we are at a point with fighters where the airframe is secondary to the avionics and weapons, they all have the capability to kill the pilot from G forces so maneuverability isn't really an issue anymore.
It's interesting to see what the Indians have done with their Mig-21 upgrade program, with modern avionics and weapons it's reputedly as potent as a middle-bloc F16 which considering that's a 60 year old air frame design is incredible.
I'd pretty much agree about the F15, but I do think that the F14 is underrated in the role[1]. It certainly seemed much better in its day than the Super Hornet (aka "shit the F35 still isn't ready. Please give us something. Anything.") is today. I guess the Super Hornet is better than the old Hornet though.
F14/Phoenix was a fleet defense weapon -- horribly expensive and intensive to operate, intended to stop long-range Soviet bombers from griefing the carrier battle groups (Tu-22Ms and Tu-160s with Moskit or similar supersonic anti-shipping missiles are a carrier captain's nightmare). Once the cold war went away there wasn't really anyone left who offered that kind of credible threat, and attempts to turn the F14 into a bomber were more expensive and less effective than the F/A18.
Today, there is one aicraft/missile in service with roughly comparable performance to the F14/Phoenix -- the Eurofighter Typhoon II when equipped with the (similar range to Phoenix) Meteor missile. This isn't an accident. One of the major purchasers for Typhoon is the UK, satirically renamed "Airstrip One" by George Orwell in 1984; because it's basically an unsinkable aircraft carrier off the coast of Western Europe, and in event of a conflict with Russia it'd be a major NATO logistical resupply target for the aforementioned TU-23Ms and Tu-160s. The Typhoon II was delayed into the 21st century but basically it started as a cold war solution to the exact same problem as the F14, minus the cats and traps.
The reason why delta wing is good is twofold. It allows supersonic flight and it gives you sharp high angle-of-attack turns.
The bad thing is that the high AoA turn is based on upper portion of the wing generating shitload of high energy vortexes. This "energy bleed" slows you down and limits the number of consecutive turns you can do.
I once heard second hand (but never confirmed it) that the F-16s wing area is a bit smaller that originally intended because you couldn't have a cheap multirole fighter like the F-16 routinely beating the crap out of massively expensive Air to Air only F-15 in mock dogfights. I kind of believe it because even though the F-16 can sustain 9g's it does that between at it's 340kt-440kt cornering speed. A larger wing would have meant a slower cornering speed and a tighter turn at 9g's (if the F-100 engine could provide the thrust).
On the missiles, stealth etc comment, I think you're right. I think beyond visual range (BVR) fighting got a false start in Vietnam. At the time BVR was used in the context of shooting sparrows at Soviet bombers in a nuclear scenario. ie. A bunch of non maneuvering planes on the radar that were clearly Soviet bombers and were not friendly or civilian air traffic.
The F-4 was initially very bad at this role because BVR missiles sucked initially and sometimes just dropped off the wing without firing, they had no cannon, and often a visual confirmation was required to take a shot (I believe). That soured the BVR taste for many people.
Newer technology allows a more realistic BVR fight even when worrying about friendly and civilian air traffic.
The thrust/weight ratios of engines are stuck somewhere below 10/1 with afterburners. Military power is significantly less than that. Engine is single most heavy component, and structures have to be calculated to carry that two tonne lump of metals though 9G turn. So engine thrust/weight is pretty much the defining factor. I don't think F110 could have lent it self to significantly more.
BVR missiles might become the thing or not. If stealth goes far enough, close encounters with airplanes might become unavoidable. This would be incredibly expensive with modern off bore IR missiles. You would essentially always have 1/1 kill ratios, no matter what side you are on. The golden age of BVR missile might have been the 90's. A decade with very little air combat.
On the other hand if BVR is the thing (maybe with sophisticated IR tracking, I don't know.) Then fighter plane is just overly expensive launch platform. Drones and long range SAMs should take over. You might even reach a point where stealth stops mattering, because you just try to saturate airspace with hordes of very cheap drones carrying relatively expensive missiles.
Then there is missile killing lasers. But you could end up with similar results with turreted "metal storm" auto cannon. Lots of the lasers apparent superiority comes from sophisticated kill chain. Detect, recognize, track, aim an boom. Only certain type of "boom" is result of using a laser. Kinetic shell adds only one step of calculating ballistics, which these days is easiest one in the bunch. If this happens, air combat would turn into a contest of long range gunnery.
I didn't think the Korean-War era MiG-15s were still in combat service in the Vietnam war. The similar looking MiG-17s were certainly a tough opponent in that conflict.
I think the lead was handed backwards and forwards between both sides in terms purely of aircraft.
Where the US nearly always had the advantage was in logistics, build quality, electronics and to some extent early but definitely later AWACS.
That and US strategy left much more of the authority on the pilot in the cockpit where soviet doctrine was directed ground control intercepts, this made a difference.
Also US pilots got more airtime then pretty much any other airforce (except possibly the Isreali's iirc) so training was a factor as well.
Against all that the soviets had lots of everything.
> Hint: The bomber the US used as the backbone of the Strategic Air Command wasn't used in Korea.
Just as well; cost five times as much as a B-29 per flying hour and even with the jet boost could barely clear 40,000 ft. Sabre pilots often reported MiG-15s well above them, near 50,000 ft, so I doubt they'd have had much difficulty tackling the Peacemakers.
I didn't have the energy to dispute it then, but this piece does a pretty good job. The MiG 15 was very much comparable to the Sabre, and the MiG 17 and MiG 21 were better than the F-100, F-105 and the F-104 (ha!)[1].
It was only when the F-4 became available that the US could match the MiG-21 (which was one of the reasons that the Israelis mostly flew Mirages until the mid-1970s).
[1] eg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-104_Starfighter#Ind...