Have the dogfights changed since the installation of missiles?

Question

Please tell how have they changed as well.

Well! which's your favourite fighter plane.

Answer 1

The key to killing the other guy is avoid a close-in turning fight.  I want to kill the bad guy(s) as far away as possible.  As Warbird Pilot mentioned, I want to make my kill(s) and get away; ideally without them knowing what hit them.  In aerial engagements up to right now, 70-80% of kills were made against targets that had no idea what was happening.  With early IR missiles, one still had to get in behind the 3-9 line of the target; ideally between his 4-7 o'clock position to guarantee the missile would track when launched.  The difference now being I can be 1-3 miles in trail, rather than 200yds or less, and still hit.  With AIM7/AA7 type missiles, I had to sort a radar target, paint it and lock the firecontrol system on to give the missile some radar energy to home to.  These were originally designed to knock down bombers, and the very earliest models had lousy Pk (Probability of Kill) in Vietnam.  However, later models and better tactics gave fighter guys the opportunity to get that Beyond Visual Range (BVR) -usually around 12 miles in a nose-nose aspect- kill everyone wanted to achieve.  The Phoenix system on the F14 THEORETICALLY allowed them to engage 6 targets simultaneously, but that system was only tested once.  Phoenix was a huge relatively slow missile, and I would hazard a guess that it's BVR Pk against a maneuvering target would be fairly low.

The current BVR missiles AIM120/AA12 allow one to get a high Pk BVR, which means I can assign targets  and launch, breaking up enemy packages well before the merge, ie. visual range "dogfight".

As far as IR missiles, they've expanded their ability to track beyond that 4-6 o'clock position, to almost all aspects.  Though one's Pk does down somewhat.  And, off-boresight targeting with helmet-mounted sights does help in visual engagements; the key is not to let the bad guys get that far....

My favorite fighter:  other than the F4 of course would have to be the Me262.  Fast, high ceiling, brutally lethal armament; absolutely revolutionary.  Even in Korea, 5-6 years later it was still a superior weapon system to the Gloster Meteor IV, F80,F82,F84, with decent engines.

Answer 2

no, the planes have avoidance tech so the best plane/pilot combo would still win.

Fav plane is the mustang.

Answer 3

The best 3 words an Iron Driver can hear, "Fire and Forget"

Answer 4

The goal nowadays is no dogfight.  And even if you don't have missiles left, you want him dead within 180 degrees of turn.  A turning fight gets anchored and anchored fights attract help.

Even Bubi Hartman, the world's highest scoring ace ever, had what he called his "coffee break".  He would spend 20 minutes stalking his prey (usually an IL-16) and when he attacked, if the guy broke in to him he kept right on going.  

The guy that gets you is the one you don't see -- goes all the way back to Bolcke.

Answer 5

Figure, pre-missile, the aggressor had to stay on the target, shooting guns or cannons, until enough hits were made.

With the SIDEWINDER (basically, a heat-seeker), the pilot could fire once locked on, and HOPEFULLY go on his way.

Later SPARROW missiles, while radar guided, needed the pilot to stay on target, "painting" the target with his radar almost to point of impact. So here we're almost back to the pre-missile days.

Then the AAMRAM missile came out. While radar guided, it and it's ilk are the "fire and forget" missiles (once locked, fire it and go on about your other business).

The F-14 can (could) engage up to 8 (I believe) targets simultaneously. Plus, it's Phoenix missiles could hit a target 100 miles away, further than the pilot could visually see.

Finally, in the old days, you had to be headed at you target, because of forward firing guns.

Now, there are fighters with special helmets that all the pilot has to do is turn his head (there's a HUD [Heads Up Display] in the visor), and lock on and fire.

Answer 6

First, lets define "dogfight". A dogfight is a low to medium speed, close-in, turning fight, usually not involving missiles as the range will often be too short to employ them. This makes the primary weapon of the dogfight the gun. If missiles are used, they'll typically be short-range missiles like the AIM-9 sidewinder. In such short-range missile shots, the maneuvering techniques don't change much. In close in fighting, the absolute goal is to get behind your oponent, which gives you the best chance for successful attack. Snap shots made fom off angles are rarely successful. In such a fight, the tactics are aften very similiar to those developed in the early days of military aviation. The largest difference is simply that the speeds are higher, so the combatants will cross more sky in the process and reaction times are lower. Even in Vietnam, when our F-4s only employed missiles, an actual anchored, turning "dogfight" wasn't common. In fact, such a ight would put the F-4 at a disadvantage against the more nimble MiG-21 an MiG-17/19 used by the North Vietnamese. The F-4s would use would use longer, sweeping passes to avoid getting cornered. The above posts are correct in that the dogfight is typically to be avoided if you have reliable missile systems and a wide maneuvering advantage but if you get into a close scrape, you'll end up using all of the same moves and teamwork that pilots were using in WWI and WWII.