1)Decimate the MiGs and Sukhois if you're including all the players besides the fighters. Since it's NATO, you can throw in some Eurofighters or Rafales into the mix as well. 2)Yes and no. The Europeans already have off boresight missiles of their own, and soon the US will as well. Then it comes down to training, which is where NATO really shines. But AMRAAM definitely has a proven track record. 3)They have advertised the AA-12 as an "excellent" missile, but it has yet to prove itself in combat. 4)Err...superior? How are they superior? The current generation of NATO fighters can dogfight with what the Russians have in service, and the next generation will be even better. The question is whether Russia will be able to field fighters to compete with those. 5)B/c their quality control is worse than what you'd see in middle school shop class. Also, their systems are horribly horribly dated. Their software wouldn't be compatible with Western systems, and they're behind us in FBW technology.

I am going to agree with USN-MID on the first point because of pilot training levels and support infastructer (ECCM, AWACS, etc.) With the second point, again pilot training, but I do not think the Russian aircraft are in any way inferior to NATO with regards to dogfighting. The same goes for the missiles. I am a fan of the later models of the R-27 (ER, EA, EM) but they have yet to prove themselves in combat. They also have a significant range advantage over the AMRAAM in all flight regimes. The R-77 also has yet to prove itself in combat but that doesn't mean it is a poor missile. (e.g. the AIM-9X is universally agreed to be a great weapon but it hasn't scured a single kill, unlike the R-73). "The current generation of NATO fighters can dogfight with what the Russians have in service" As they are now both the F-15 and F-16 would be at a disadvantage in a dogfight with a MiG-29 or Su-27 (not taking into account pilot training). The western fighters' flight control system imposes hard, finite limits regarding alpha, unlike that of the Russian aircraft. This, coupled with inferior flight performance in terms of climb & acceleration (F-15 vs Su-27, F-16 vs. MiG-29) would mean that the American aircraft would find it harder to recover once they have bled off most of their energy. The AIM-9X is not yet in widespread service, unlike the R-73A/E which arms every Russian fighter with the exception of the MiG-31 and the very few remaining Floggers and Foxbats. There are only two advantages I can think of that the US fighters would have in a furball over the Russian aircraft, and that is better pit visibility and superior reliability of systems. I think the Mirage2000 would be a much tougher opponent in a dogfight than either an F-15 or F-16 on account of its wing loading. Like I mentioned in earlier threads, a way around the quality control (and spare parts) problems would be for a nation to license build the Russian aircraft.

On the contrary. I've heard from good sources that another problem with buying Russian aircraft is that the electronics are dated or inferior quality by design. The engines are also not designed to last nearly as long as Western engines, despite their high performance. Pit visibility is a very significant factor in dogfighting, and both the Su-27 and MiG-29 have a blind spot to the rear which has been taken advantage of in trials. You're not accounting for the F-18, which in trials with the Luftwaffe MiG-29s has usually come up about even, and that's WITHOUT HMCS. And the Luftwaffe has a highly trained force. The F-15 and F-14 are old fighters, but the F-16 and F-18 could certainly take on the current Russian fighters in a dogfight. In fact, your statement on thrust to weight does not apply in MiG-29(major variant) vs. the F-18C. As for high alpha restrictions, the F-18C has better high alpha performance than Russian fighters. I assume you DO understand high alpha means you can do more than briefly enter in and out like the Cobra. The F-16 is also a better turner than either the MiG or Sukhoi. Overall dogfighting performance, they come out about even. Furthermore, you're not accounting for the OTHER NATO fighters. NATO isn't just US you know, and any one of the major NATO air forces could probably stand down Russia. And those NATO air forces include formidable dogfighting aircraft like the British Harrier and the aforementioned Mirage 2000. As it stands, the NATO air force of today would open up a royal can of whoop ass on the current Russian air force. NATO's been improving and consolidating while Russia's trying to dig its way out of its economic pit. Not a fair comparison anymore.

...perhaps a good deal more information on exact peformance would be to ask any USAF pilots who flew against German MiG-29's in the fighter competitions at Nellis AFB, and anywhere else... I would assume the US at least would have gotten solid performance data as to what a one-on-one slugfest with the -29 would really be like.

A piece of solid info I picked up recently btw. You know the advertised 150mi range for those Russian BVR missiles? The only problem is I've heard from an Eagle driver that the intel on the Flanker radar scope range is considerably less, though he would not clarify. Perhaps our resident AF intel guy, displacedjim could tell us more if it isn't classified.

Until the MiG-31 with its Phasotron ESA radar, as a rule western jets had the better radars, while NATO was concerned with the proliferation of so many varied Soviet AAM'S... But still, I doubt the claimed performance of the supposed 400km missile for the BiG-31. They would need mid-course updating from another aircraft broadcasting its radar to adjust the AAM's trajectory... unless now they are implying the ESA has a 400km range.

Why not, the ASG-18 was supposed to see targets at ranges approaching 300 miles, and that was well prior to 1970. The Mirage is quite a handfull especially at high altitudes, where it can outfly an F-16. (But then, so can an F-104 and apparently even outturn it at high altitudes and supersonic speeds). However the Mirage does not have a particularly excellent thrust/weight ratio or missiles comparable to AIM-120 in terms of accuracy at longer ranges. The F-16 can outturn the SU-27? Do we know this for sure? If so I'm interested to see the details. At any rate if anyone puts F100-229As in their F-15s or F-16s, the Russians' thrust/weight advantage _more than_ disappears. Visibility and avionics count for a _lot_ by the way. Given reliable and accurate weapons, (and of course high proficiency aircrews) they are probably the two _most_ important aspects of air combat, moreso than the aerodynamic performance of the platform. The Russians have a long way to go with this, their computer technology is probably about twenty years behind ours, except where they've "obtained examples" of it for study. Back in the sixties they had to buy Japanese radios to reverse-engineer the transistors. A few years before that, a rather influential Soviet government official put a stop to the use of boolean logic; not being exactly mathematically literate he decided that if he couldn't understand what the scientists were talking about they must be wrong. So he invented his own system to be used instead, and--hey, look, no computers!

USN-MID, Like I said while talking with Boris, there's more to determining the range of an aircraft-missile weapon system than the missile's kinematic maximum range. Radar detection range of the target and radar lock-on range of the target are limiting factors, although you can use a data link to launch first and lock-on in flight. And a primary factor in detection/lock-on range is target RCS. For anyone out there who still doesn't grasp the advantage of stealth, this is why an F-22 or F-35 will easily be able to launch on a MiG-29 or Su-27 before the MiG or Sukhoi pilot even has detected the F-22/35 on his radar. 5m2 v. 0.01m2 makes quite a difference. Displacedjim

I know. I was wondering if you could shed more light on the Russian radar problem. As you've already said, detection range is a factor. I was wondering what was the practical operating range of Russian Flanker radar systems. The Fulcrum radar has already been dismissed by many people as nearly irrelevant and incapable of maintaining a lock. I was wondering if the Flanker was any better.

Sorry, I can't tell you anything about SLOT BACK ranges off the top of my head. I'm not an air-to-air analyst, so I'd need to do a search on it the next weekend I go in. The biggest problem is that the more classification caveats on the data, the more intel geeks like it; it's had to find any interesting data that's unclassified. :-( I wouldn't necessarily consign the MiG-29's SLOT BACK to the trash heap just yet. I don't know the details of those complaints, but I figure the East Germans knew how to use them pretty well to do as well as some here have said. Also, any problems might be more of a maintenance/mean time between failure type of issue, rather than a performance in the air type of issue. That said, doppler radars can have a weakness in that it can be possible for the target to break lock by beaming the aircraft (target turns to a 90 degree heading relative to the aircraft to reduce the doppler shift to zero). Just a couple random thoughts. Displacedjim