Originally posted by Janos
Which still does not matter, except in the air shows. US posesses the best long-range weaponry, targeting systems and with F/A-22, the best stealth. Russia is lagging behind, because their military economy is practically in ruins, they have only ~200 frontline combat aircrafts operational and most of their R&D is spent on upgrading the export Suhoi models. I WUV the Russian design, but their combat abilities are so far not up-to-date.
Well as far as a I know the R-77 is potentially (I guess nobody really knows) the best medium to long range missile there is. I've read and been told quite a bit about the AIM-120 and some of the problems with performance that it has right now. In terms of radar, the Russian designs aren't far behind and some are likely just as capable as current US designs (in the latest block F-15C).
Typically the US radar and the whole array is better integrated and there is a bit less workload for the pilot in that things are automated. Few of the Russian designs have MFD's so there are still
of guages and single use displays.
The other thing is that at present, at least until the AIM-9X is fully equipped on US warplanes, the R-73 Archer is probably the most advanced short range missile there is. The pilot uses a targeting system on his helmet to designate targets and the missile itself has thrust vectoring so you can hit targets something like 30 degrees off axis.
I've learned quite a bit in the last couple of years and it leads me to believe that what the Russians can do is essentially equal to what the Americans can do. The design philosophy is different...you have
of redundancy and older tried and true methods (most of their designs don't have fly-by-wire yet) for making things work but its certainly no less effective in what I've read.
And yes the F/A-22 and the stealth technology that is in that fighter is very impressive but my whole point is that if the F/A-22 is cancelled then there is no F-15C replacement and therefore the dominance of US fighter planes is significantly reduced by new generation of fighters from Russian manufacturers and from Europe. Obviously pilot training in the US is very good and they do have some of the best pilots around (although Canadian pilots have ranked number one in a number of excercises
) so you boost your advantage and thats why the F-15 has a 101 to 0 kill to combat loss ratio....but that is diminished if your opponent has better jets and better or equal weapons. An F-15 in a close in fight is not going to be as good as a Su-27 and inevitably you are going to find yourself in a close in fight.
And I was under the distinct impression that the EF2000 is super manuverable because of 1) Unstable design 2) Thurst vectoring 3) Forward canard planes.
