Don't try to straw-man me, Glenn. I never proposed anything like that. You're trying to win the argument by painting me as some sort of extremist, which I am not. It's juvenile of you, and you'll get my hackles up. The Soviets had some good stuff- I have already praised their antiaircraft systems, and their integrated air defense system was pretty good, too.* But how about we look at what I actually said: that the AA-11 wasn't common or superior enough to make a great difference. Which you pretty much agreed with, to whit:
Agreed that AA-11 probably wasn't populous enough to make a strategic difference. But
operationally, well, you yourself say further on that airpower is about concentration, right? AIM-9L was v. good, so the types of kill ratios we might be talking about air to air might be 2:1 WVR (but BVR is F-15's playground in the 1980's).
So why are you doing underhanded stuff like straw-men?
I communicated the impression you were underrating all Soviet systems. You've corrected the impression and established the fact that you do see that in some select cases the Soviets were actually in the lead, even while being behind in most areas.
*cough!* Oh, boy, I need a cite for that one. I'm a professional military officer (one more year to retirement!) so I'm sort of sold on the importance of C3I, Brother. Being able direct aircraft better than your opponent allows the assumption of local superiority- pretty damned helpful even without AMRAAM. Not to mention that AIM-7, while certainly inferior to AMRAAM, isn't nothing. The AIM-7M, which was the 38nm variant that entered service in 1982 (ahem- two years before the AA-11), had a 70% hit rate and 60% kill rate in the Gulf War.
Ever since the one cave man saw a knife in his enemy's hand and picked up a rock to throw outside stabbing range, there is a fundamental principle to warfare; to find a way to hit the other guy when he cannot hit back. Successful C3I, at the basic level, is just a fancy rock. It's purpose is to create a zone of immunity where the enemy can be destroyed but cannot hit back. The safest way is if the enemy doesn't even know you're there. But if he does, then C3I sets the boundries on an envelope for engagement that minimizes his lethality and maximizes ours.
But all that assumes you have weapons that are equal to or a little better than the enemy's. If the enemy has better missiles it gets tougher to successfully exploit C3I because now you have to rely on ambush tactics, where he doesn't even know you're there. This is why they built the F-22.
The AMRAAM and AIM-7M are using C3I to set up the shot in an envelope where the enemy counterattack is minimized. Both have an envelope larger than the effective radius of AA-11. So F-15's with effective C3I using BVR tactics are the way to deal with AA-11. That's obvious. What I
said was that in the 1970's the air battles were big swirling dogfights decided by IR missiles and cannons, not BVR tactics. This minimized the usefulness of C3I because BVR fire was ineffective (only 5% of Israeli kills in the 1973 War) and situational awareness collapsed as the dogfight begins.
The 1982 Lebanon War was the first where C3I had a strategic impact. But it might be the exception that casts doubt on the rule - tiny theatre, massive imbalances in force quality, small enemy force structure allowing for a perfect picture situation. Central Europe C3I, circa 1986? Good luck. And, even with this perfect storm for the Israelis, it was the AIM-9L that was doing most of the killing, using C3I to exploit its already massive lethal envelop advantage on the Syrian AA-2 Atoll.
I hope that the Mig-31 is a joke, at least. I mean, yes, it's fast a hell but it's designed to intercept strategic bombers. How does that help the air war in Europe? Fast, yes, but not fast enough to pick off AWACS with impunity.
MIG-31 is lookdown/shootdown. You're a Tornado trying to penetrate between SAM batteries at 200 feet. MIG-31 is a big complication, because if it locks you up, it's raining AA-9's.
Against an F-15, the AA-9 is active radar homing and the AIM-7 is semi-active radar homing. Foxhound was the only jet in the entire Soviet inventory that outmatched the F-15 BVR.
Against thing like AWACS and jammers, don't forget the inverse square law. Yes, the AWACS can sit back 150 miles to prevent an attack, but then it gets the shit jammed out of it. Yes, the jammer can sit back, but a jammer 100 miles back from the SAM loses most of its jamming power and is probably completely useless. A jammer 20 miles from the SAM can be shot down by a MIG-31. Combined arms principles; the '31 makes up for some of the weaknesses in the air defense net, and vice versa.