Only idea I can offer is very early the specs for a lighter F15 are chosen. Something not recognizable as we know the F15 but which falls between the F15 & F16 in cost and capability.
WI: F-16 is Cancelled
- Thread starter Have Blue-117
- Start date
According to whom, exactly?
Certainly not those who flew DACT against the Sea Harrier - particularly after the introduction of the FA.2
Are you also forgetting the 20:0 kill ratio achieved in air to air combat during the Falklands campaign?
That's absurd - even the most cursory examination of the Lavi programme will reveal this assertion to be utter claptrap.
SsgtC
Banned
I wouldn't exactly use that as your benchmark. Elite British Naval Aviators going against what could be generously classified as a second tier air force. In a peer-to-peer conflict, the Harrier would get annihilated. It's a great ground attack or antisurface aircraft. But it's a lousy fighter.
That's an interesting point of view - have you seen any official assessments from those air forces who flew DACT (Dissimilar Air Combat Training) against them? Or maybe spoken directly with anyone who flew against them in such exercises - from a 'peer' force, the USN say?
'Second Tier' the Argentinean forces may well have been, compared to our expected partners and opponents in the European theatre, but to imply that their pilots were not well trained and skilled at getting the most from the equipment available, is to do them a terrible disservice.
Fine, I'll amend - it's crap at dogfighting. As far as using missiles (which is more important anyway), they're more than fair. The points about maneuvrability and speed stand though.
Also, while you're right about DACT, taking the Falklands as an example is...perhaps not the most demonstrative, considering the gap in pilot skill.
SsgtC
Banned
Actually yes. I've spoken to numerous people who both fly them and maintain them. Every single one of them had said that they would only engage in air-to-air if they had no other options to escape. And they certainly wouldn't go looking for it.
Care to expand on that? A small, visual target, thrust in excess of unity and highly manoeuvrable - with some unique abilities make for one of the best pre fifth gen WVR platforms there is!
Can you describe, in detail, a WVR, turning fight scenario where you believe it to be 'crap'?
I'm confused now - are you claiming that FRS.1 or FA.2 pilots (these marks having the primary mission of fleet defence, lest you forget - with the FA.2 in particular having a superb BVR capability) have expressly told you their first choice in an engagement would be to 'run away'???
SsgtC
Banned
No, I'm saying USMC Aviators have told me that they would never willing engage in air to air combat if they could avoid it. With obvious exceptions for if an absolutely golden opportunity presented itself
That's hardly surprising, given that, beyond an austere self defence ability, the AV-8B had no A2A capabilities (and no real RW suite, either!) whatsoever until the introduction of the Harrier II +.
My first post on the matter explicitly refers to the Sea Harrier, so that's apples and oranges really, isn't it?
Cryhavoc101
Donor
Didn't stop them buying the Canberra and if there is an attitude change to the 'ideology' that gave birth to the F16 then maybe that attitude switches to a dispersed 'high sortie' airforce strategy operating from small sites alongside the high end F15 force operating from the established bases!
And like the Canberra the Aircraft would be american built and lets face it if McDD had not started building them the Harrier proobably would have died off in the late 70s and 80s! So it is pretty much an American Plane as well.
As for the Navy OTL the F14 was going to be developed into a Mud mover but this initiative ended when it was decided to move to the F/A18 Super Hornet airframe to Replace both the A6 and F14
In this scenario it would likely be the F14 'D' replacing the Older F14, the F18 (which probably might not exist in this ATL without the same competition between the XF16 and XF17) older F4s and A7 back in the 80s.
The F14 getting mud moving abilities would mean that it remains something the Marines would like and it effectively replaces the F4s in Marine Service.
Sea Harrier say's "Excuse me - but I'm 20 for nought - what's a fighter plane gotta do to be considered good around here?"
Of the 'modern' fighters only F15, SU27 and SHAR can claim total 1 sided positive Kill vs losses ratios in Air to Air combat in the last 40 odd years.
SHAR II had at one point the best Air to Air radar of any fighter plane and combined with a sortie rate that was twice as fast as Tornado F3 (that is Alert to getting airborne) and with its good canopy, 'glass' cockpit instruments and AMRAAM it was not a sloppy interceptor either (the AV8B PLUS had a similar capability although it used old F18 radars but shows what could have been done).
Edit: Also if the excuse is that Sharky Ward and Chums were all ex Phantom Tops guns vs poorly trainined Argentines - well the same could be said of the mass majority of the F15 & Iranian F14 Kills (not to mention the F16 Kills ratio) - these were almost all vs much poorer quality AC and Pilots.
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The Sea Harrier is actually at its best in close quarters ACM, at least in the hands of a skilled pilot. The FFA (and USMC) Harrier divers figured out a series of clever maneuvers taking advantage of the directed thrust features the aircraft usually uses in landing and take off which allow an aircraft to do things that are otherwise aerodynamically impossible (something that Sukhoi & Lockheed have since included on the Su-30, F-22 & F-35).
At BVR, or even at long range IR engagement, the aircraft is indeed a good place to die facing a Gen 4+ or 4++ design.
And that's why the FA.2 was equipped with Blue Vixen & AIM-120.
To date, however, almost all engagements have been WVR.
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Which they almost certainly wouldn't use in a peer to peer conflict the Harrier is a ground attack and dogfighter, not a plane you want to use in a BVR Situation
I'd strongly suggest you look at the primary role of the Sea Harrier - particularly the FA.2 in regard to your comment concerning BVR.
IMHO subsoinc air craft are at a distinct disadvantage in certain real world air defence missions.