From:	Adam Getchell <acgetche@****.UCDAVIS.EDU>
Subject:	Re: 2nd hand fighters
Date:	Tue, 18 Oct 1994 12:58:53 -0700

On Tue, 18 Oct 1994, Stainless Steel Rat wrote:

> No, we can't. Right now Russia has air superiority over the US if they
> wanted to use it. Their pilots are as good as ours, and their equipment is
> as good if not better than ours.

Hmmm. I thought we had the advantage in several key areas.

1) AWACS -- Looking at the specs of the E-2C (and E-3C's)
radars, I thought we had better look down/shoot down, targetting (J-STARS
can pick out tanks and infantry on the ground!) and vectoring capabilities.
2) Missiles -- I had the impression that AIM-9L was still pretty
good, AMRAAM much better and Phoenix not shabby -- and the last two have
significant range to take advantage of item 1).
3) Stealth -- Although we got the radar cross-section theorems
from a Russian physicist, they haven't done any stealth research because
they only had two middlin' SAMs to beat in our inventory, Hawk and
Patriot whereas we have to beat SA-1 through 16, a damn fine inventory.
Now, I don't think the above are necessarily going to guarantee
us total air superiority, especially if the Russians have good IR
imaging, but I'm pretty sure we wouldn't just roll over and concede the
point. And I don't think they are in a position to force us to.
Although, yes I have heard the new Su-27 Flanker and MiG-31
Fulcrums are quite good (in fact the MiG-31 seems to be an improved F-15
design while the Su-27 seems to be an improved F-18 Hornet). In fact,
I'm pretty sure that's why the Air Force decided it had to have the F-22,
because the F-15's and -16's were more or less outclassed. And their new
AAMs were starting to be quite a serious problem as well. So perhaps a
wing of F-15's versus a wing of MiG-31's wouldn't be such a good match
after all, especially since they could blitz the AWACS with their
super-speedy MiG-25's. But factor in F-117's, hmmm it would be an
interesting one but it's way off topic so ....

> Rat <ratinox@***.neu.edu> |Do not use Happy Fun Ball on concrete.

+-------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|Adam Getchell|acgetche@****.engr.ucdavis.edu | ez000270@*******.ucdavis.edu |
| acgetchell |"Invincibility is in oneself, vulnerability is in the opponent"|
+-------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+