3 ms·

This was the conventional wisdom in the 1950s as well. Which led to the huge, gun-less American fighters of the 1960s, the epitome of which was the F-4 Phantom

This was the conventional wisdom in the 1950s as well. Which led to the huge, gun-less American fighters of the 1960s, the epitome of which was the F-4 Phantom II (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_...). Which led to embarrassingly bad kill/loss ratios over Vietnam (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_II#Aerial_combat_in_the_Vietnam_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_...), when those big, porky fighters went up against smaller, more nimble, gun-still-included Russian planes like the MiG-17 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-17). Which led to guns being hurriedly added back on to the F-4s, first in an external pod mounted on a hardpoint, and then internally on later production models. Which led to the development of training programs to teach dogfighting skills like the Naval Fighter Weapons School at Miramar (the school immortalized in the 1986 film Top Gun), because it turned out that the conventional wisdom had sunk in so deeply that a whole generation of American fighter pilots didn't know how to fight with a gun, even when they had one. Which led to the Lightweight Fighter Program (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_Fighter_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_Fighter_program), an effort to use the lessons learned in Vietnam to design a maneuverable, gun-included dogfighter affordable enough to produce in volume. Which led to the development of two new fighters, the F-16 Fighting Falcon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_Falcon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting...) and the F/A-18 Hornet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F/A-18_Hornet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F/A-18_Horne...), both of which have been hugely successful in service and make up the bulk of the US Air Force and Navy's fighter forces to this day. But the people who learned those hard lessons over Vietnam are all retired or dead now, so when people say "planes don't dogfight" nobody challenges it. Which is how the conventional wisdom of the 1950s becomes conventional wisdom all over again.

kaizendad 8y ago
Although a significant cause of the kill ratio issue over Vietnam was restrictive rules of engagement, which prohibited beyond visual range engagement with missiles such as Sparrow, which the VPAF had no counters to whatsoever. These rules of engagement effectively required these turning dogfights, but would not have been present in a large-scale shooting war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. This does, of course, beg the question: how well would an F-35 do in a conflict with restrictive rules of engagement, such as might be found in future US-Iraq/Afghanistan-style conflicts.
- smacktoward 8y ago
  Well, Sparrow had problems of its own, namely absolutely dismal reliability and the need to maintain continuous radar lock on the target during the missile's entire flight time (e.g. no "fire and forget" capability). But that doesn't invalidate your broader point about dogfights being more likely under restrictive RoE. The thing is though, if history is any indication, wars so total as to have completely permissive RoEs aren't the wars that we actually ever fight. Even if you imagine a war with a full-on peer competitor like Russia or China, it's not hard to imagine scenarios where RoEs are restricted in an effort to keep the scope of the conflict from widening -- an important consideration when both sides have nuclear weapons! So I think the general point still stands. If the balloon ever goes up on World War III, we probably won't see a lot of dogfighting. But there's a whole spectrum of conflicts underneath that, and building an air force entirely around fighters that can't handle the rest of that spectrum at least competently is going to be a problem.
  - openasocket 8y ago
    Also consider the massive improvements in avionics since Vietnam. You don't have to close to visual range anymore to confirm the target is a jet fighter and not a passenger plane.
jki275 8y ago
The only problem with that whole discussion is that nobody uses guns anymore. The lessons of vietnam you cite really aren't as you claim. The gun was never the issue -- really poor missiles may have been. Better missiles fixed the problem, not the gun.

kaizendad 8y ago

Although a significant cause of the kill ratio issue over Vietnam was restrictive rules of engagement, which prohibited beyond visual range engagement with missiles such as Sparrow, which the VPAF had no counters to whatsoever. These rules of engagement effectively required these turning dogfights, but would not have been present in a large-scale shooting war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. This does, of course, beg the question: how well would an F-35 do in a conflict with restrictive rules of engagement, such as might be found in future US-Iraq/Afghanistan-style conflicts.

smacktoward 8y ago
Well, Sparrow had problems of its own, namely absolutely dismal reliability and the need to maintain continuous radar lock on the target during the missile's entire flight time (e.g. no "fire and forget" capability). But that doesn't invalidate your broader point about dogfights being more likely under restrictive RoE. The thing is though, if history is any indication, wars so total as to have completely permissive RoEs aren't the wars that we actually ever fight. Even if you imagine a war with a full-on peer competitor like Russia or China, it's not hard to imagine scenarios where RoEs are restricted in an effort to keep the scope of the conflict from widening -- an important consideration when both sides have nuclear weapons! So I think the general point still stands. If the balloon ever goes up on World War III, we probably won't see a lot of dogfighting. But there's a whole spectrum of conflicts underneath that, and building an air force entirely around fighters that can't handle the rest of that spectrum at least competently is going to be a problem.
- openasocket 8y ago
  Also consider the massive improvements in avionics since Vietnam. You don't have to close to visual range anymore to confirm the target is a jet fighter and not a passenger plane.

jki275 8y ago

The only problem with that whole discussion is that nobody uses guns anymore. The lessons of vietnam you cite really aren't as you claim. The gun was never the issue -- really poor missiles may have been. Better missiles fixed the problem, not the gun.