Nobody is saying that it’s impossible for this to be useful. We’re saying the odds are incredibly stacked against it. At best it is a Hail Mary in a 1v1 WVR kn

Nobody is saying that it’s impossible for this to be useful. We’re saying the odds are incredibly stacked against it. At best it is a Hail Mary in a 1v1 WVR knife-fight. By modern air doctrine, this can pretty much only happen in the specific scenario where every other plane has been splashed, since nobody would willingly enter such a scenario if they could avoid it. Modern IR missiles are more maneuverable than planes, so the aggressor will have to have emptied their missile stores completely. And the defender will need to be in a position where they’ve exhausted every other possible defensive resource and be in imminent risk of being downed by the bandit’s cannon. If all of that is true, it could be a last-ditch survival effort. If it doesn’t generate a shooting opportunity, you’re dead since you’ll never have a chance to gain the energy needed to stay on the offensive. Nobody in this entire tire fire of a thread has come up with a single additional plausible scenario.