What you are describing is historical truth. The Sparrow missiles were really bad. They had poor seekers, poor motors, and poor maneuverability. It took multipl

What you are describing is historical truth. The Sparrow missiles were really bad. They had poor seekers, poor motors, and poor maneuverability. It took multiple Sparrows to even have a chance of killing a target. I believe their Pk was below 20% and was often as low as 9%. Early Sidewinders were more reliable, but had a narrow engagement envelope. And pilot training completely eliminated any work on how to conduct traditional dogfights. This was a recipe for lots of aircraft and aircrew losses. However, the aerospace industry and government have not stood still. Newer missiles are orders of magnitude more reliable and capable. High off boresight missiles mean that pilots can engage targets from a wide variety of angles. Seeker technology is amazingly better.