Luftwaffe and Allied Air Forces Discussion Forum - Fighter performance; F-4 vs MiG-21; actual plane analysis

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Re: Fighter performance; F-4 vs MiG-21; actual plane analysis

I may wrong, but as far as I know, North Vietnam Mig-21 pilots rarely engated any dogfight because Mig-21 had fewer weapons than US fighters and there were simply too many US fighters around, their tacitcs were usually "hit and run".
And the US navy "top gun" programs was mostly about to develop correct tactics on high speed jet armed with modern missles, in the early stage of the Vietnam war, Americans still used tacitcs develped in WWII, and that caused many problems

Re: Fighter performance; F-4 vs MiG-21; actual plane analysis

By 1970 just about every air force in the western world (including German, Israeli and British) had copied the U.S. Navy's standard tactical formation, the Loose-Deuce, which was a slight modification of the World War II Thach Weave.

Before then, Germany's pre-World War II Schwarm (a.k.a. Finger Four, Fluid Four, etc.) was the most popular formation, but proved to be less flexible and controllable in jet vs. jet combat.

The USAF actually had a Fighter Weapons School before the Navy, but air force training still focused on intercepting bombers (non-manuevering targets). The air force also obtained flyable MiG-17s and MiG-21s, but these jets were not flown hard or evaluated thoroughly until after they were passed to the Navy. Meanwhile the USAF continued with Fluid Four tactics even after West Germany abandoned it. And unlike the U.S. Navy, the USAF officially tried to discourage realistic training (violent and dangerous manuevering in practice combats) because it resulted in more flying accidents. Many of the pilots did not agree with this logic, and due to internal pressures (and greater success enjoyed by the Navy) the USAF rebuilt its fighter training programs after the Vietnam War.

Technical limitations of missiles and radar was a separate issue, but some of the problems were caused by pilot error (firing the missiles well outside of the weapon's locking and tracking capabilities) and improper maintenance.

Re: Fighter performance; F-4 vs MiG-21; actual plane analysis

Some one said that one of the reason USAF continued with Fluid Four tactics was that US Navy air force switched to the Loose-Deuce despite many USAF pilots favored US Navy tactics

Re: Fighter performance; F-4 vs MiG-21; actual plane analysis

what about their performance? (that's the topic)
both were designed as a top performers...
speed (up & down, min & max), climb/acceleration, turns ....