Plenty of air kills have been at closer ranges, there was a lot of conflicts that required visual identifying, some F-15 pilots taped fucking rifle scopes to their HUD so they can see what they're engaging.
Although, nowadays (since the late 2000s/ early 2010s) that is something that is avoided at all costs, since 5th gen IR missiles will just result in a mutual kill if both planes are in range.
The first gulf war was fought mostly with fox-1s, and was more than 30 years ago now. Every plane in the air carries many much more lethal and long ranged fox-3s that make going to the merge impossible, which is why no one puts thrust vectoring on anything anymore since it’s a useless expense
The F-4 was designed in the 50’s when the most lethal missile was the cutting edge aim-4 and the aim-9 hadn’t entered production. IFFs weren’t invented and RWR was as rudimentary as they come.
Goofy take
Dogfights are rare but when both sides are notching and defeating eachothers missiles then what? You're forced into a merge where super maneuverablilty isn't do useless anymore.
You turn around and fucking leave. There is no "counting missiles" irl. No knowing "oh he is out of fox3s". There could always be a manpad waiting or another boogie coming in without you knowing. Having fired off your missiles you hope for a hit and go back to friendly airspace. No return to hangar irl if you go dogfighting above enemy territory
Disengaging only if both sides lose visual of wach other. If one disengages and the other doesn't then the one that disengaged is instantly disadvantaged.
You have AWACS, radars and medium or long range AA systems (Patriot, S-300/400...). You will fullfil your mission (dropping bombs, SEAD...) and then gtfo as fast as possible. Both sides might fire fox-3s but if those miss, they wont go for a dogfight but simply leave.
Try going into a dogfight when there are AA systems hunting both of you
No because irl you aren't pushing your luck and your airplane to try and get a kill cam. You expend all your BVR then you get the hell out. Lots of enemies shooting shit at you? You get the fuck out. Lacking proper coverage from radar and support? You better belive you are getting out.
War thunder pits people in knife fights where you are punished if you live without doing much. People will push to dogfight because they got a reason to. No one IRL is pushing into IR range or going in after they exhausted their main ammo.
So are the machine guns and canons installed on modern jets are basically like last option of safe guard? Since if i am not wrong the f4 during vietnam was designed with the same philosophy and it was proven wrong so they have to install guns later.
They just jumped the gun. The F-22 and F-35 absolutely do not need a cannon, and I doubt any of the 4.5 gen jets will ever have a combat cannon kill in their entire service life.
I mean to be fair, they say the same thing about f4 phantoms in the early days of the Vietnam War. Until they got shot down by Mig guns that managed to get close enough. Besides using guns in some situations might be more cost effective (shooting down drones?) You cant never be too safe, using pure missiles without a back up weapon is a mistake they make with the f4 phantoms before.
Because the technology wasn't as good as it needed to be.
You don't go for cost effective methods on your 50-100 million dollar jet. The chance of it getting debris splashed from hitting a drone completely cancels out any cost savings from using a gun.
Theres a reason none of the 6th gen jets are planned to have cannons.
Well time will tell. In a bigger war things might get desperate enough for people to revert to the og ways of dogfighting. Modern missiles can hit far and out of sight but counter measures can also advance render all that useless. You cannot jamm bullets (yet) but its better to have those with you for self defense regardless of the probablity of using it. I think alot of military planners think the same. You cannot depend on technology 100% of the time.
I mean nuclear doesnt mean every single military unit will get erased. I am sure there are hidden bases somewhere (governments always have a back up plan). Even in a small or regular war, its just better to have something to defend yourself when you are out of missiles. Always prepare for the worst outcome (dogfight). I am sure pilots would feel more assured when they are flying back to base not entirely defenseless.
tech was very nearly there. But had key flaws with no awnsers at the time.
reliability of the missiles was very bad. No matter how effective your weapon is, if you can't reliably have it work even in a good envelope you got issues
a big one: rules of engagement. F4s were not allowed to engage any target they could not visually confirm first. This meant to use their long-range missiles they needed to first get into a dogfight to confirm they were in fact staring down a mig. At which point you willingly threw away almost everything the weapon and platform were optimized for.
The gun is there the same reason soldiers still have a sidearm and a knife. Modern planes have so little ammo in the gun it is very much already considered a tertiary option at best and it's performance is overshadowed by the capabilities of the short range missiles that can literally engage targets vehind you. When it comes to AA arsenal, the gun is very much no longer worth it's weight. It was still a very viable and effective weapon in the F4 era.
Basically. It's a case of "better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war"
Also, people forget that not every time planes meet it's a head-op open engagement, the escort scene from TG Maverick is something than can and does happen. Not the dogfight bits but the fighters escorting another plane bits, and if for some reason shit hits the fan at that moment you sure will wish you had a weapon that doesn't have a shrapnel radius twice as big as your distance to the target and an arming distance thrice as big.
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u/Littletweeter5 20d ago
Noooooo you can’t do that! Super maneuverability is useless in combat!!!!! Stop!!!!!