Are Dogfights Over?

Posted by Jolly on December 12, 2011

Is the day of the dogfight over?  The picture above is a great shot of an ACM
engagement between F-14s and F-16s with words "Train As You Fight" burned into the photo.  That's what we've always done the past, trained as we fight and fight as we trained.  Now, UAVs can shoot down aircraft with Beyond Visual Range (BVR) weapons and F-22s have the ability to call "Fox 3, BFM this bitch."  Maybe the dogfight is a thing of the past?

The argument always comes up as we move from one generation of fighter to the next.  It's an argument as old as the Fighter itself.  We thought the day of the dogfight was over in Vietnam, so a gun was not added to the F-4 Phantom in the original design.  We were wrong.  Some of our "visionaries" think there is no need to jump in the phone booth with a MiG and conduct mortal combat with a gun.  They're wrong too.  The Gun has always been the most reliable weapon on any fighter.  It's got no minimum range, can't be defeated electronically, and is a blast to employ! 

This video is a great clip featuring interviews with Boots Blesse and Robin Olds.  I don't know who the Elmer Fud sounding dude is in the front end.  He does make some good points but he needs to stick to hunting wabits and leave the flying of fighters to guys like Boots and Robin.  It's the same old lessons learned from our military planners in the past, just different players and airplane designs.  The fighter pilots planning and writing requirements for the F-22 and F-35 had to fight to keep the gun on both jets.  Go figure, we never seem to learn from history and hope that technology will save our bacon in the next war.

If you have problems viewing the video hit refresh or click here.

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