Thursday, July 30, 2015

Sorry Tom Cruise

Top Gun is obsolete
you don't need fancy expensive jets to shoot down other jets:
Being seen first is usually a death sentence, especially in an era of high off-boresight, long range missiles.  Stillion notes that since Vietnam it’s been missiles all the way.  The last gun kill by anybody was in 1988.

and guess who did that last gun kill? 
the use of guns in aerial combat virtually ended after the Yom Kippur War in late 1973. Out of 498 victory claims since that time, 440 (88 percent) have been credited to AAMs and only thirty to guns.39 The last gun kill of one jet combat aircraft by another occurred in May of 1988 when an Iranian F-4E downed an Iraqi Su-22M with 20 mm cannon fire.
on the other hand, you do need fancy expensive jets to do other things.

bookmarked for later reading.

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