this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
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Are dogfights even still a thing?
I remember playing an F15 simulator 20 years ago where "dogfighting" already meant clicking on a radar blip 100 miles away, then doing something else while your missile killed the target.
'Dogfighting' mostly just means air-to-air combat now. They do still make fighter jets that have guns or can mount guns, but I think they're primarily intended for surface targets rather than air targets.
I always thought it would be a game change to have guns that could point different directions.
Many aircraft guns do that. It's also usually automatic, look a direction and the gun points where you look.
I honestly wouldn't be that surprised if an AI powered fighter jet got point defence systems installed. It could react to put an incoming missile directly in the path of the point defense and possibly shoot it before it hits. With that said, I don't know how useful it'd be. If it's coming right at you the shrapnel is still on its way. Maybe it can react and plan in such a way to avoid it. I guess it depends on the relative speed and direction of the incoming missile.
I meant to just shoot the other plane without having to point your plane straight at them
Most dogfights are done by missiles these days. You lock on, fire, and forget. A ballistic projectile wouldn't be useful at those ranges. I guess if AI fighter jets change progression to bring things back to close-in combat something like that may be useful. I don't predict it'd happen, but there's a chance. Missiles can just pack so much more thrust-per-second into a small package than a jet can, but AI jets could be a lot more agile and essentially a missile firing missile, or similar, letting them close distance better whole avoiding incoming ordinance.
So turrets?
They had that back in the first world war.
Well if both sides get working stealth dogfights are going to become more common.
But the US seems to estimate it's adversaries do not have such capability at the moment since it's ordering new F-15s with the major change being air to air missile capacity.
Missiles also did not have 100 miles range 20 years ago. That's without considering actually detecting and tracking the target.
Somewhat missing then point there I feel.
They are right, I was thinking the exact same thing when I read the headline, aircraft don't really engage in dog fights anymore. It's all missiles and long-range combat. I don't think any modern war would involve aircraft shooting at each other with bullets.
No not really, my point is that people have a distorted and exaggerated view of BVR. 100 miles was beyond even the max range of common missiles and even with modern missiles like meteor it's completely unrealistic to fire at that kind of range. Provided that you have detected and are able to track the target at that range.
I don't know if modern planes will have to resort to guns but WVR dogfights with IR missiles are more likely than destroying F-35s at BVR ranges.