I mean if you have no other choice but to die. Flying a good gameplan to put yourself in a position of advantage is the normal gameplan. But sure, having this trick after you've messed it up is nice to have.

Not necessarily. There are conceivable situations where supermaneuvrability can turn a situation where an enemy is on your tail and has a lock onto a situation where you fired a missile at them and you're safe. But yes, it's not the normal game plan. The normal gameplan is very likely to degenerate into such situations, though.

Nobody is saying that it’s impossible for this to be useful. We’re saying the odds are incredibly stacked against it.

At best it is a Hail Mary in a 1v1 WVR knife-fight.

By modern air doctrine, this can pretty much only happen in the specific scenario where every other plane has been splashed, since nobody would willingly enter such a scenario if they could avoid it. Modern IR missiles are more maneuverable than planes, so the aggressor will have to have emptied their missile stores completely. And the defender will need to be in a position where they’ve exhausted every other possible defensive resource and be in imminent risk of being downed by the bandit’s cannon.

If all of that is true, it could be a last-ditch survival effort. If it doesn’t generate a shooting opportunity, you’re dead since you’ll never have a chance to gain the energy needed to stay on the offensive.

Nobody in this entire tire fire of a thread has come up with a single additional plausible scenario.

You only need that if your missiles are dumb enough to not be programmable for more complex than simple following paths.

It’s much safer to teach your missiles to do the manoeuvre instead of making the plane do it first.

> It’s much safer to teach your missiles to do the manoeuvre instead of making the plane do it first.

Indeed modern air-to-air missiles can do this and much more. They can be launched and lock on after the launch and have full-sphere attack capability (unlike earlier missiles, which even in a high off-boresight scenario would still require the launching aircraft to be behind the target).

If an enemy fighter has you locked up, you're dead. The No Escape Zone of modern infrared missiles (AIM-9X, Python 5, Iris-T, Derby, and of course R-77) is almost always going to kill you unless the missile misfires/hangs.

Our last 9X shot in combat? https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/news/a270...

Here's a much better account:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/14344/heres-the-defini...

To recap the article, missiles aren't perfect, especially when they've been flown on and off carrier decks. And this "miss" isn't even data; it's microscopic anectdata. In fact, I don't know of another combat launch of the 9x.

...and if your hail-mary shot misses? In a big furball, the only reason to do this is if you're willing to risk being shot down in exchange, and trading planes 1-for-1 is generally a poor way to win fights.

Even if your missile misses, the situation is much better because although you're in a worse position, the enemy has now lost the initiative and a lot of energy. Presumably you'd be able to, using your superior missile, have another shot, or create an opportunity for your wingmen.

The idea isn't that you get shot in the exchange, it's that you force your enemy to abandon their advantage. The enemy has the choice to evade and lose their advantage, or go for the exchange in which case neither has the advantage.

This means that in cases where you have the upper hand you can use better tactics that don't incur high cost to yourself, whereas where you don't you can turn a 0-1 exchange into a potential 1-1 or 1-0 exchange. This is a pure win.

What? Why would your enemy lose energy here? This makes no sense; you are the one losing energy with this type of maneuver.

In a 2v1, if you’re the 1, you’re essentially already dead. Either you’re chasing one while the either is getting free shots at you, or you’re simply being chased by one while the other is providing support. Realistically, you’re running for your life with one hand already on the ejection handles. If you’re the 2, there will never be a need for this since the bandit knows that even trying to down one of you is suicide.

In a 2v2+, this kind of maneuver is just going to generate free shots for someone within a few seconds. You’ll be a sitting duck, and anyone can pull off a missile shot on you without even leaving their turning circle, particularly with modern helmet cueing systems and high off-bore missiles (fighter pilots can nowadays literally just turn their head, look at something, and shoot at it with high success rates).

this assume combat is 1v1

it almost never is. wwii ingrained the wing man concept into every air force and for a good reason, from the thatch wwave onward it allowed nation to rely on training, which can be as abundant as needed, instead of better airframes.

as such the whole pretend scenario is built on impossible foundations. you dodge one attack and the wingman scopes you up, while the attacker just accelerate away to safety.

"but what if the attacker is left alone" - then the attacker retreats. it'd be an exceedingly bad call to keep aggressing without a wingman.

I agree that there are conceivable circumstances where this kind of maneuvering is useful. One thing to consider: fights are rarely 1v1, and even if it works perfectly against the guy you're fighting at the moment, one of his buddies will almost certainly have at least one shot opportunity against you. Energy is easy to give up and hard to get back.

The real issue in a war with a well-equipped equal - as opposed to an incursion against an inferior state - is reliability and availability of parts and servicing. The F22 is neither cheap nor quick to service after flights.

A plane that does everything well, except be ready to fly when you need it, is not going to be a war winner in a serious conflict.

100% agreed, but we're firmly within the realms of operations and strategy now, rather than tactics.

That said, it's a good exercise to expand your scope of "kills" from weapons, rocks, and gas to include things like maintenance and admin.

The multitude of fighters works both ways. While an enemy might gain a shot on you, your energy disadvantage is less significant in the short term and your buddies should have an easier time due to pragmatic numeric advantage.

Maybe. I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. That said, if I had to choose between fighting someone who employs this tactic as a part of their standard game plan or someone who doesn't, I'd choose to fight the former pretty much every time.