When was the last ‘dogfight’ between real combatants? Korea?
With long range radar and self guided missiles, a pilot might never even see his enemy.....................
Vietnam. And Gulf War I.
That thing is a strafe-rag at low energy when doing it’s ‘stop in mid-air’ or cobra thing. . .fighter pilots would be more at risk from laughing at that ‘shoot me now’ maneuver than anything else.
Sheesh. . .people that should know better are constantly oo’ing and ah’ing over some silly airshow maneuver. Only thing that maneuver demonstrates is the russian’s finally overcame their high-AOA low-speed tendency to generate compressor stalls under those conditions.
The F4 Phantom in Vietnam had radar and missiles that could take out a plane from beyond visual range. And no guns.
Then they were given rules of engagement which prohibited them from firing unless they had visual confirmation of what they were shooting at.
Never underestimate how badly the rules of engagement that your own government imposes on you can cripple your combat effectiveness. Look at Afghanistan.
Wrong.
The last dogfights were between Russian pilots flying Egyptian and Syrian marked Russian planes.
In he 60s to 80s.
Dog fighting in Vietnam. The USAF claimed 137 air kills in Vietnam,40 were by gun fire. USN/USMC claim 60 shoot downs, 8 by gunfire. One of the Navy’s kills was scored by a Douglas A-1 Skyraider against a Mig 17. One of the AFs kills was by a B52 tail gunner against a Mig 19.
Early in the war F4s lacked guns. This was corrected with a pod mounted gun system.
During the air war in Vietnam we fired 612 sparrow missiles shooting down 56 enemy aircraft, sidewinders got 81 kills out of 454 fired.
Bekaa Valley 1982 had the most in recent memory. Last gun kills.