“even US F-22s have been defeated by Indian MiGs and Luftwaffe Eurofighters when deprived of AWACS support. “
On the other hand, it is well known in the USAF that “foreigners win sometimes” in joint training. The point of the joint exercises is not to utterly demoralize them at how lowly they perform compared to us. We are there to teach them a few things, and boost their morale and strengthen alliances.
If you played one on one with Michael Jordan he’d probably let you score a basket or two. Operant word being “let”.
This is true... but when deprived of AWACS support in exercises, our F-15s have also had their heads handed to them on more than a few occasions. Enough that there are some reports that have been sent back to Washington about how we *really* need to update the F-15 to counter developments.
Here’s another item in point - the Chinese J-20 fighter is derided a lot for being oversized and not looking terribly stealthy, probably not all that agile and generally not a match for the F-22. What a lot of people (especially here) miss is that the J-20 isn’t designed with fighting the F-22 as it’s primary role. It’s primary role is to be stealthy enough to haul some *very* large long range anti-AWACS missiles into launch range without being detected, and then salvo them at the AWACS. That’s why it has that huge weapons bay on the bottom and is the size it is.