Evidently the Armenian AWACS was not airborne. (Kidding.)
If you are a slow SU21 near the ground, you are playing the role a fat seal in the water when an F16 enters the area.
Now we will see how the Russians “new stuff” works against the NATO standard stuff.
I hope we can get an F35 to test in this mess. (I am kidding...I don’t want any US jet anywhere near this shit show.)
Armenia doesn’t have any old junkers like the SU-21. The SU-25s they do have are A-10 counterparts. A-10s are horribly vulnerable to proper fighters and large air to air missiles fired beyond gun range, which is why the Air Force will not fly them in areas where they do not have air superiority or air supremacy.
We also don’t have to see how well the new Russian stuff works against NATO stuff through real combat - the Indians already did that for us, putting their SU-30MKIs up against F-16IN Super Vipers and F-18E/Fs in testing for the recent MRCA tender. Let’s just say it didn’t go all that well for the American aircraft overall, to the point where they didn’t make the shortlist despite being the cheapest through foreign aid. The Eurofighter and Rafale made the shortlist and the Rafale was selected. Boeing and Lockheed actually accepted the fact that basically their aircraft lost on almost every test encounter and that the conditions were fair for all aircraft.
“I hope we can get an F35 to test in this mess. (I am kidding...I don’t want any US jet anywhere near this shit show.”
Israel has already tested the F35 and it came out just fine.
In flyoff war games, the F-35’s have also been tested against the F-15J’s and the 35’s ruled the skies. The J model F-15 is bigger and better than the F-15’s the US currently has in its inventory. It is planned that we will be buying 75+ of the new eagles within the next two years.
Noteworthy is that no model of the F-15, a 4th generation aircraft introduced in the 1970/s, has ever lost in a real aerial combat encounter.
Generation 6 is on the way as we post.