In message ,
Bill Shatzer writes
On Sun, 7 Sep 2003, Charles Talleyrand wrote:
Imagine four your favorite combat aircraft of 1963 going up
against four modern F/A-18s in a BVR engagement. Suppose
that the 1963
pilots were smart and willing to employ the best tactics
available. Even so we suppose the F-18s win almost every
engagement.
Basically, how does the combat go?

Launch the nuclear-tipped Genies at maximum range.

"Close" is good enough.

Trouble is, the Hornets may manage to deny the enemy a radar lock (what
ECM did they bring?) and the Genies may never get fired.

Even if they do... that's a _big_ smoke trail and the fighters are going
to evade it. And the Genie's kill radius is not that large. Then F-102s
with Falcons (unreliable and inaccurate) mix it up with Hornets armed
with late-model Sidewinders and AMRAAMs.


If air-to-air tacnukes worked really well, they'd still be around. They
didn't, so they aren't.

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk