Tom Cooper posted:

After all, they said they used these cartriges to decoy the missiles, and
evaded four R-3/R-13s fired by the MiG in question, and also the Soviet
pilot rammed them in desperation. OK, the Atolls were not that problematic
to evade, but an RF-4E at supersonic speed is also not that maneuvreable
either.

Just to recap from the earlier reply of mine:

"What is missing from the story, are significant details like, time of
day (chased into the sun?), altitude of the fight, cloud cover (bright
white puffy ones)...even in the 80's the AIM-9 Papa was decoyed by
bright clouds."

Taking that last phrase a bit further, this was for a Mil Power
target.

So perhaps the MiG was shooting first generation Atolls. Recalling
that they were noted for poor target/IR source discrimination, perhaps
the photo-flash did decoy the missiles. But I'd still speculate that
the RF-4 would not have been in AB for it to work.

Just to connect the dots of my train of thought...
Early generation Atoll with zero IRCCM and poor IR discrimination,
could get decoyed by lots of things (sun, bright clouds, warm surface
background)...possibly/probably photo-flash.

Ten years later leaps and bounds in seeker technology and IRCCM on
both sides of the Cold War. At that point in time photo-flash carts
were determined to be ineffective versus current IR missiles.

Works for me, just because they (photo-flash carts) didn't work in the
early 80's doesn't prove they NEVER worked as IRCM.

Les?...Ed?...Guy? Make sense to y'all?

Tom, does the USAF WSO which to remain anonymous? If so why?

Juvat