Reply #111: An updated F-5, the plane many said the US should have adopted.

[happyslug]

The F-5 had several advantages over the F-15, first it was cheaper to buy and operate. Second if the pilot is well trained you can knock down a F-15 with an F-5. Now both planes are generally lost in such an engagement, but the price difference between both planes starts to make the F-5 more cost effective.

One of the problem the US had in Vietnam was that the North Vietnamese pilots were as well trained as US Pilots. The Viet manses pilots were flying planes a generation behind the US Pilots and playing defense (i.e. the US Pilots could take off whenever they wanted to, the Vietnamese Pilots had to engage US planes when the US decided to Attack). Even with these disadvantages the North Vietnamese was able to keep its loses in air to air combat to a ratio of 2-1 (For every US Plane shot down the Vietnamese lost two) which was a tremendous reduction from the 15-1 ratio of Korea.

At the end of Vietnam both the US Navy and Air force decided to upgrade the training of their fighter pilots in dog fighting techniques (Something downplayed in the 1960s). The F-5 was found out to be an excellent Dog Fighter and thus adopted to be the plane flown by the opposition doing these "Top Gun" type training sessions. Now at the time the US downplayed Soviet radar equipment so took out the Radar equipment from the F-5. The Pilots of the F-5 objected but the removal stood. One of the Pilots then came up with the idea of buying a Police radar Detector and put that in his plane and he would fire whenever the Detector said he had been locked on by the opposing "American" plane. With this simple technology, available in any store in the US, the OBFOR pilots were able to "shoot" down every plane thrown against them. Now each time the F-5 was also shot down, but they were more then willing to accept a 1-1 shot down ratio.

Since that time the US and Israeli has had no serious opposition in the Air. Most Arab Air Forces were NOT intended to fight but to fly over Military parades and bomb any peasants that thought of revolting against the ruling dictator. Iran is a different situation. Iraq seems to have just hired Mercenary Pilots during its war with Iran, but even with no access to spare parts the Iranians were able to hold they own against these mercenary Pilots (who are reported to have all left just before the Air War of Desert Strom began, which may explain the poor showing of the Iraqi Air Force during the First Gulf War). While Iraq has been under sanctions since 1991, Iran has been free to buy and improve its Military capability. It has kept its F-14s flying even after no spare parts could be imported from the US since 1979. The pilots seems to be well trained (But have NOT engaged anybody since the Iran-Iraq war and very limited during that war).

Before I go on lets look at the two US-Iraqi wars. The second Iraq war seems to be a fluke. The present war the Iraqis put up almost no Air Defense (for they has none) thus not much air to air combat in the present War. In the First Gulf war, the Iraqis did seems to put some planes in the air, but most were flown to Iran to save them for another day (and many were shot down trying to get to Iran). The biggest questions has been why no Iraqi Air Defense? While the US did seems to have destroyed the Iraqi Air Defense system on the First day of the Air War the question is how? I have heard a couple of reasons. First that Saddam had ordered some new parts from France just before the Start of the Air War. These parts had a bug in them that knock out the Iraqi Air defense system as the Air War Started and by the time the Iraqis found out what had happened most of their Anti-aircraft missiles and radars had been destroyed. Another story I heard was that the US Army Apache Helicopters knocked out the forward Air Radar and once that was gone the US Air Force quickly took out the rest of the System.

Either way the problem with Iraq was the destruction of the Air Defense system. Iran seems to have learned from this by adopting a multilayer Air Defense System. How good it will work I do not know. US Planes are a lot better than they were in Vietnam, but so are the Anti-AirCraft Missiles of the Iranians. Can the US destroy the Air Defense System? Can the Iranian Pilots fight against US pilots? If the Iranian Anti-air Missile system stays effective can the US operate at low attitude and what type of Low Level Air Defense are the Iranians capable of mounting. Questions Questions Questions.

As to the F-5, it is a good Dog Fighter, if the Pilot can avoid a missile lock on his plane he may be able to survive to shoot down an American Plane. The next questions is how often can this happen? If the Iranians are able to Challenge US Air Superiority they will be able to maneuver, but if they lose that ability then they best defense is one of light Infantry like what is occurring in Iraq.

On the other hand if the Iranians are able to Challenge US Air Superiority then they can provide Air Cover for their Armor Forces which may be able to stop or destroy any US invasion. If the Iranians do lose the ability to challenge US Air Superiorly then the Iranians are better off disbursing their Armor and use them piece meal against any US Invasion.

Thus the importance of this improved F-5, it may be good enough to cover Iranian Armor moves. If it is then it is a good investment by the Iranians.