But firing AMRAAMS at a low RCS Kowser, without a Radar, accompanied by decoy drones, head on, will be no more useful than firing shorter range AA missiles against a Kowser with own Radar. It will probably be less useful.
It is a physically small aircraft and in American Top Gun training the students in F-16 and F-15 and F-14 and F-18 fighters have said it is optically small and difficult to keep track of in a dogfight... but American or Saudi fighter pilots will have no problems sitting 60km away launching AMRAAM after AMRAAM... even if 80% of them miss that means 20 get destroyed for every 100 missiles they launched.
A couple of years ago they launched 103 cruise missiles to try to hit two buildings and two airfields in Syria that probably each cost rather more than an AMRAAM missile.
You will run out of small light planes before they run out of missiles... and if you try to make them super cheap you will just make them sitting ducks and even easier to shoot down.
If you want a cannon fodder plane then pick a simple cheap UAV and mount some long range missiles on it... something like R-77-1 that has a reasonable chance of a kill... that way when they get 20% kills and you get 20% kills yours are super cheap unmanned aircraft while theirs are potential crew lost over enemy territory that you can hunt down... if they send helicopters or tilt rotor aircraft to recover crew then your 20% probably becomes 80% against such targets...
Since missiles can not lock on Kowser Radar.
The only air to air missiles that can lock on to enemy radar are Soviet/Russian. The R-27R and R-27ER are designed to attack active radar sources... intended to shoot down F-15 fighters while they were using Sparrow missiles. Sparrow missiles as you might remember, are SARH missiles meaning to launch them the F-15 has to be tracking a target and then to launch the Sparrow at that target it has to direct an illumination radar beam at the target aircraft to highlight it... it is a bit like a laser guided bomb but the laser needs to be shining on the target at launch right through to impact... the R-27R and R-27ER home in on the laser signal... actually the radar beam that the SARH Sparrow homes in on but it hits the target marker instead of the target.
The R-27R is similar to the Sparrow in performance but faster, and the R-27ER is faster and longer ranged than the Sparrow.
AFAIK no US or Saudi air to air missiles are guided towards the targets radar.
And ground Radar can always notify Kowser decoy escorts to deploy decoy Radar. And IR decoys. This can be done automatic. The pilot also told on Radio to take appropriate action. A Radio link to ground Radar, weights much less than Radar. A stealth plane should not have own Radar. Defeats the objective. Also ground Radar is much more powerful. With greater range.
And the first thing the Saudis or Americans do when they attack is jam all radio communications and start launching cruise missiles at Comms centres and HQs...
In a dogfight situation, the most important factors are thrust to weight and wing loading. For maximum performance. As well as how many missiles are carried. That is why thrust to weight for a fighter Kowser is important. And hence reduction of weight. If all weight loss that I mentioned, is done for Kowser. Then it can climb as fast as F16. With new wing design, it can turn just as tight. It can be a contender. I am not sure about performance of J85 at very high altitude. Comparison with other Turbofan . But if a little short on altitude. Then Kowser can rely on SAM, to force enemy jet down. Or carry longer range AA missiles.
Modern AAMs move much faster than jet fighters can or do... but they are still aircraft so the most efficient way to use them is from directly behind the target... they can pull up or down or turn left or right, speed up or slow down, but the missile is going to accelerate into the back of them faster than they can accelerate and it can turn up or down or left or fight faster than they can too... it is essentially like getting behind someone and shooting them in the back and it is most effective because you can see them and you can tell if they start turning left or right or climbing up or dropping down... your weapons all point forward so they are essentially pointing at them as are most of your best sensors... IRST, radar and eyeballs.
From their perspective all your weapons point forward and your sensors too and he is behind you. Some countries have missiles that can be fired forward and attack a target behind them but it uses enormous amounts of energy to do so which seriously limits its speed and range.
In the past power to weight ratio means acceleration and speed means height and height means speed.
In other words if you are flying fast and high you can roar down and attack the target with guns and then use that extra speed and engine power to then climb back up to altitude again. If you have to fight an enemy aircraft above you it was a disadvantage.
The point is that speed was life... run out of speed and you stall and when you stall your weapons and sensors point towards the ground and not at the target... you are a sitting duck to any aircraft that hasn't stalled.
With TVC you can stall and keep your nose pointed at the target so you can launch missiles or fire your gun at him.
A missile that will turn 180 degrees to hit a target is nice but turning your aircraft 180 degrees with TVC engines means no 180 degree turn on launch for the missile... instead of bleeding away most of its energy turning 180 degrees it accelerates directly at the target so it gets there much faster...
A missile turning 180 degrees on launch is already pulling as many gs as it can pull... if you turn in to that turn to get you it will need to turn even harder and will most likely fail. That same missile pointed directly at you and launched directly at you is free to turn in any direction you turn and its closing speed will be much much much higher.
The reason I mentioned, removing cannons, in the stealth Kowser, is not so much that I think cannons are useless in dogfighter . Quite the reverse. But on balance, I think it much better to place the AA missiles, in the long nose of Kowser. Instead of external hard points. This will mean using existing ammo. And keeping plane very low RCS. If enemy knows that Kowser has no Radar, then there is very little left to jam. Radio communication with ground control is helpful. But not necessary. Since pilots operate at very short range, and ultimately spot enemy visually. They could as well operate in Radio silence!
Let me disagree.
First of all... all respect to Iranian engineers, but the Korsar is not a stealth aircraft... not even close, so the penalty of having external ordinance increasing the RCS would be a price well worth paying because aircraft cannot cover airspace as quickly as missiles can.
Radar is essential and communications are critical if you want your pilots to work together as a team.
Yes TVC is great, if you have it. Otherwise you do without. Here then you rely on power and weight and good wings. And numerical superiority. Two or four Kowser against one F18. With thrust vectoring ! We use tactics. Surround them. So no acrobatics will release them from prison.
If you don't have it... buy it. Klimov have it... buy it from them to put on all your planes.
Numerical superiority means nothing if they don't act stupid.... and most of the time they don't act stupid.
50 Kowsers against one F18... the F18 detects the 50 targets at long range and at about 80km launches 8 AMRAAMs against the closest 8 targets... they either hit or don't hit but he doesn't care... he has already turned around heading for home for more fuel and more missiles... he might already be an ace by the time he lands... the AWACS will determine if his missiles got hits, but he is waiting for more missiles to be loaded and fuel to be put on board and probably asking for 10 AMRAAMs for this flight... he gets to the same place he was before and there are 46 targets and he picks 10 and launches 10 AMRAAMs and turns and heads home.... he can do this all week and so can all the pilots he is operating with.
You mention R77. I suspect this to be medium range AA missile. But Iran has SAM that can reach altitude fast, level off and chase enemy plane.
Missiles don't chase planes.... they are like bullets.... they either hit or miss. They do have proximity fuses so a close miss will set off the warhead so you might just get damage. The point is that if the missile misses and is not close enough to set off the warhead the missile never turns around and has another go... that is Hollywood bullshit.
A missile has tiny control surfaces... it effectively has stabilisers... which keep it pointing nose forward, and control surfaces that can make it turn towards a target to get closer than it would otherwise get. To turn 180 degrees it would shed all its speed and drop like a rock... a plane has a wing to hold it up... the stabilisers and control surfaces on a missile don't generate any lift they just keep it pointed forward and allow it to turn a bit to compensate for the tiny distance the target could have moved in the time it is taking the missile to get there.
In some circumstances a plane can evade a missile, for instance the way the SA-6 was launched if you detected it early enough you could dive down so as it was climbing up to intercept you it would have to turn the other way and it just couldn't turn that hard to reach you so you survived the SA-6... the problem for the Israeli pilots was that that dive took you down into SA-7 and ZSU-23-4 territory and that was dangerous too.
The thing is that if you have not tracked the missile properly your manouvering might just make things worse... if an AMRAAM is coming for you but you turned left and so it is going to start looking for you away off to your right... if you then turn the correct way it might not be able to turn hard enough and fast enough to get you... if you turn the wrong way you might end up moving directly into its central view and it is going to get you.
Using better longer range Radar. But what Iran does not have is short range dogfighter. Rely on pilot. Unjammable. Also the Rockets, I mentioned are nothing like old WW2 types. They are shot using small Radar and computer. And they have clever fuses. And much more difficult to jam. Compared to IR. But still IR guided can be used. If effective. This tactics is short range. To close the gap. When Iranian Radars jammed. Sam sites destroyed. F35 over Tehran.....
You are better off letting the missiles do the killing and carrying as many as you can carry and using them as much as you can.
I am talking about Iranian fighter. But of course Russian planes will be welcome too. Iranians prefer version without TVC. Perhaps simpler or cheaper.
Communication and command and control are critical.... if your planes don't communicate you will find a lot of wasted time is spent because they are not seeing targets... and why bother with rockets that are guided... isn't that just what AAMs are?
There is no free ride... if you could get away with spending next to nothing but also beating a military super power I would think it would already have been done.
Even if you do beat them they will exact a nasty price... they have called for the people of Iran to rise up like they cared about the people of Iran... but they also block your access to medical supplies and food... they really could care less... but don't take that personally... they couldn't even care about their own people...
What you need to do is shoot down aircraft. They will still attack, but killing pilots and shooting down expensive planes or sinking ships or subs is what you need to do to make some think why are we doing this... what is our goal... and when they realise it is all about making a few rich americans even richer they might reevaluate the purpose of their foreign policy. A tiny chance but better than nothing.
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