The F-22 was under serious political fire thanks to American adventures in Iraq, if the F-15s performed to capacity then there is no need for F-22-- optimist is right. The US never publishes losing results unless they want something. F-22 was a highly political lightning rod from nearly start to finish. troops were getting killed by IEDs while the USAF was getting hundred million dollar plus super fighters to fight an enemy that collapsed 15 years prior. it was a terrible look
Literally no one can be convinced by anything using scripted exercises.
The Indo-US exercises had rules constraining the employment of each others' most advanced tactics and technologies. India had even used the monkey model of the Su-30, with the K designation, instead of the latest Su-30MKI, not even the slightly better MK was used. The other jets were older M2000 and Mig-29 that date back to the 80s, and were upgraded only a decade later. Their best radar ranges were around 50-60Km. Our most advanced jet in the fight was the Mig-21 Bison, and it was this jet that earned the most amount of praise. It was the only modern-BVR capable jet the IAF used in the exercise against the Americans. The most advanced jets in the fight were the F-15s of course.
And it was these ancient jets that India used to beat the F-15s. No one's gonna make any conclusions about the fight using such an exercise.
I love Russian stuff as much as the next guy, they are beautiful looking flying machines, but I am under no illusions about their capability. and the monkey model excuse is not only old, tired and pathetic, but also self defeating. The internet needed an excuse and the monkey model thing which I saw introduced decades before the collapse of the USSR has become the main excuse. Other popular excuses included blaming the operators. these aircraft just are not great mysteries anymore. When its actual real shooting wars, and not games or exercises, the US takes no chances and we see terribly lopsided kill ratios.
Er... Monkey models are a real thing. It's not an excuse. The SU version of their jets were completely different from what were exported. The radars were different, most jets didn't have an EW suite, the IRST was a generation behind. The Syrian and Iraqi tanks and jets were a generation behind their parent versions. This isn't even some secret, it's open source news. The first time their most advanced aircraft tech was ever exported was to India, in 2002.
en.wikipedia.org
The existence of monkey models was revealed by a Soviet defector to the West. He pointed out that Western armour suffered because they were making their technologies suitable to beat export Soviet models.
Some text:
"The `monkey-model' is a weapon which has been simplified in every conceivable way and which is intended for production in wartime only.
For instance, the T-62 tank is one of the simplest fighting vehicles in the world. But as it was being designed, a still simpler version was also being developed, for wartime use. The `monkey-model' of the T-62 does not have a stabilised gun, carries simplified radio and optical equipment, the night-vision equipment uses an infra-red light source to illuminate targets (a method which is twenty years old), the gun is raised and turned manually, steel rather than wolfram or uranium is used for the armour-plating piercing caps of its shells."
The Iraqi T-72 tanks that the Americans fought in 1991 were so bad that even with direct hits on the Abrams, they couldn't penetrate the armour. The reason being the Soviets only exported steel-based APFSDS instead of tungsten, let alone DU. Even though the gun was decent enough, the ammo was too weak to be used in a modern war.
Soviet tech was only suitable for third world countries to fight each other. They had three tiers of weapons. The first was used by themselves. The second was exported to Warsaw Pact countries. The third was exported to everyone else. The best part is the first tier is still unknown. The West only has access to the second and third tiers even today. It's actually why the Russians are open to exporting the S-400 to the US, their own version is different from the export version.
A monkey model along the lines of the SU was proposed for the F-16 by Jimmy Carter as well, where the F100/110 was replaced by an outdated J79. Regan killed it.
The Idea that as the USSR Super Power collapsed, funding dried up, and Russian aircraft started to suddenly excel in areas that take money and lots of research, that they traditionally always suffered in thanks to magic, is simply unbelievable. There is a cohort of people like yourself who then invent the most bombastic claims that fly in the face reality.
Not at all. The Soviets simply did not export their prime technologies, so nobody knew about them until after the 90s. Their best jet exported was a monkey model of the Mig-29, which didn't even use the same engine as the SU did. Their second best jet was merely a 3rd gen Mig-23 family, alongside the Su-24. Otoh, the collapse of the SU opened up the export of both the modernised Mig-29 and of course the Flanker.
The modernised Mig-29 was significantly superior to the older SU model, which the SU had forbidden for exports. It added additional fuel, removed hydraulics in favour of FBW, a new engine, reduced RCS etc. They changed the aircraft completely. All the weakness the Western pilots had identified in the older Mig-29, were more than sufficiently fixed in the Mig-29M version. Imagine, cost of operation has since dropped by 80% compared to the original.
Take the Mig-21 for example. Only India operates the most advanced version and it has an engine that increases its thrust by 30% during combat, over its standard AB thrust. From 70KN, it climbs to well over 90KN, only the Indian version. So, while the standard export variant had a TWR of 1, the Indian version could be boosted to more than 1.3. The export of this tech wouldn't have been possible under the SU.