Comments by "Titanium Rain" (@ChucksSEADnDEAD) on "F-4 Phantom, The Ultimate Cold War Warrior" video.

@jwadaow The F-4 in USAF scored the vast majority of kills during Vietnam by missile, with the internal gun on the F-4E only scoring 5 kills. Sometimes perception is a b*tch.
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@davidmarquardt2445 Most of the failed missile shots were due to pilots firing out of proper launch parameters and poor training of the ground crews, as mishandling missiles was one of the causes of their unreliability. "more maneuverable MIG" - This means nothing. The F-4 could out turn the MiG despite being less "maneuverable". "The Navy was running into the same problem with missiles" - And yet they didn't buy into the internal gun.
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@black10872 This is just the Reformist's slanderous version of history. The USAF was still using the doctrine used by the Army which was pick the weapon for the most demanding use cases assuming that it would also serve well under less demanding missions. Hence the focus on speed, high altitude, etc. This was Army doctrine that the USAF inherited from the USAAF days. The Phantom was designed for fleet defense, which is a mission where you can't position yourself behind the attacker for a guns solution or else you're just offering the carrier you're going to need to land on on a silver platter to anti-ship missiles. Despite the problems with early missiles, the F-4 scored the majority of air to air kills by missile. Only 5 kills are attributed to the F-4E with internal gun over Vietnam.
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@black10872 This is fluff. The F-4 was intended for fleet defense and then pushed into the fighter role. If it had to kill at close range, it had already failed and would have no place to land as the carrier would be sinking by then. What happened to the F-4 as a fighter does not say anything about the original design being invalid. The MiG had the advantage over USAF F-4s that were flying blind with radar coverage gaps and slow because they were escorting strike packages. When Phantoms went around looking for MiGs, they had the advantage. Their advantage was even greater when Teaball was introduced, and radar coverage plus intelligence made it possible for American pilots to have situational awareness. Also, better training of pilots made missiles more effective as it was found that pilots were firing their missiles outside proper launch parameters. Better training of ground crews also positively affected missile hit rates as mishandling of missiles when transporting and loading was found to be a cause of unreliability. The A-7 Corsair was not a fleet defense aircraft but a strike and close air support aircraft.
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@theylied1776 most later versions of the F-4 actually didn't have the cannon because they were either naval versions or the space meant for the cannon was used for other equipment.
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Syria and Iraq were pretty recent and they do have/had air forces.
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In aviation altitude is expressed in feet even in countries that use metric.
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@ExUSSailor Of course that Sprey would be wrong about the world's largest distributor of MiG parts.
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