Comments by "Titanium Rain" (@ChucksSEADnDEAD) on "F-15EX - Is the most heavily armed USAF jet worth it?" video.

@earlwyss520 Only 187 F-22s were built, the F-35 already has 665 built. How is this a career dead end?
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@giantskeleton420 The F-22 was "risked" over Syria to drop JDAMs in areas other aircraft couldn't go into.
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@c0ldyloxproductions324 "the problem with building an aircraft for bvr is that when u run out of missiles u have to still get in close" - No, you don't. That's a mistake. If you're running out of ammo in a gunfight, the solution isn't using the bayonet. You'll just get shot. "what happens when the enemy still has an aircraft that can dogfight and the f35 can’t" - What happens when the aircraft that can dogfight can't even get close? What happens when the aircraft that can dogfight simply eats a high-off-boresight missile at close range? "we should have learned our lesson with the f4 phantom" - The lesson with the Phantom was "give pilots situational awareness". Most Phantoms shot down in air to air were victims of ambushes they couldn't see coming and had nothing to do with guns. The vast majority of Phantom kills were made with missile, and the Navy never added guns. "Ull have to get in close and gun kill" - And while you're wasting time trying to line up a gunshot, you eat a missile from a wingman. Or while trying to get close, you eat a high off bore axis IR missile. The situation is too dangerous to want to score a gun kill.
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@Magneto_502 "missle defense will include something similar to the An/Seq-3 on jets" - And why would you want to get close to an aircraft that is increasing its defensive potential? Want to defend yourself? Create a window and run before you're dragged into the fight. Get all your wingmen to help. If you're alone and up close, you've already placed yourself in a low survivability situation where trying to fight your way out through circling around is simply not going to go well for you.
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@bmwthreethreefive5798 The only F-15s being "replaced" by F-35s would be F-15s used for ground strike. And even then many of them will stay in service for many years until retirement. The F-15 is an air superiority fighter and the F-35 was never meant to replace it. The F-15 is to the F-16 what the F-22 is to the F-35. The F-15 is the expensive, overpowered, air to air dominance aircraft while the F-16 does everything. The only issue is that not enough F-22s were built and the F-15s configured for strike have proliferated.
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@CruelandCold The F-35 is almost an AWACS in itself.
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Yes, it has seen combat. It dropped JDAMs in Syria.
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@GRIGGINS1 You were proven right about self-fulfilling prophecies, nothing more. The F-22 program was shut down too early. That means that the only option is to kill it and retire it when the NGAD comes online because there's too few of them. If the intended F-22 order had been manufactured, or even a hundred or hundred and fifty less, there would be enough of a supply of F-22s to justify keeping it in service.
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@c0ldyloxproductions324 "Or watched any episodes of dogfights" - It's an edutainment show that oversimplifies things for a general audience. Please. "in some cases retreating isn’t an option" - Sacrificing millions of dollars worth of aircraft and a pilot is not an option either. "phantom pilots had to get close in" - Because of many external factors. "but didn’t have a gun" - This wasn't an issue. Phantoms without guns splashed MiGs all over Southeast Asia. Again, the gun story is edutainment exaggeration. If you look at the actual history you'll realize it wasn't the issue you were told it was. "Nvr isn’t the end all be all" - Who said anything about BVR? You can be WITHIN visual range but not want to get any closer for a guns kill. "close in maneuvering gun kills" - No. It will be a trade of highly effective missiles. If you keep getting closer you will not survive the missile exchange. "in fact old fashioned dogfighting will become more prevalent as stealth tech gets better" - No. The enemy will simply pull high AoA, fire a high G high off boresight IR missile and end you before you can get behind his tail. "eating a missile from a wingman is highly unlikely due to rules of combat the wingman holds fire while flight lead engages" - False. Wingmen create interlocking cones of fire to support each other. For someone who tells others to read on the history of dogfighting you're not even aware of basic tactics like the Thach Weave. "the f15s were still scoring gun kills al the way up into desert storm" - The last gun kills in air to air between fighters happened in the 80s. "u can say gun kill situations are too dangerous" - The missiles were much less dangerous than now. "Then how come by the end of the war nearly all phantoms navy or army either had an external gun pod" - This is false. First, the Army did not have Phantoms. Second, the Navy did not field any Phantom with internal cannons. The naval variants of the F-4 did not have cannons. Gun pods were mostly used for ground strafing because the targeting was not suitable for air to air and many flight leads did not allow their pilots to bring gun pods because the extra drag and weight penalty was not worth it. You can look at the Phantom kills record over Vietnam, the USAF scored around 6 kills with gun pods and 5 kills with the internal gun. Meanwhile missiles were used for 86 kills. The Navy got 40 kills without guns. "there was most definitely naval f4s armed with a Vulcan gun" - Not internal ones. Wikipedia lists the naval variants used by the US, you can look at them. The internal cannon required the use of a smaller radar and the Navy needed the larger radar to detect bombers capable of launching anti-ship missiles at longer ranges.
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@c0ldyloxproductions324 That has to be the worst response I ever got. The point wasn't guns or missiles, the point is that you DENY that wingmen can assist each other and I provided evidence that they do.
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@c0ldyloxproductions324 "u can’t always retreat" - When the alternative is dying trying to pull a stunt, you don't really have an option. You will not save any lives trying to force a guns kill. "how they are to conduct themselves in combat" - Two and four aircraft tactics are literally based on trying to split the enemy formation so that a wingman can take out pursuing aircraft, what the hell are you talking about? "wat u said that is clear proven wrong with historical combat events recounted by actual pilots and dogfights was based on historical recounts" - Not only are you aggressively misspelling almost every word, you're talking about history that happened before the modern times. "the events are very much real" - The events can be real but the stories twisted for entertainment. The Phantom gun story is a twisted narrative that doesn't represent the actual events. Phantoms weren't lost due to lack of guns, they were lost to high speed ambushes in which the Phantoms wouldn't have been able to get close enough to get a guns solution. "since u clearly don’t understand" - No, it's you who doesn't understand but you simply insult others and claim they don't understand.
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@c0ldyloxproductions324 "wat would happen when neither side can detect each other because stealth aircraft are fielded by both sides?" - Stealth aircraft are detected at close range. The F-117 shot down over Yugoslavia was close enough that it could give the SAM a lock from 8 miles out. 8 miles is too far away for a guns kill. "The only option left is to gain visual" - But visual can be anywhere from 5 miles to 10 miles depending on the size of the aircraft and the contrast. Not to mention that with IRST/EO capabilities you can get visual from beyond visual range. "and fight maneuvering fights" - The point is that the maneuvering fight is now based on trying to get a missile shot off while at the same time defending from incoming missiles. With all aspect IR missiles and the ability to shoot them at very high angles relative to the nose means that you don't need to keep aircraft pointed at each other. "the 3 major super powers all have stealth fighters america China and Russia" - Russia has 12 Su-57 and they're shoddily constructed. They're not a big threat.
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@Leoluvesadmira The Phantom scored 86 kills by missile in USAF service, and the Navy never added guns to their Phantoms.
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@Magneto_502 And again, what makes you think that you'll be able to get close to an aircraft with defenses so good it's invulnerable to missiles? If aircraft start carrying airborne lasers and defenses get better, why would you think the laser wouldn't simply take out an aircraft trying to use the gun?
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@Magneto_502 "At that point it's going to be laser dog fighting" - How can you "dogfight" when the lasers themselves prevent you from getting near? You can't "dogfight" a laser gimbal that simply turns back and burns a hole in your aircraft. The same thing that makes active defenses against missiles effective is the same thing that ends dogfights forever. You can't have one. You'll just die.
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@Leoluvesadmira "the IR seeker still needs to be able to see the target" - And the IR seeker can not only go off boresight and see targets almost 70-90º to your flight vector, modern missiles are starting to get built-in with the capability to have sensor fusion dictate a target to them or even the pilot's helmet mark a target, come off the rail, turn into the target, then turn on the seeker. Yes, the seeker needs to be able to see the target. And now you can make the missile go to where it needs to be, and then "open its eye" to see the target. And the IR seeker is effective at essentially double-digits on the number of miles. So who'd want to get close anyway? "the same holds true for a radar seeker" - Okay. Not only are radars capable of having a very wide cone of scanning, you also have RWR, you also are linked to your wingmen's radars and also receiving information from AWACS. So even though you have some limits (and sensor fusion is starting to address them) you're very unlikely to not just be able to mark a target and fire. "I need to turn or pull some maneuver to see him" - The problem is that you need to understand that fundamentally everything has changed. That "maneuver" is pulling high AoA and firing. That's it. The F-35 is usually compared to the Hornet in nose authority, which means you can point it really well. And this now matters more than being able to turn like in the old days. What used to take several minutes of dancing around to position yourself for a missile shot is now done in seconds. Everyone can just shoot at each other and the missiles are deadlier than ever. So who would want to get close?
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How is it a sitting duck? It splashes 4th gen aircraft at a 17 to 1 ratio. Without many missiles? They carry 4 AMRAAMs in the B and C variant, 6 in the F-35A. A flight of 4 F-35As can wipe out 24 enemy fighters in one sortie.
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@texasranger24 Your argument makes no sense. Why would the enemy get that close before taking a shot? He's literally walking into the wolf's den and signing his own death warrant by doing that. Few missiles? Do you think a single enemy pilot wants to dodge 6 AMRAAMs? I don't think they'd win. It would be a draw because of the AIM-9X. Anything the MiG, Sukohi or Eurofighter do, they eat a missile. They may as well take out the F-35, but they will always eat a missile. The F-35 can pull high AoA and take the high off boresight shot no problem, meaning that there's no aircraft in the world that can escape. Not to mention that real life isn't a 1:1 jousting match. An invading force could take out a few F-35s from that starting position, but the rest would start shooting missiles at the confirmed hostiles. There's hundreds of F-35s manufactured and delivered. Who has an air force large enough to deal with that?
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The fighter mafia hated the F-15 and lobbied for the lightweight fighter program.
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But the F-15EX costs almost as much as a F-35A.
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That was never the idea. The idea was using the F-22, which is the actual air superiority fighter. But not enough ones were made.
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