Comments by "Old Guy Gaming Network" (@CRAZYHORSE19682003) on "F-4 Phantom, The Ultimate Cold War Warrior" video.

@johnhopkins6260 I was in the Navy and the Sea Sparrow had a terrible reputation and was mockingly called the sea chicken. About half the time the guidance fins would rip off at launch and the missile would tumble into the sea. The thing I hate about the internet is context is hard to deliver in a post. I NEVER said the weapons were great, they had tons of issues. What I was trying to say is that as pilot training got better throughout the war these weapons performed better as pilots learned when to fire them and when not to.
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While the early missiles had their issues a huge reason they were not effective is the pilots not knowing how to deploy them correctly. Once pilots were trained on how to use them in the best situation magically the missiles started working.
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@johnhopkins6260 That is not a corporate mantra, it is facts. You could not simply fire a missile at an aircraft and expect it to hit back in the 60's. Firing a sidewinder from behind a MIG in a high energy state ensured that there was a high probability that the MIG pilot could avoid the missile. Catching the MOG in a low energy state almost guaranteed a successful hit. Same with the Sparrow, if you fired at an aircraft traveling perpendicular to your course resulted in a huge percent of missiles failing to track. Once pilots learned to use the missiles in the best possible situation the success rates went way up. That doesn't mean there were not a lot of cases of faulty missiles because there were.
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