AIM-9 Sidewinder

[hrtpaul]

For those interested in missiles http://www.donhollway.com/foxtwo/

[_BlackHawk_]

As a side note, the AA-2 was such a good copy of the Sidewinder, that the Finns could fire Atoll's off the Drakens and Sidewinders off their MiG-21s with no modifications to the weapon or aircraft.

[tor lives]

So how many kills have Atolls (Sidewinderskis) actually achieved I wonder???
TOR

[Graeme H]

I read somewhere on the Internet, I think it was an Argentinian site that the missile with the most kills air to air is the Shafrir/Python, I really laughed when I read that the Israelis nicknamed it, "The Drum" because that was it's frequent flight characteristics.
The Arab Israeli wars were the place for most missile firings and kills, with a lot more air to air combat than anywhere else, all the Arab Air forces would have been equipped with AA2's, but don't remember a lot of air to air kills by them.

[Adam the Akrodude]

Plenty of Atolls fired during air war over Nth Vietnam. No matter whose numbers you use, it must be agreed that the VPAF(VNAF) MiG-21 guerrilla/hit and run tactics were very good and they achieved very favourable kill ratios against the much larger and formidable USAF/USN over Nth Vietnam.

Of course the USAF in particular was hampered by poor strategy and tactics and the dreaded "ROE" dictated from the Whitehouse in particular. Had the USAF at wing level been allowed to use their own tactics and fight the war their own way, it's highly likely that the war could have been over in 1968 - Hanoi came very close to folding in 1967. The end result would have been the same with the eventual collapse of the South, but literally many hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved. Imagine trying to fight a war and not being able to destroy the airbases, not shoot at a MiG until it takes off, not being able to hit a SAM site until it's operational - Lyndon Johnson and "Dr. Strange" McNamara have a lot to answer for.



This makes for some humbling reading - refer to the MiG-21 kills Vietnam War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-21

[_BlackHawk_]

I read somewhere on the Internet, I think it was an Argentinian site that the missile with the most kills air to air is the Shafrir/Python, I really laughed when I read that the Israelis nicknamed it, "The Drum" because that was it's frequent flight characteristics.
The Arab Israeli wars were the place for most missile firings and kills, with a lot more air to air combat than anywhere else, all the Arab Air forces would have been equipped with AA2's, but don't remember a lot of air to air kills by them.

Only the Shafrir 1 was a piece of crap. There was only 1 confirmed kill with it during the 6 day war. The weapon was so bad that when the airfields at Bir-Gifgafa and el-Arish were captured, the IAF found a stock of R-3S missiles that were used with some effect on their Mirage III. Shafrir 2 was a much better weapon along with the Pythons. The Arab forces got more kills than you might think.