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Old 02-14-2018, 10:41 AM
RN7 RN7 is offline
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Matt what variant of the F-4 Phantom are you supposed to be flying?

Even in Red Dawn the establishment of American air superiority is going to happen due to the fact that American 4th generation fighters are better than what the Soviets have. Even a 3-1 superiority in fighters won't help the Soviets and I don't think the Soviets will have such a superiority in numbers over North America. Any American commander with even half a brain is also going to go after Soviet radars and shut down their SAM batteries. To be honest I don't think this would take so long either.

The F-16 powered by General Electric engines (especially F-16 Block 30 from 1987, Block 40 from 1988) are superior in agility to any Soviet fighter including the Mig-29 at Within Visual Range (WVR) air combat, and in the right hands will slaughter most Soviet Bloc fighters. The less agile but faster and more powerful F-15C (and F-15E) is also better at WVR than most Soviet fighters, and is aerodynamically at least a match for a Su-27 at Beyond Visual Range (BVR) air combat and better than a Mig-25/31, and also with better sensors and better trained pilots. Add the navy and Marine F-14's and F-18's into the mix and America is not a good place to be for a Soviet fighter pilot. The presence of F-15's with AWAC direction would also be a major deterrent to the use of Soviet strategic bombers over America.

Knocking out Soviet radars would be a priority for the American's, leaving Soviet ground forces exposed to the type of air degradation that you are talking about. The F-111, F-4G Wild Weasel and F-16's (with HTS pods) carrying AGM-88 HARM would effectively shut down Soviet air defence radars very quickly. In the early invasion period the US anti-radiation missiles would be the AGM-45 Shrike, but from 1985 the AGM-88 HARM is put into production, and with a range of up to 150km as opposed to no more than 45km for AGM-45B, it would be a game changer. At this time the F-117A is also in service, and the F-15E from 1988, and might be brought into service even earlier in the Red Dawn scenario. As we know that most of America's military power and industry is still existent, then the Americans will be hitting the Soviet's hard and in strength, even in the earlier part of the war. I would say that in less than one year the Soviet's would have withdrawn most of their most effective air defence capabilities to rear areas out of effective reach of US air strikes, leaving frontline forces highly exposed to US air strikes. Here is where you are going to see F-4's, A-7's, A-10's and Harriers bombing and strafing Soviet Bloc ground forces as you describe.
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