Now to keep things very very simple.
Around 78 F86 Sabre’s were shot down in Korea. by Comparison 800 Mig 15s were shot down. Migs have NEVER stood a chance.
You see combat tells the real numbers. We can play all the war games, training report, etc we want. But combat tells the real story so lets look at what happens in real combat:
1:10 KDR/Losses for the Mig 15.
Lets look at the Soviet Afghan War (russian pilots vs 3rd world country pilots). Lets entirely ignore the ground attack aircraft lost and look just at Migs lost:
F16 (Pakistani Piloted) = 10 & 0. Undefeated.
Mig 21(Soviet Piloted) = 0 & 4. (no kills, all deaths).
Mig 23 (Soviet Piloted) 0 & 3. (no kills, all deaths).
The Migs were piloted by USSR, and got stomped.
It is really interesting you never brought this up but I will. Their are 3 combat aircraft with perfect records:
F15 with 107 : 0
Sea Harrier with 21 : 0
SU-27 with 6 : 0
You see the Sukhoi’s is actually undefeated. They have 5 kills in the Ethiopian-Eritrean War and 1 kill in the First Chechen War. With zero losses.
The Mig 29 (prior to the War in Ukraine) was 6 - 18 in combat. However this is a little suspect because the Mig 29 has killed:
2 Cessna’s (Humanitarian Planes)
1 Georgian Recon Drone.
3 Mig 21s.
Mig 29 in combat has been shot down by:
F16s (in some cases piloted by NON-USA Aviators).
SU-27s
F15s
You see, the Migs don’t stand an actual chance vs F16s and other NATO fighters in real combat. In war games, yeah ok things happen, people do things they wouldn’t try in combat. You try unconventional approaches to see what works etc. I have been a part of these, and you do things just to see, because you know in the AAR you might get in trouble but its always that “what if” and that is your chance.
In the real world… Migs have never been an overwhelming threat. If the Mig 29 is suffering vs F16 in game, this is how it should be. The Mig 29 has never been competitive vs the F16 in real combat. They have always failed and been shot down.
The following is the data I have in the database I can see.
SU-27 = 6 kills to 0 losses. (6 kills and 0 losses)
Mig 15 = 10 losses per kill. (76 kills and 800 losses)
Mig 21 = 2 losses per kill (most of their kills being vs other migs). (240 kills to 500 losses)
Mig 23 = 4 losses per kill. (25 kills with 102 losses)
Mig 25 = 1 : 1 (0 & 2 piloted by Soviets in combat) (8 kills and 8 losses)
Mig 29 = 3 losses per kill. (6 kills and 18 losses)
SU-27 = 6 kills and 0 losses in combat.
The Mig 29 losses in the russian Invasion are currently not accurate, as russia is not providing the data on their losses (we know they have some). Some of our estimates put russia at around 150 losses.
However in russia the Mig 29 public data is:
1 kill & 12 losses. These are air combat only as I don’t count SAM losses. Russia claims to not be piloting the Mig-29s in some reports however other reports show that a Mig-29 fired at a Ukranian aircraft: РНБО навело докази, що український СУ-25 був збитий російським винищувачем | Українська правда. Until we get more complete data from russia it is best to assume the Mig 29 sits at 7 kills and 30 losses. But the losses are likely much higher. But that still puts the Mig 29 at a KDR of worse than 1:4 IRL.
Vs the following ratios:
F4 = 3 kills to 1 loss (306 kills to 106 losses)
F86 = 10 to 1 kills per loss. (800 kills to 76 losses)
F14 = 34 kills to 1 loss. (135 kills to 4 losses)
F15 = 107 kills 0 losses. (107 kills and 0 losses)
F16 = 76 kills to 1 loss. (76 kills and 1 loss)
F18 = 2 kills to 1 loss. (2 kills and 1 loss)
You can cope all you want, you can try to circumvent and make all the excuses you want. This is the reality. The air combat numbers tell the real story. The Mig 29 in any form doesn’t stand a chance against the F16.
We have just approved F16 Block 70+ for Ukraine.
This game has the F16 C sitting at block 50 1991 (but its actually limited to being an 80s aircraft). You can tell because it has the AN/APG-68v7 radar and the F110-GE-129 engine. If it was actually the 2006+ version we would have the PW-229 engine and AESA radar. It is also silly that it still has Sparrows which it never would have carried. AIM-120s is what it should have.
The Mig 29SMT might suffer from not having RD-33 Series 3 engines. The Mig 29 shows 3920kgf and the Mig 29 SMT shows 3900 as well. So it might not actually have the series 3 engines like it should. But the F16C suffers from a lack of Aim-120s. The R77 didn’t enter service until 2002 so we should have at least 3 updates with AIM-120s and no R77s. This is just the reality we should see. We waited far too long for the 1983 Aim-9M. And no, I don’t really care for whatever nonsense excuse anyone gives.
The Aim-120 and Aim-9M can be outfitted on more than half the nations in game, and could bring some balance when vs russian aircraft to multiple nations. Not just the USA. The Aim-120s as well by that fact as many aircraft we have now are missing them. Not just one nation like russia.
The F16 Block 50/52+, and F16E or U Block 60/+ are both older than the Mig 29SMT. It is humorous that you get a 2004 variant with glass cockpit and mid 1990s R73s (they are not the 1980s version) weapons and still complain when the F14A, F14B, F16A, F16B, F16C are all wrong in the game and aren’t loaded with the right weapons. Plus the Migs RADAR is over performing, and its flight characteristics are over performing. Here is a screen shot with my Mig 29SMT and R73s gimbled well beyond its 40 degree limit on the rail:
Remember, we knew absolutely everything about the Mig 29 thanks to two people, including an engineer that told us literally everything. We were able to train pilots, and conform our systems to be better than the Mig from early on.
