I said aviation threat. Those fighters are the principle strategic aviation threat of the United States.
The Gripen is a tactical fighter. It’s good for battles & localized conflicts. Not shutting down airspace for hundreds of nautical miles.
That is a reason why the new Russian Federation after Soviet Dissolution decided to invest in Flankers & stopped ordering new Fulcrums such as the 9-13S.
The Fulcrum is a small tactical fighter. The Gripen will suffer the same fate eventually. Especially since the F-35 is creeping in taking over the Nordic countries as the desired aircraft.
The Soviets had their doctrine of conducting air combat which was incompatible with using high AoA maneuvers ( this is logical, if a pilot does this in war it is bad for him). These maneuvers were practiced by test pilots and I’m sure a few others, but it didn’t affect the whole air force of the Soviet Union and later Russia.
You’re forgetting about finance and political struggle. The Soviets didn’t have the money for two types of planes and the Sukhoi people got more of the upper ranks of USSR/Russian politics.
I assume you’re reffering Pl-17 and R37M missiles.
Both Chinese and Russian Goverment claims that both missiles can achieve 400km range, if we believe them of course.
Also lets not forget that thats the absolute maximum range those missiles can achieve under optimal conditions, in real life combat scenario pilots will probably avoid firing them from those extreme distances unless they have to.
Remember the Mig29 is always hindered by range, ammount of missiles it can carry & modernization.
The Mig29s nose is too small. it does not have long-term sustainability. It cannot house a powerful radar. Even when technology offers it, a bigger radar will always have the advantage & get even better.
This is why the Fulcrum was left to the wayside. Its a great export fighter. The Russians made the correct choice.
The Gripen is doomed to the fate of the Fulcrum. Mark my word.
Even when they did originally revaluate their spending they still went with the two fighter production for a while since it was concieved that the spending between the light/heavy fighters would be at a ratio of something like 1:1.4 (from memory). But then the costs simply didnt play out that way and mig’s real world costing ended up something like 1.15:1.4 and it became unsustainable - so they just had to drop the mig’s in favour of focussing on the sukhoi. Which i think everyone would agree is the wisest choice given the financial issues at the time and the capabilities of the flanker. Would have been amazing to see the mig’s development continue unabated though - its such a cool little fighter and fits its niche well.
