Mig25PDS as escort fighter

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19 years 1 month

Posts: 545

Was the mig25pds ever considered an escort fighter for Soviet high altitude bombers like tu16 tu95 and tu22?
Reason I asked was these bombers atleast in the 80s has standoff missiles they can launch at high altitude and return to base and do not have to go for low level runs like fencers and fitters.The mig25 at high altitude would be better suited to deny the interceptors like f16 and f4 ( maybe even f15) from coming close enough to the bombers to affect an interception.
Obviously against f14 with it's AIM54 this will likely not work

What are your thoughts?

Thanks

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Member for

18 years 2 months

Posts: 2,814

The MiG-25 had a very good endurance and range at slower speeds, it's flying fuel tank after all, but it still wouldn't have had the range to accompany a Tu-95 on a long-range strategic strike mission.

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18 years 7 months

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The range of the MiG-25P 600 - 800 km. Refueling in the air is not provided, there is no external tank. This range does not allow bombers to accompany
There was an experimental scout MiG-25RB with refueling in the air, but this is another story

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19 years 1 month

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Even if strike is against Japan or UK ?

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14 years 3 months

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No, unusable.. it's made to fly fast. If it has to remain with the bombers, it means flying subsonically, where it gives away its best advantage.. and if it has to accelerate to its "combat speed", the pilot would have to swim back to Russia ;)

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11 years 4 months

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MiG-25 was an interceptor and not an escort fighter.

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12 years 3 months

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It's BoB and the Bf109* all over again. I am surprised that no more imagination is surfacing on that debate (well chosen topic for a December discussion).

Let's put it that way: how did the USSR see it during large scale exercises?

*No you don't need small "agile" bi-plan that can curl themselves around each bomber to escort a bomber formation effectively above enemy territory. The first jet long range escort fighter would have been the MDD F-88 that ended-up being the magic Voodoo (F-101). Not quite a turn-on a-dime small fighter.

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14 years 8 months

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Whilst the XF-88 ( and -90 ) was under development SAC actually flew escort missions with the F-84E and H, they took over 400 into inventory.

They were inteded to escort the B-29 / 36 / 50 bomber stream but Korea showed that whilst they had the endurance they didn't have the performance to keep the MiGs out.

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19 years 1 month

Posts: 545

Thanks TomcatViP

I was suggesting this

target airbases and navalbases in Japan and lets say turkey in the mid-80s

plan to attack them with ASM and ARM ( AS-6/AS-4 and AS-16) carried by Tu-16/Tu-22 and Tu-95

they need to be escorted to the launching point which is approx 200nm from their targets , that is where they will launch their missiles and then immediately turn back and head home as their missiles have inertial and active radar guidance

that means they need to be protected not for long distances over hostile territory but just to 200nm or so from enemy's bases

The primary threat to these bombers is the interceptors F-15/f-16 AND f-4 which will be scrambled as soon as the soviet bombers are detected likely several hundred miles away from the jap/turkish bases ( due to AWACS).

The bombers are at high altitude accompanied by mig-25s

Now the mig-25s accompanying them will race ahead to meet these fighters head on and this will accomplish 4 things
1-Distract the interceptors from the bombers
2-Draw in fire from their SARH missiles which otherwise could be used against the bombers, since enemy interceptors can only guide one SARH missile at one time ( and foxbats have shown they can be notoriously hard to kill with AIM-7s) this can be quite time consuming giving the bombers time to reach their launch point
3-The foxbats can fire their own missiles which even if they mostly miss will still make the fighters take evasive actions
4-Since bombers are at high altitude this will force the enemy interceptors to fight at higher altitude where foxbats perform better than at low altitude

In the meantime the bombers can reach their launch time, release their missiles and head home

In this way i though foxbats might be quite successful in their goal as escorts, not by destroying large number of enemy interceptors but by keeping them occupied long enough for the bombers to launch their missiles and foxbats may even get a few kills by their slash and dash tactics

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19 years 1 month

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bumping this up to see if I get any more responses !

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14 years 3 months

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what do you want as response?

was it considered as escort?

answer: No

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11 years 10 months

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The MiG-25PD did not have the range required for an effective escort fighter.

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19 years 1 month

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^ it had more than enough range to escort bombers over black sea /sea of japan approx 200nm from the coast of japan and Turkey

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14 years 3 months

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you don't make an escort fighter that escorts you only slightly beyond your own border.. the Tu95 has at least 12000km range (even 15000 according to wikipedia), Mig25? 800km at best... at some point, if your bomber has to be alone for more than 90% of its flight, you don't waste your time to make an escort

besides, there's no fighter on this planet, even today, that could be a credible escort for the Tu95

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11 years 1 month

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during the 1991 gulf war, Iraqi MiG25PDS ran dozens of escort and diversionary missions to cover and protect the flight of bombers, transports and other jets from Iraq to Iran.

They succeeded in protecting most of the jets that set out to ferry across the border to Iran and many of the encounters with F-15s and others were during these diversionary missions. Its notable that the US had non stop AWACS and dozens of F-15s in the air at all times to try and destroy as many Iraqi aircraft as possible. In addition to the flat open terrain and the several hundred km run to the iranian border for many of the aircraft. the MiG25s did their job very well under the near impossible circumstances then.

It is notable that they themselves did not evacuate. Just covered the evacuation flights.

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19 years 1 month

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you don't make an escort fighter that escorts you only slightly beyond your own border.. the Tu95 has at least 12000km range (even 15000 according to wikipedia), Mig25? 800km at best... at some point, if your bomber has to be alone for more than 90% of its flight, you don't waste your time to make an escort

turkey northern coast or Japanease isles are NOT 12000 km from USSR

I'm not saying they will escort backfires to Oklahoma

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19 years 1 month

Posts: 545

during the 1991 gulf war, Iraqi MiG25PDS ran dozens of escort and diversionary missions to cover and protect the flight of bombers, transports and other jets from Iraq to Iran.

They succeeded in protecting most of the jets that set out to ferry across the border to Iran and many of the encounters with F-15s and others were during these diversionary missions. Its notable that the US had non stop AWACS and dozens of F-15s in the air at all times to try and destroy as many Iraqi aircraft as possible. In addition to the flat open terrain and the several hundred km run to the iranian border for many of the aircraft. the MiG25s did their job very well under the near impossible circumstances then.

It is notable that they themselves did not evacuate. Just covered the evacuation flights

Thats a perfect example

just imagine if Iraqis had 100 + Mig-25s not 25,they might not have scored a lot of A2A kills but they would have been incredibly disruptive to their opponents air campaign

Furthermore imagine if Iraq was just fighting KSA + kuwait + UAE airforces alone in 1990 and not the entire might of NATO.Thats the kind of odds you are dealing with in a USSR vs Turkey/Japan scenario

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15 years 2 months

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Furthermore imagine if Iraq was just fighting KSA + kuwait + UAE airforces alone in 1990 and not the entire might of NATO.

Then the F-117s would have spent the 1st week taking them all out on the ground then the rest would have continued just as it did.

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19 years 1 month

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^ NO f-117 WERE in service of gulf states