China has made a major technological leap with the development of an entirely new class of air-to-air hypersonic missile. Some experts say - 621 miles range.
This just ruins the gentlemen’s sport of dogfighting! It’s not real chivalrous combat unless you look each other in the eyes as you try to sweep each other out of the air with machine gun fire! Has China no shame?!
The US actually believed dogfighting was obsolite at the start of the Vietnam War. The F4 phantom was originally designed without an onboard cannon or machine gun, and was supposed to rely only on guided missiles for offense. The lack of a machine gun combined with the unreliability of early guided missiles led to poor performance against NVA MiG fighters. The air force had to quickly retrofit the existing fighters with gun pods until later versions had them built in.
This just ruins the gentlemen’s sport of dogfighting! It’s not real chivalrous combat unless you look each other in the eyes as you try to sweep each other out of the air with machine gun fire! Has China no shame?!
The US actually believed dogfighting was obsolite at the start of the Vietnam War. The F4 phantom was originally designed without an onboard cannon or machine gun, and was supposed to rely only on guided missiles for offense. The lack of a machine gun combined with the unreliability of early guided missiles led to poor performance against NVA MiG fighters. The air force had to quickly retrofit the existing fighters with gun pods until later versions had them built in.