Air-to-Air-Report-

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30 CSBA | TRENDS IN AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT opponent is behind them. 48 With an increasing number of modern combat aircraft equipped with missile-approach warning systems, it is likely that a pilot under attack will have sufficient time to target an attacker and launch a missile in return. Once both aircraft have “launch and leave” missiles in the air, prospects are good that the short-range engagement will result in “mutual kills,” with short-range combat kill ratios near 1:1. This suggests we may have reached a point in the development of short-range air combat technologies where serious, capable adversaries will attempt to avoid it and instead seek advantage in superior BVR capabilities. 48 See Operational Test and Evaluation Annual 2012 Report (DoD, 2012), 135, available at http://www.dote.osd.mil/pub/ reports/FY2012/pdf/navy/2012aim9x.pdf, accessed December 10, 2013, for details on the most modern U.S. short-range IR missile, the AIM-9X.
www.csbaonline.org 31 CHAPTER 3 The Evolving Importance of Traditional Fighter Aircraft Attributes Early in Chapter 2 aerial combat was described as a dynamic competition for SA. The side with superior SA usually wins and overwhelming victories suggest a lopsided outcome in the SA competition. The disparity in North Vietnamese and Iraqi Air Force aerial combat success against U.S. forces strongly suggests that by 1991 the United States had succeeded in creating an airborne battle network capable of bestowing on its well-trained aircrew an overwhelming advantage in SA. This is consistent with statistical analysis of results from extensive air-toair combat testing conducted in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These tests, known as Air Combat Evaluation (ACEVAL), Air Intercept Missile Evaluation (AIMVAL), and the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) operational evaluation (OUE), consistently found that aircrew SA was the most important factor in determining combat outcomes. 49 Digging a bit deeper into the SA competition, the tests results suggested superior SA was a function of the technological enablers listed in Table 3. 49 ACEVAL examined the effectiveness of U.S. air combat tactics against less sophisticated opponents, AIMVAL was a series of tests designed to evaluate the impact of improved short-range IR missiles on combat outcomes, and the AMRAAM OUE used high-fidelity air combat simulations with humans in the loop to establish the utility of an AMRAAM.
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