gambit
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This is an excellent point and an FYI for all air force enthusiasts...With the IAF's numerical advantage, this time around, it won't be 2 or 4 IAF jets coming in. The numbers will be larger and each SU-30 can lock on and fire on about 6 targets. The JFT can lock on two and for a better kill ratio, both the missiles should be fired on one target. That means the JFT will take on just 1 SU-30 at a time. Now, if there was a better radar allowing 4 targets to be locked on simultaneously, and 4 BVR's were available, you can obviously target 4 incoming jets, or fire 2 BVR's on each incoming jet, raising the hit to kill ratio significantly and turning the JFT into a better force-multiplier than it is today. Just my two cents.
Regards,
Today, the USAF have 'Weapons School'...
Factsheets : United States Air Force Weapons School
It used to be much narrower in scope -- Fighter Weapons School.
Anyway...Without revealing too much details, our training will have tactics that will have an instructor or student at some technical disadvantages, such as simulating a radar that have fewer lock capability and the fighter is equipped with a certain type of missiles.
There are great differences between air combat maneuvers (ACM) vs air combat tactics (ACT).
ACM is about maneuverings, as in how to make a jet fighter aircraft performs a roll or some pitch movements.
Air combat tactics are much greater than learning how to fly and maneuver. Tactics are about situations, awareness of situations, and how to exploit many things into one's favor.
If a pilot is assigned (simulated) a fighter that have an inferior radar lock capability than his opponents (plural), what can he do to win ? What can he and wingman do to isolate one opponent among many ? That is tactics, not merely maneuvers.
Likewise for the instructor. For the day's flying, he may inform his student opponents that he is simulating an adversary that have inferior radar capability and it is up to the student opponents to use tactics that will place the instructor at a disadvantage.
There is an old saying in the martial arts: 'A good fighter hides his weaknesses, but a great fighter will uses them.'
Air combat tactics, which includes dissimilar platforms, are about recognizing one's weaknesses and how to use them to one's favor.
Now, as far as radar capability goes, AESA is THE way to go. Sometimes there are technical advantages so great that superior tactical skills cannot raise the odds of victory unless the guy with the AESA system is an absolute utter boob of a fighter pilot.