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Mig-23s in the russian/Afghan war


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Although it's often mentioned that R-60 short range AA missiles were sometimes used with a dumb bomb load, the photos proving this are elusive. 

 

I have a Russian language book on the exact subject ("MiG-23 in Afghanistan") and no such photos can be found in that book. The book includes a lot of excellent pictures of operational Floggers in Afghanistan from the period and it's always either missiles or bombs. I also have a book from the same series for MiG-27 and there are no such photos either.

 

That being said, years ago I made an Su-24 "Fencer" with free fall bomb load plus a pair of R-60s. I do recall that this is something closer to truth but I can't really verify since I've lost most of my Fencer references. 

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The comparison with Su-24M is not really saying much, since it carries R-60s on outside wing pylons and it doesn't affect its main mission payload.

 

For the MiG-23, it would lose like 50% of its mission payload, so it makes more sense to send additional escort MiG-23s armed with BVR missiles as well if threats are expected.

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2 hours ago, ijozic said:

The comparison with Su-24M is not really saying much, since it carries R-60s on outside wing pylons and it doesn't affect its main mission payload.

 

For the MiG-23, it would lose like 50% of its mission payload, so it makes more sense to send additional escort MiG-23s armed with BVR missiles as well if threats are expected.

 

You're right and the Fencer example was just a sidenote or an exception to the rule, not a pure comparison.

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Apparently it was too dangerous when releasing the bombs  The risk of the bombs on release hitting the drop tanks was too high apparently and especially when they were carrying MBD2-67U MERs with 4 bombs on each rack and sometimes the Mig-23 carried 4 MERs.  So that's the reason they didn't carry any drop tanks I  read.

Edited by Modelkeenfan
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39 minutes ago, Modelkeenfan said:

Apparently it was too dangerous when releasing the bombs  The risk of the bombs on release hitting the drop tanks was too high apparently and especially when they were carrying MBD2-67U MERs with 4 bombs on each rack and sometimes the Mig-23 carried 4 MERs.  So that's the reason they didn't carry any drop tanks I  read.

I'll buy that when it comes to bombs under the fuselage stations. But they also carried S-24, B-8M and UB-32 rocket(pods) there.  They probably just didn't want to remove or upload the centerline tank each time they switched to freefall bombs or vice versa...

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Yes but rockets don't just fall away from the aircraft.  If the they were  carrying  4 MERs and released all the bombs at once (all 16),

 then I guess there would be a chance if hitting the centreline tank.  Another reason  may have been that with a full bomb load, it may not have been possible to carry the extra weight of a centreline tank.

Aldo look at how close the pylons on the fuselage are to the centreline tank.  The MERs would have been almost touching the centreline tank on each side.  But the loadout if of 4 MERs with 4 OFAB 100s or 4 ZAB 100s was not a common one and also one the pilots did not like as too much drag.

 

 

 

Edited by Modelkeenfan
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4 hours ago, pollie said:

I'll buy that when it comes to bombs under the fuselage stations. But they also carried S-24, B-8M and UB-32 rocket(pods) there.  They probably just didn't want to remove or upload the centerline tank each time they switched to freefall bombs or vice versa...

 

The pylons were too close to the tank for air to ground weapons, hence why they were moved outwards on the MiG-27 (under the intakes) which can thus carry bombs and rockets with the centerline fuel tank.

 

Rocket pods emit a lot of fire backwards so you don't want that to be hitting the fuel tank, either.

Edited by ijozic
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1 hour ago, Brad-M said:

Was there much call for Mig-23's to be loaded for air to air?

 

There are lots of pictures of MiG-23s loaded for air to air during the Soviet-Afghan conflict. There were many skirmishes between the Soviet MiG-23s and Pakistani F-16s over the border, but it appears none of those skirmishes resulted in an actual shoot-down involving those two types. Both sides made claims against each other, but these claims have been fairly well debunked by subsequent research. Other aircraft were, however, shot down in skirmishes between the two sides, and therefore air-to-air configured MiG-23s were a fairly common sight during the latter years of the Afghan conflict.

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37 minutes ago, Modelkeenfan said:

I thought that the Mig-23s loaded for ground attack missions would be protected by other Mig-23s in the air to air configuration.

Indeed. The skirmishes with the Pakistanis was the main reason why that was necessary.

 

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While I did not read much on Russian tactics in a/a, isn't it the case, that if a strike aircraft would be engaged in a/a combat the pilot would drop the bombs before attempting any combat with own missiles? That is untill the hi-g aircraft started doing bombing runs. I remember reading something like that about F-105 operations over North Vietnam. Hence the escort is more feasible, since it can engage the threatening aircraft long enough for the strike package to reach the target and bug out.

I also thought that "self protect" thing is something relativelly new.

So now I guess I'll have to check how it is over Syria nowadays...

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