Why does Israel still use AIM-7 Sparrows in 2025?

When they hit an enemy plane it's destroyed.

Because they work.

>In an alternate timeline, Iran is ruled by competent leadership, they'd have had F-14A's equipped with PL-15E's and KJ-500 guiding them to shoot down Israeli F-15's and F-16's trying the into Iranian airspace.
Damn

>>63858419
Wouldn't China get sanctioned by the West for giving mil equipment to fucking Iran?

>>63858394 (OP)
Nothing worth using good shit on in the air i suppose

>>63858419
And Iran with competent leadership would not have a beef with Israel. Iran was the 2nd country on earth to recognize Israel.

>>63858394 (OP)
Using them up in drones maybe?

>>63858394 (OP)
aint broke don't fix it, plenty of missile to swat drones or cruise misisles

>>63858435
Back in 2020 the UN arms embargo against Iran ended. That's why there were even talks about buying the J-10CE, but Iran chose the Su-35s because they needed a twin-engine heavy fighter to replace their F-14As to cover the huge airspace of Iran.

>>63858419
Would this be before or after they got ganked on the ground?

>>63858449
If they had competent leadership would have developed nukes long ago when Assad was still around, who could have heavily impacted Israel's capability to strike Iran with their air force, since they would have to deal with Syrian SAMs and Iran could even deploy SRBMs to strike targets against Israel from Syria which are way cheaper and numerous than the Medium range Ballistic missiles that Iran has to use right now.

>>63858480
In that scenario their air force equipped with PL-15E's and KJ-500 AWACS would be in the air in the days prior in DCA posture like any competent Air Force would have done like the PAF before Operation Sindoor.

>>63858394 (OP)
cheap, and jews are penny pinchers

>>63858480
>F-14s that satellite imagery shows on the ground in that same spot for the last 17 years

>>63858519
So theyd get ganked in the air by f35s

Cheap for shooting down incoming drones.
/Thread

>>63858394 (OP)
Besides being cheap, the aircraft maintains control over the missile for the duration of the flight, so you don't have concerns about it wandering off and causing a jew-on-jew incident

>>63858394 (OP)
Probably because they have them, might as well shoot them at shitty lawn mowers.

>>63858449
Extremely naive thinking. A competent and powerful Iran would threaten the Zionist end goal for the middle east. Great powers only play nice when they are forced to, like the UK/FR/GR cooperating against the USSR. There is no equivalent scenario for a sustainable Iran+Israel partnership.

>>63858394 (OP)
Do you think they load Sparrows into F-35s' missile bay?

>>63858892
I don't know that they'd fit, sparrow fins are fucking huge

>>63858892
They wouldn't fit unless you clipped the aerosurfaces pretty substantially, the AIM-120C had to do this to fit and it has a body an inch smaller in diameter than the AIM-7. I'm sure it's doable but if you're having to put AIM-7s on your F-35s then you're probably in trouble anyway

>>63858394 (OP)
Why wouldn't they? They're shooting flying lawnmowers.

>>63858419
what is up with turdies and shilling the PL-15 now?

>>63858394 (OP)
Because SARH is still perfectly fine against things like cruise missiles or drones and when your opponents rely on saturation attacks you can't afford to throw anything out

>>63859308
they're actually apparently decent if they're used by a semi-competent air force that is directing its fighters with AWACS and the air force they're using it against is legitimately retarded, but thirdies being thirdies they don't understand any of this and just follow the shinies.

>>63858435
They've been giving equipment to Russia for a couple of years now and there have been no EU sanctions on China so far.

>>63859308
Chinese sales pitch.

>>63859308
It's basically the first time any piece of modern Chinese equipment (i.e. not a copy of a Soviet system from the early-to-mid Cold War) has been used in combat, and by virtue of appearing to be thoroughly ok-ish against a semi-modern Western aircraft flown by non-Western hands, it's been getting shilled hard by the wumaos.
And to be fair, the PL-15 and J-10 are like the only two non-Western systems that've seen use over the last four years without very publicly shitting the bed. It's a low bar, but at least the Chinese managed to clear it.

>>63858800
A competent and powerful Iran would be ruled by the Royal family which has to juggle a half dozen religions, not be a fundamentalist idiot. The Iranian people don't want a left leaning Islamic regime.

1. they're in the warehouse. might as well use them
2. they work so why not. It's not like cruise missiles require an AMRAAM

>>63858449
this, Israel sold like 2 billion worth of weapons per year for oil in the 80s to support the new ayatolla regime. the used to be greatest allies

>>63859308

>>63859298
Does the US even still have Sparrows? Feels like those would have been phased out as we have a shit ton of 120's

>>63859573
I don't understand why it would be incredibly impressive when this sort of network centric warfare is what has been in place for a long time. This is a demonstration of it in a real situation but this has been a capability of AWACS and modern fighter aircraft for quite a while now.

>>63859762
Still in stocks, why dump 'em. Same reason we had expired ATACMS in inventory, it's a rainy day fund, can be disbursed as aid without too much thought, and is useful in cases where an ARH seeker locking on to the wrong guy might present a problem. They cost money to store and maintain though so I guess you could argue they should be dumped, but congress is retarded and balks at new price tags while storage is mostly overlooked.

>>63859762
The USN phased them out in 2018, I don't think they have been confirmed as fully phased out though they were already very rarely seen on active service aircraft after the 2000s. If there are any left then I'm guessing they are sitting in warehouse storage awaiting disposal

>>63859308
they shot down a couple indians which makes it wunderwaffe in their slanted eyes

>>63859762
>>63859797
Munitions can't go in a landfill, which makes it cost more money to dismantle than store them in an underground bunker with a dehumidifier. So they remain, to be whittled away as much as possible in training and sale/donation when geopolitical conditions are favorable. An example, Western Europe still had millions of shells for the 75mm Gun M3 in 1960. During exercises the poor reservist units still driving Lend-lease Shermans that late were authorized to fire as many shots on the range as time allowed.

>>63858548
This. You can call off a Sparrow right up until the point of impact. You can't do that with an AMRAAM that's gone pit-bull.

>>63858394 (OP)
When the enemy has no AA, or a competent airforce to speak of, outdated shit works just as well as the latest hardware.

>>63858525
How did only one person make this joke? What happened to racists being funny? Why did the interner break?

>>63859802
>If there are any left then I'm guessing they are sitting in warehouse storage awaiting disposal
Legit might have just been written off and given to Israel or other allies.

Because the US deliberately gimps its arms exports to countries like Egypt. It's good enough to defeat everyone the face and if shit like this >>63858419 comes up then the US will chimp out.

>>63860199
/k/ has a higher than average autist population.

>>63859762
Yes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-162_ESSM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-7_Sea_Sparrow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-7_Sparrow

We just changed what we use them for.
It's not a bad missile, the 120 is just more useful as a medium range active radar guided air to air sinc ethe launching aircraft doesnt have to keep illuminating all the way in, vs a ship that cannot "go cold" and may as well keep its beam on target for better guidance.

Shipboard or plane radar guided is nearly always gonna be more accurate than the tiny terminal radar in a missile.

>>63860371
ESSM isn't sparrow anymore, it's a new motor and a new seeker, it's not even a ship of theseus, especially in block ii form
>always more accurate
not really, at extended ranges and in clutter the onboard radar is gonna be better, it's closer and in the case of clutter, it's likely illuminating a lot less of the sea close to the target

>>63858394 (OP)
Israel is supposed to spend the 4 billion grant we give them on military hardware, but they only spend about 500 million of that, instead they do extremely jewish shit of buying bonds to collect interest on the money we give them

>>63859507
That won't stop them from wanting to be a regional hegemon.

Because its enemies don’t, apparently, have the ability to fly air patrols / intercept so there’s no need for more advanced weapons.

>>63859788
Only the US really had any actual combat experience with AWACS in the kill chain.

Everyone else had only done it in tests.

>>63860122
>were authorized to fire as many shots on the range as time allowed.
now that would be great way to spend a day

>>63858892
Does the F-35's radar even have a target illumination mode?

>>63859762
Air National Guard still uses them I think.

>>63858394 (OP)
>half your enemies still have Mig-21s and F-4s
The F-15 has a big radar and big engines, they can throw an AIM-7 loft pretty far.

>>63862808

>>63862808
>>63862819
You are always going to want hard lock capability because during peace half your missions are scaring other countries planes out of airspace and a hard lock sends a message.

>>63860359
>/k/ has a higher than average autist population.
That's a strong statement to make about 4chan.
I know /k/ is a magical place but some other boards on 4chan are pretty fucking short-bus too.

>>63860122
I'll never understand how thowing the rocket motors in a fire and putting the warheads in an EOD pile is so expensive.
I suspect this grift I have been hearing so much about.

>>63862841
>I'll never understand how thowing the rocket motors in a fire and putting the warheads in an EOD pile is so expensive.
Aside from anything else, there'll be a lot of paperwork and custody-chain issues to ensure that they really did go in a fire/EOD dump.
Also, you probably don't want to explode the warheads so much as burn them in an incinerator.

>>63862841
Old rocket motors are full of lead, the EPA would throw a fit.

>>63862841
Because you haven't put much thought into it

>>63858394 (OP)
NATO stock. Someone has to use them.

>>63862845
>Old rocket motors are full of lead, the EPA would throw a fit.
Not a problem, just launch them outside of the enviornment.

>>63862953
Turns out that Tehran is outside of the environment.

>>63858394 (OP)
it doesnt