>>507281251
Yeah the tech just wasn't there at the time but the Phantom in of itself was very ahead of the time, it's primary adversaries were Mig-17s and 19s with a few first gens 21 which were notoriously quite shite due to low engine power and terrible gun, so as long as it was fielded correctly it was quite untouchable due to the (comparably!) much powerful engines and it shows because even in the early war it kept a positive K/D ratio despite all the bad stories surrounding it, i feel like most of the problems of the Phantom's performance were born due to inexperienced crews fielding Mach 2 aircraft, you have to remember that most had just moved in the underpower Mach 1 capable F-100 only 4 years prior, which was still primarly a gun based dogfigther, they had no practical experience with missiles bar the few that transitioned from 106 programs, doubly so with the Navy which went directly from subsonic to supersonic with the 4 and the F-8 Crusader