>>724613415
>during the Cold War, when planes were flying bricks not meant for dogfighting
Dead wrong, wtf are you smoking. There were some aircraft that were purely made to be interceptors with minimal or no consideration given to maneuvering combat, like the F-104 or the MiG-25, but at all points of the Cold War most fighters were built to be maneuverable, and specially those made during the 70s and later. The entire Teen series, as well as the Soviet response to them, were heavily focused on maneuverability. Even during the 50s and 60s the F-5, F-8, Mirage III and Draken were made to be maneuverable dogfighters, dispatching their enemies with guns and short-range rear-aspect missiles.
>and air-to-air missiles had a pathetic success rate.
Also dead wrong. During Vietnam the Sidewinder achieved an 18% kill rate, which sounds low, but is actually higher than guns. Pop history fags always mention how the F-4 Phantom originally didn't have a gun, but they forget that the F-8 crusader had 4 of them, and of the 18 kills credited to crusaders, only 3 were with guns. Robin Olds himself elected not to carry gun pods, and instead focus on the Sidewinders. As for the Sparrow, 3 back-seaters scored "ace" during Vietnam so that alone shows the Sparrow was no slouch, even in its early model.
From then on, they only got better and better, scoring kills in the Yom Kippur War and Angolan Civil War. By the 1982 Falklands war, the sidewinder was so good it achieved an 88% kill rate. I don't think any gun kills were scored at all during the 1991 Gulf War, where the Sparrow fully vindicated itself.
