We just spent 20 years using guns for close air support, wouldn't call that useless.
The problem with BVR is there's zero room for risk and zero room for error and BVR missiles are pretty random/shotgun weapons. If BVR missiles are only effective 1/3 of the time you're better off going non-BVR and using your logistical might to put 3x the number of planes in the air...
> We just spent 20 years using guns for close air support
In one of the most permissive airspaces possible.
Contrast that to Ukraine where we see CAS aircraft opting to lob unguided rockets from distance and bug out, lest some layer of the IADS knock them out of the sky. As near as I can tell, helicopters have more or less vanished.
We have to be careful taking too many lessons from a decades long counter insurgency effort forward and applying them to peer conflicts.
> If BVR missiles are only effective 1/3 of the time you're better off going non-BVR and using your logistical might to put 3x the number of planes in the air...
Or would you be better of launching 4 missiles from standoff than risking a much more expensive airframe and pilot in close range knife fighting?
20mm is basically useless for CAS. I'm not talking about the A10 and its far more capable and designed for ground attack gun. The A-10 is not a fighter and not relevant in this discussion.
The AIM-9X is a WVR missile, I'm not talking about BVR at all.
The problem with BVR is there's zero room for risk and zero room for error and BVR missiles are pretty random/shotgun weapons. If BVR missiles are only effective 1/3 of the time you're better off going non-BVR and using your logistical might to put 3x the number of planes in the air...