the first thing we need to remember here is that the unclassified specs
tell us very little about
missile performance. e.g. what is the burn time - how well can it hack
a beam manouver or
chaff and jamming - what kind of spike are you getting of a tomact
shooting this thing - what
sort of end game maneuver can it handle. - how much range do you kill
with an early
drag or beam. I'm not saying it is a bad missile - i'm sure Woody would
agree that depending
on your shot doctrine, an AMRAAM aware opponent can trash shots quite
easily if he
understands how the AMRAAM works. I'm just saying that with a "smart"
bandit (if there are
any left) he may be able to drag out and defeat these long range shots
and be able to beam
and get to the merge. Guys can sometimes do that to an AMRAAM shooting
Hornet in training
so I'm sure it could happen to a Phoenix shooter too. I'm not sure but
I would guess that the
missile is more designed for long range shots against less manouverable
bombers.