I believe it! Some folks from VA-25 (at the time) believed similar, too!
One shudders to think how many unsuspecting sailors have been sucked down such a cursed throne of porcelain, never to be heard from ever again, save for their cries of “FWOOSH”!
It gets more complicated when figuring how many PGMs / LGBs / Iron Bombs you need for a specific target. The only plus side is that the target isn’t moving (a bunker, a bridge, etc)
A2G weapons have varying Pk’s dependent on a lot of things like altitude dropped, range from target, atmospherics, etc. Then you have the target itself–the type of structure, what it is built of, its size, etc. You have the desired effect–totally, demolish it, take it out operation for 48 hrs, etc. Then there is collateral damage considerations that may constrain the size of munition; i.e. a MK-82 has a smaller blast radius than a MK-84 so maybe 2 x MK-82s (2 x 500=1000) may give you the same effect with less chance of collateral damage…or may not…. Collateral damage probability may sometimes be reduced by changing run-in/strike heading and drop angle; i.e. changing the direction and/or lateral amount of the bomb’s blast “splash”…but then you need to go back and refigure drop altitude and range…
Finally, there is the overall required probability of a kill for the target itself that is a factor of the importance of the target in the overall campaign plan…it is normally up around .9 (or why else fly the mission)…i.e. enough of the right type of bombs dropped, in the right place(s) to get the overall Pk of gaining the desired effects in one strike…we don’t like to re-strike…
…and we haven’t even gotten to the threat analysis of the target area…depending the situation you may need more than one aircraft to ensure the job gets done…that the “target is serviced”.
…in a lot of ways, it’s as much art as science.
When you throw numbers into it, it gets really exciting!
For example, if we assume that a 9X has a PK of 0.9, firing two brings the PK up to 0.99… But! It also brings up the probability of a miss, from 0.1 to 0.19. So while we are more likely to hit with greater numbers, it can eventually represent diminishing returns.
Momma always said maths is the devil.
Is why in glorious VVS, no missile is launched alone, it always goes with a comrade. If Ivan don’t do it, Boris will.
Smart man choose Dmitri. Dmitri drink vodka like fish of water, make capitalist horde guess where he go. Maybe he will, maybe not. Maybe hit Boris or Ivan instead. But capitalist never know.
Assuming your events are independent binomials… sure.
I think what @near_blind was getting at when he made the original comment is that as you make the leap to modern short range AAM’s the gameplan of “rotate the cone containing all viable shots away from your opponent” isn’t great since that cone ends up looking a lot more like a deformed hollow sphere.
Ergo the set of “classical” BFM moves (low yo, high yo, high G barrel roll, etc) you see on wikipedia or in any manual for a combat flight sim with jets pre-1975 kinda get thrown out the window.
Whizbang new missiles don’t guarantee a kill, but I wouldn’t recommend trying old tricks against a new dog, if you get my meaning. 
Given that the last time I played LOMAC online was almost exactly 10 years ago, I have no idea whether or not the kids are even using old tricks. The AI certainly ain’t!
The one thing I am sure of is that if the 9X doesn’t meet someone’s preconceived notions of how it should work, somebody is gonna complain about it! 
Speaking of Pk…this was not VF-32 but another NAS Oceana squadron.
A Tomcat is participating in a exercise in the MED. They are a single out on CAP or something. They get vectored town Orange Air (bad guys) RF-4 Phantom that, per the exercise schedule…that only us intel bubbs seem to actually read…is to make a photo recce run over the battle group.
The F-14 pulls up the the RF-4 while it is tanking from an Illinois (please don’t pronounce the “s”) Air National Guard KC-135. The Phantom finishes and rolls out towards the career. The Tomcat falls into trail. The RIO locks it up and then switches to TCS to view the wonderful jet (this ends up being contributing factor*).
A bored air controller on the carrier, picks up the Orange Air Bogey and at the proper scripted distance, yawns, keys his mic and transmits to the F-14 that he is “RED and FREE” on the contact.
The F-14 driver, selects Master Arm ON, switches to Winder and pulls the trigger…nothing happens…he says to his RIO, who has been wondering why it is taking him so long to call the shot, “It didn’t go”.
His perplexed RIO (senior to the pilot), starts to key his mic to announce “FOX-2, Bandit Splashed, returning to CAP station”, when he sees a bright glow outside the canopy.
Not deterred by the AIM-9M that failed to come off the rail, and thus factoring into the overall AIM-9M Pk calculations (see,I told you this was Pk related), our intrepid pilot switched to the next station and again pulled the trigger.
This time the Sidewinder flew true, right up RF-4s hot exhaust, and detonated as designed. Inside the RF-4 the USAF aircrew experienced an un-commanded, uncontrollable roll to the right about the same time the Fire and Master Warning panels lit up like a Christmas tree…it was time leave their beloved Phantom and they did so expeditiously. So again another statistic for the Pk formula crunchers.
The Pk for this mission turned to be .66 1 x Fail, 1 x Hit, and 1 x Naval Aviation career down in flames.
This was later updated to .33 when our undaunted pilot made Admiral in the Reserves! …so not a kill to his overall career.
@Navynuke99 and I couldn’t make up these things if we tried…brings new meaning to the acronym WTF.
BTW, the pilot’s callsign before he bagged the RF-4 was “Smoke”…go figure
Wait, I’m no native english speaker so something to me is lost.
Can you put it down simpler?
During an exercise in the Med, F-14 shoots down an Air Force RF-4C with a live missile. Long story short, the pilot of the F-14 became a reserve officer, and was nominated to rear admiral a few years back. However, if I remember correctly, once word of that story got out again, the nomination was pulled and I think Dorsey retired.
All things considered, why do they send up planes with live missiles in an exercise?
I was just reading about that one the other day! There’s even some choppy video of the shootdown (I guess they should’ve picked Betamax): US Navy F-14 Shoots Down USAF RF-4C During Training - YouTube
The F-14 at the time was tasked with fleet defense. I’m sure that was probably one of the extenuating circumstances that didn’t get him drummed out.
More here: https://forums.jetcareers.com/threads/usn-f-14-shoots-down-usaf-rf-4c.121522/
@Hangar200, did you work with him at all after he converted to intel?
Ah! Ok. Thanks- Feel silly now.
No thank God. I did brief his farther and a bunch of other retired Admirals/General when I was an O-4 at HQ USEUCOM. One of the most painful briefs of my career. After it was over, his father came up to me, shook my hand and said, “You know, my son is a naval intelligence officer…” I almost blurted out “…and I know why!”
@Franze hit the nail on the head. On deployment, all fighters fly with live missiles, even during exercises. Self defense and fleet defense.
We rely on the pilots to know enough not to shoot down a plane that they just saw tank form a KC-135…they are all college educated and should have enough knowledge and sense not to.
That said, we do add a lot more “EXERCISE, EXERCISE, EXERCISE” or “This is a Drill, This is a Drill”, in various announcements, messages and radio transmissions.
…alas sometimes that is not enough, to wit the 1992, USS SARATOGA shooting a Turkish destroyer in company with it, with a Sea Sparrow (ironically, during the same NATO exercise, different year).
…maybe…did I mention his Dad was a Vice Admiral at the time?…
That was a bad luck squadron. In addition to the RF-4C shoot down, they put a telemetry AIM-9 into the superstructure of a tanker during a missile exercise (improperly cleared range) - not sure how the Pk crunchers tallied that one since it did hit a target. Then later on, during the annual TARPS Derby their aircraft clipped some Virginia Power electrical transmission lines out in western Virginia. Needless to say, they didn’t win the Battle E for excellence during my time in VF-32.
(TARPS Derby: all TARPS squadrons fly a military low level route with some “targets” along it. We see who got the best recce photos…fun stuff.)
FYI. A Navy FA-18C has never shot down a USAF RF-4C…just wanted the thread to get back on track.
Well, that and probably because the Vice Admiral had done the same thing when he was younger. He was only trying to keep the family tradition going!
Anyways, back to F/A-18 stuff: Found this article the other day; apparently they’re fitting APG-83s to legacy bugs, for whatever reason: Northrop Grumman successfully tests APG-83 radar on F/A18 - UPI.com
I’m not sure why they’d be doing such a thing, as I was under the impression the Marines were going to have the legacy bugs retired in the next half decade.
So, playing around a bit with the 9X and 7MH:
7MH rarely, if ever, hits. Easily fooled by chaff. For example, fired at a non-evading MiG-29S (damaged by 9X) and a light turn coupled with chaff resulted in the missile going stupid about midway through. In my test sessions, only hits about maybe 15% of the time.
9X hits about 20% of the time, easily fooled by flares. Where it shines is high agility in a tail on chase; any other angle is a crapshoot – it’s not a no-miss-um. The warhead is also going to leave a few people upset, as most hits on the 29s resulted in damage, not a permanent kill.
So, at least for the current version, I wouldn’t expect the new missiles to suddenly make the bug into an ultimate killing machine, at least against the AI. The AI are very good with the R60M, which seems to work pretty well against the bug.
Scenario: 1 bug vs 4xMiG-29S at random skill with R60M loadout.