Inflatable army
 

The Russians found a nice way to produce decoys:
BBC News - Russia inflates its military with blow-up weapons

Apparently they can produce anything from tanks, missile launchers, aircraft and even radar stations. The material is supposed to trick radar and thermal imaging equipment into believing that the decoys are real too.

Re: Inflatable army
 

Yup.

Look at the decoys for Patton's 4th Army used to convince the Germans that Patton was landing at Pas De Calais.

They used inflatable Sherman tanks, inflatable aircraft, inflatable trucks, along with wooden dummy's. In some cases the inflatable vehicles slipped over jeeps to be driven around to make it look like tanks were moving.

All they have to do is create a shape close to the original, cover it with some thin metal like heavy tin foil to create a surface for radio waves to reflect off of and a space heater under the rear for IR sensors to pick up.

Disinformation is a serious subject.

Re: Inflatable army
 

The clever ones even have small pyrotechnic charges in them so that when they are hit they give off 'secondary' explosions to enhance the illusion.

Re: Inflatable army
 

And it costs all of what, $50 for a good one? How much does a Hellfire anti-tank missile cost?

Re: Inflatable army
 

about 68K a shot give or take according to wiki.

Re: Inflatable army
 

Wow thats..... atleast a decade old, great reporting BBC....

Anyway decoys are nothing new, Serbia deployed decoys to great effect during Nato's bombings, they didn't loose anything they didn't want to loose in terms of military hardware.

Re: Inflatable army
 

except for those migs that we killed.

Re: Inflatable army
 

Nothing they didn't want to loose, those migs were scrambled. Besides I'm surprised they were able to leave the ground let alone fly.

Re: Inflatable army
 

That sounds like sour grapes. Nobody arbitrarily decides to destroy a billion dollars worth of their OWN first line aircraft. Especially for no gain. But agreed. NATO did jack squat to Yugoslav forces on the ground.

Re: Inflatable army
 

Billion dollars for those Migs? lol not even close, Unless your talking about the cost of Nato's air fleet that was lost, but those 29's they were barely air worthy, Their MiG-21's were actually in much better shape than those thing, and they were all stored in concrete tunnels with blast doors that were even touched.

But as I said they weren't arbitrarily decided to be lost, they were lost fair and square no doubt, in no way were they scrambled for any other reason then to intercept if possible not air superiority, since numbers were never on their side.

Re: Inflatable army
 

migs were at the least, 18 years old by the time of NATO bombings (if you mean the mig-29, of which there was only 1 squadron to my knowledge), or if you mean the Mig-21 (more likely), 40 years old. they were ancient by then. admittedly, the 29 was a rather advanced aircraft in its day, but the 21 was ancient. there was little way the migs would amount to 1 billion, they were 40 years old. russia probably just wanted to get rid of them when they were sold to yugoslavia. also, yugoslavia was hardly known for its well-maintained, up to date army. once NATO got involved, Serbia had no chance.

Re: Inflatable army
 

'billion dollars' was an exaggeration on my part (hyperbole will get you). The fact remains though, that old or not, the Yugoslavs would have very much preferred to keep those aircraft rather than see them get turned into aerial pollution. at least a few were killed in their hardened shelters.

Re: Inflatable army
 

Actually It's MiG-21 fleet was very well maintained, the MiG-29 fleet on the other hand was much more expensive to maintain

Re: Inflatable army
 

given that at the time, the Mig-29 was still relatively powerful, why did they maintain their obsolete 21s, when they could put a bit more focus on their less numerous, but more efficient 29s? they pretty much wasted the best fighters they had.

Re: Inflatable army
 

The Mig 29 is a relatively modern and complex twin engine fighter compared to the Mig 21 which is 50s or 60s technology.

Also, many more Mig21s than Mig29s were produced, so spare parts were probably easier to obtain. Maybe Yugoslavia could even produce the necessary spare parts locally.

Re: Inflatable army
 

Keep in mind that "obsolete" really depends on the role it's in. MiG-21s were still sufficient for their role in that conflict (namely, going "LOOK I HAVE AN AIR FORCE LOL, BYE TANKS" and being destroyed by NATO air superiority), and are certainly more cost-effective than MiG-29s, especially when a $2,000,000 plane is destroyed just as easily as a $500,000 plane (not actual numbers, just illustrating a point). Would you rather have one Lamborghini at your disposal, or 50 Mustangs? Keep in mind you're paying the repair/supply bills, and people are actively trying to destroy your ride.

Re: Inflatable army
 

i see what you mean. in their role as fodder, i guess if anything, they were efficient- i'd rather lose a 40-year old plane which doesn't cost very much than a state of the art plane which costs several million per plane.

Re: Inflatable army
 

The MiG-21 still proves it has some chops left in it, with recent upgrades of the 93 and bison it's said to be on par with export versions of the F-16(due to simulated battles that India flu if I remember correctly), I don't remember what model 21' they were flying back in 1999, but I would not say they were completely obsolete.

But as MrFancypants and Crazywolf said, They were cheaper to fly and far more spare parts and they were more then good enough for the roles they needed them for, and Not against the entire Nato collation.

Using crazywolf's analogy, if your running a construction company, and you had a fleet of work trucks and a fleet of new sedans, guess which one would make much more sense in risking losses of.

Re: Inflatable army
 

There isn't really a specific export version of the F-16. The newest blocks are most certainly superior to the most upgraded MiG 21s around.

Re: Inflatable army
 

While dog fighting is certainly a skill that needs to be kept up and honed the vast majority of air to air engagements are air to air with missiles, most with BVR (Beyond Visual Range).

The MiG-21 was a very capable design for its day and did what it was designed to do very well. I can see why upgraded versions with modern electronics and sensors and upgraded engines would be capable of going toe to toe with most modern aircraft.

There is a reason why the F-5E Tiger II (Almost identical in size, performance, and capability to the MiG-21) was used by the Aggressor squadrons for over 30 years to simulate the MiG-21 and there were many shocked pilots in F-15's, F-16's and F-14's to find a F-5 Aggressor glued to their tail during Top Gun and Red Flag trainings.

MiG-21 is small, agile, and has a very small frontal profile. It is still widely used all over the world and IIRC China only discontinued their Chengdu J-7's in last year or two.

Now add a powerful all weather look down shoot radar, a trained radar operator, and some very capable air to air missiles and suddenly you had a MiG-31 Foxhound which was a very capable all weather interceptor.

If you can operate 100 MiG-21's for the cost of operating 15 MiG-29's then the MiG-21 looks very attractive.

When saying a MiG is better than a US aircraft it entirely depends on what variant and what block number.