It's an interesting subject, one I've read a lot about recently, a lot of USAF and DOD reports, Rand war games results and analysis, and other stuff. I read about 20 defense sites daily, and a couple focus mostly on air combat, and are really giving this topic a lot of airplay right now. I can see both sides of it - I too have long said that the AA11 Archer/R73 would have been a rude surprise had we gone to war in the 80s against anyone equipped with it, as it had AIm9x like performance LONG before the USA had that missile, and it really surprised the US intel services when they finally got a hold of one from the East German AF after the wall fell. I agree that HOBS shots with modern IR missiles like the 9x, R73, IrisT, Asraam, Israeli missiles, and others, are very lethal now, and don't require the target to be in that front cone of vulnerability/attack. Still, anything can be decoyed eventually - when the Aim9 M model came out, it was supposed to be uber resistant to flares and deceptive defenses, and in the 1st GW an F15 after salvoing most of its Aim7s at a Mig25, all missing, had fired THREE Aim9m missiles at this single fighter, which neat as you please decoyed and evaded 2 of the first Aim9 shots, then finally took a hit from the third.
This is the issue IMO - while missile lethality HAS evolved to the point where in recent years BVR missiles have become the most effective killers stats wise, the tide can turn and the advantage swing back to ECM/defenses just as fast. According to many defense reports and articles from pilots/thinktanks/etc, it already has with the Aim120 somewhat. Digital radio frequency memory jamming is employed by many of the Russian and CHinese fighters now, and it's had a pretty drastic effect in simulations regarding the Aim120 pK.
This report has a great bunch of charts, and makes a good case for what Shift8 has said.
https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0ahUKEwjX5pr-2Y7MAhVB6x4KHf6bDJkQFgg3MAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcsbaonline.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F04%2FAir-to-Air-Report-.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGuPkE3Fnei78vEdeXIqm-RbU3r4w&cad=rjaThis article seems to agree with GScholz and Shift8 -
With an increasing number of modern combat aircraft equipped
with missile-approach warning systems, it is likely that a pilot under attack will have sufficient
time to target an attacker and launch a missile in return. Once both aircraft have “launch and
leave” missiles in the air, prospects are good that the short-range engagement will result in
“mutual kills,” with short-range combat kill ratios near 1:1. This suggests we may have reached
a point in the development of short-range air combat technologies where serious, capable
adversaries will attempt to avoid it and instead seek advantage in superior BVR capabilities.
That said, recent RAND war games have incorporated new Russian and Chinese ECM capabilities vs the Aim120 and Meteor, which have been proven already to show a massive reduction in pK of these weapons. The RAND report (I`ll link it later, as the link is on another PC) has stated that BVR MRM are losing a lot of their effectiveness, so the aforementioned chart in the previous link, showing how BVR stats from the Vietnam era basically flip flopped with guns/IR missiles, will possibly do so again now. It's like the arms vs armor contest, ECM/defenses and MRM radar guided effectiveness constantly changing the landscape of how effective each are.
I do mostly agree though with what Shift8 and others have said, however ignoring the importance of being able to a: run, fast, and b: maneuver if required, not just for offense/guns but mostly for defensive reasons, is a foolish mistake to make. There are already towed decoy systems and new laser/IR jamming/spoofing systems, both passive and active, coming online all the time, along with the radar guided ECM stuff. Just assuming that stealth will be enough to break the kill chain every time, and that being able to get fast and get away OR turn and fight WVR is no big deal anymore would be a huge mistake IMO.
Interesting article here -
https://hushkit.net/2016/03/17/su-35-versus-typhoon-analysis-from-rusis-justin-bronk/
