Hi,
>After all, the air-to-air missle/HUD pretty well marks the end of the true dogfighting era
Air to air missels where not good weapon in this years - for exemple in Six Day War of 67 there where just one or two kills with air to air missels. They could not do nothing this missels. HUD - in this years HUD had only gunsite that was corrected to distance - to make you able to shoot at didtances of 500- 1000 yard (Can you shoot from this distances in mustang ?

) as a result that fights become fastest - 300 - 500 knots and not 200 - 300 in WW2, so try to aim with mustang gunsite at speed of 500 knots

. HUD had just very few things - that is not HUD of F-15
The best Air to Air missle of 1973 in Yom Kipur War in middle east was Israely Shafrir 2 - 50% of kills Aim9D had just 30% and AIM 7 had 25%. Why?
There is the perfomances of Shafrir 2 (best missle) it could follow target that turns with less than 2 G (!), it could be fired when it see the nossle of plane in 30 degr. maximum (you can shoot the missle just when the plane trying to escape from you and you on his 6 not 7 or 5 !). any hard turn and the missle lost the target.The ditance you can shoot the missle was 2-3 miles not more than that. The only one way the missels used to make the plane that escaping from you to brake and loos his energy or die. You had to use the missels just because the speeds had increased and thru the distances so it was harder to shoot with your gun. Any way 50 - 60% of all kills in Yom Kipur War of 1973 were with guns. In this war where involved Mirages, Mig21 and F-4E. Not F-15 or Mig 29.
So don't thik that missels era changed a lot. You have to know to dogfight on faster speeds and to operate you weapon in more hard conditions. More than that you can not shoot the missle in short distances of 1000 yard so is it realy good weapon?
The only one reason that missels started to be used - the speeds and the distances. But the dogfight was still dogfight.
So what I mean is not to add F15 - (flying Air ti Air missels battary, But if you interested there is still a lot of use of Vulckan in F-15 it is still very good weapon), But to add jets - planes to get bigger speeds and hights.
WWI ? planes that you can make a loop just after long dive? As for me I don't like to fly Spit 1 or Hurrican 1 - they are too poor for me and I see a lot of people try to gets perks to fly 262 !
Artik
101 "Red" Squadron, Israel