I doubt that's accurate, I was always under the impression that AAMs are "salvage-fuzed" firstly to minimize collateral damage on the ground and secondly to deny intelligence to the enemy. There is a very famous precedent for the latter, the Soviet AA-2 Atoll as a copy of the Sidewinder owes a lot to an unexploded missile brought home in its tail pipe by a MiG-15 during the Korean War.
2019 India-Pakistani border clash
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I doubt that's accurate, I was always under the impression that AAMs are "salvage-fuzed" firstly to minimize collateral damage on the ground and secondly to deny intelligence to the enemy. There is a very famous precedent for the latter, the Soviet AA-2 Atoll as a copy of the Sidewinder owes a lot to an unexploded missile brought home in its tail pipe by a MiG-15 during the Korean War.
I was surprised too, but the sources quoted in the article are former fighter pilots.
OK I will also try to find it .....
One of the claims in support of the JF-17 kill theory I saw on Chinese forums is that PL-5E warheads use a fragmentation kill mechanism that is different from that of AIM-9 and AIM-120C. According to them the abundance of small incision like wounds on the tail of the MIG-21 are consistent with that generated by an exploding PL-5. What's your opinion of this theory?
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
I watch Ancient Aliens for fun not because I place any credence in it. But I am sure there are some who would claim such.Do they have flying saucer in their Air force inventory ....
Interesting, I hope someone does an in-depth analysis on this angle. But I think if a JF-17 shot down the Mig, the PAF would've released the gun cam footage already.
There is the remote possibility that they are keeping the gun cam footage (if it happened WVR) and radar data a secret for the near future since tension between Pakistan and India is still high.
One telltale mark might be the result of the Malaysian lightweight fighter tender. If push comes to shove PAF might share the information with Malaysia.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Korean War ended in 53, sidewinder did not enter service until 56.
The incident you are referring to was a clash between PRC and ROC pilots in the Taiwan Strait.
However, I would be extremely surprised if missiles don’t have some sort of self-destruct. It is simple enough to implement, and not doing so would leave unacceptable risk of hostile forces recovering largely intact missiles.
For most if not all confirmed AMRAAM kills, multiple missiles were fired over hostile territory to achieve those kills.
If there wasn’t a self destruct, then you would have thought the Serbs, Iraqis and others might have found at least one relatively intact missile between them.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
The missile the Indians showed was in bits and pieces a total wreck.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Indeed, but the key question is: did it end up that way because it: hit a fighter; self-destructed and/or impact detected?
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