I don't think that the U.S. has that much, if any, Beyond Visual Range advantage over nations equipped with Russian fighters anymore, especially Flankers. Lots of Russian jets these have radars that are near to U.S. radars in terms of range and capability. Also the R-77 or AA-12 Adder missile the Sukhoi's carry is probably comparable to the AMRAAM western jets use, so I think that pilot skill and training in the Air-to-Air environment is extremely important, and it seems the Indians had the edge on those forlorn F-16 jocks. I think that we may be living in an age of ever increasing global military parity.
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big diffrence just because america has 15 aircraft carriers it dont make one iota of diffrence.
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The U.S. only has 12 true carriers, which will go down to just 11 if Bush gets his way and retires the Kennedy. Plus a certain amount of those are undergoing maintenance at any given time and therefore undeployable.