ADVANCED American fighters have confronted inferior Soviet aircraft on several occasions, and it is instructive to examine the results. In the MiG Alley of Korea, the F-86 Sabre was pitted against the MiG-15 deep over hostile territory, a condition that favored the North Korean, Chinese, and Soviet pilots. Yet the American aircraft--larger, more complex; indeed, the most expensive fighter the United States had yet built--achieved a remarkable kill-ratio against its Soviet opposite and thus proved to be clearly cost-effective. But the results of more recent battles have been more ambiguous. The currently deployed F-4 Phantom and MiG-21, for example, have met over both Vietnam and the Middle East, and while the American plane again proved to be the better fighter, its margin of superiority was not always so great as to justify its cost in the unequivocal manner of the F-86. The exact combat ratio between the F-4 and MiG-21 in the Vietnam War remains classified, but William White of the Brookings Institution has estimated it to be about 2: or 3:1 in favor of the Phantom. During one short period for which data are available, the summer of 1972, air-to-air combat resulted in the loss of 12 MiG-21s, 4 MiG-17/19s, and 11 F-4s, yielding a kill-ratio of about 1.5 MiGs for every Phantom shot down.7 In the October 1973 War, Israel's 550 combat aircraft--127 of which were F-4 Phantoms--were highly effective in air-to-air combat against Soviet-built MiGs but proved vulnerable to the Egyptian Army's surface-to-air missiles (SAMs).8
Where national security is at stake, cost-efficiency analyses alone are hardly persuasive, and it must again be stressed that the F-4 did win the battle for the sky in both Vietnam and the Middle East. But to the extent that cost-efficiency criteria are valid considerations in determining force structure, the F-4's performance might be seen as somewhat disappointing. Almost three times as heavy as the MiG-21 and with a 38 percent greater combat radius, it costs about three times more to produce when measured in dollar terms.9 But is it three times more effective, or do technological improvements at some point become subject to diminishing returns?
Critics of current U.S. force structure believe the latter to be the case and contend that saving could be realized without significant loss of combat effectiveness by limiting the missions and capabilities of tactical aircraft. Proponents of this policy frequently look to the Soviet Union for an example of an alternative procurement policy, claiming that the U.S.S.R. has secured its defense at lower cost by restricting its tactical air forces to air superiority and ground-attack missions, with little regard to interdiction; by building simple, mission-specific aircraft rather than MRCAS; and by resisting the temptation always to push technology to the limit when designing new aircraft, opting instead for quantity over quality. A closer inspection, however, reveals this analysis to be seriously flawed. In the first place, it is not at all clear that Soviet tactical air forces truly "cost less" than their American counterparts. Second, the argument confuses past capabilities with current policy and then unjustifiably projects that policy into the future. The purpose here is to provide a more accurate understanding of Soviet design policy and suggest the implications that that policy holds for future combat aircraft production.
Missions, Performance, and Design
It is true that the U.S.S.R.'s Frontal Aviation forces have generally not undertaken deep interdiction missions and that the service's aircraft are primarily designed for air superiority or ground attack. They are also more mission-specific than the major U.S. fighters. The MiG-21 and -27 are designed for air superiority; the Su-7 and -17 for close support; and the Su-24 for penetrating ground attack against hardened targets. Within Voiska PVO, too, aircraft are designed for specific, limited roles. Pilot training, for example, concentrates on ground control interception, not free air combat, and the MiG-25, while performing high-altitude, highs-peed interception ably, is far less capable in other roles. The Su-9 was designed as a point defense interceptor; the Yak-28, as a low-altitude interceptor. The Tu-28 was built specifically for long-range intercepton.10 None possess the multirole capabilities of U.S. fighters.
It is also true that Soviet aircraft do not exhibit the same level of technology as U.S. aircraft. But one should not underestimate Soviet equipment, for in some areas it performs very well. The U.S.S.R.'s electro-optical and laser systems are highly capable, as are its ECM and infrared equipment. But overall, Soviet designers do not build into their aircraft the high-performance characteristics typical of U.S. forces. Their onboard computers are less sophisticated, and they fall far short of the United States in the use of composites and miniaturized avionics.11 Indeed, the MiG-25 in which Lieutenant Viktor Belenko defected in September 1976 did not even make extensive use of advanced metals. The aircraft was constructed primarily of steel, with titanium found only in structures subject to extreme heating, such as the wing leading edges. The resultant weight penalty reduced the amount of equipment that could be carried, and this constraint was still further exacerbated by the aircraft's use of vacuum tubes rather than solid-state circuiting in its electronics. A comparative examination of climb, acceleration, turn radius, and radar capability reveals the superiority of the F-15 and F-16 to late-model MiG-21s and the MiG-25, and even the older F-4 compares not unfavorably.12
Underlying the differences between U.S. and Soviet aircraft are divergent approaches to aircraft design. The United States has emphasized complexity, versatility, and technological sophistication and has been willing to sacrifice a certain amount of quantity in exchange for higher quality. Within the Soviet Union, however, radically different practices were fostered among the research and development (R&D) community during Stalin's rule and have remained persistent features of Soviet design policy to this day. The five most prominent of these recurrent patterns are simplicity, commonality, prototype modeling, incrementalism, and reliance on foreign technology.
The simplicity of Soviet designs relates to their modest performance specifications, just sufficient to allow completion of the minimum tasks required and no more. Simplicity is evident in the designs as a whole, in the utilization of conventional, readily available construction materials, and in the lack of detailed finishing. Commonality refers to the use of standardized parts and assemblies on various types of aircraft whenever possible. Alternatively, an entire aircraft series, on reaching obsolescence in its original role, may be modified to fulfill some new system requirement. (This is not, however, the multirole principle found in NATO designs, in that Soviet aircraft have usually not been designed with more than one function in mind. It is only after an aircraft can no longer perform the specific mission for which it was originally created, or when an unforeseen requirement has arisen for which no aircraft yet exists, that an attempt is made to find a new use for the older series.) The ASh-82 engine, for example, was used to outfit the World War II-vintage La-5 fighter, the Tu-2 frontal bomber, and the Pe-8 long-range bomber. Indeed, twenty years later it was still in service on the I1-14 passenger carrier and the Mi-4 helicopter.13 Similarly, the Su-7 ground-attack fighter and the Su-9 interceptor, although fitted with different wings, armament, and equipment to suit their particular roles, nevertheless possess identical fuselages and tails.14 To take another example in a somewhat different vein, the M-4 Bison, though currently being phased out of its bomber role, is being modified to serve as a tanker, and a version of the old Tu-95 Bear has been developed to operate in an antisubmarine warfare capacity.15
The third feature of the U.S.S.R.'s design process, prototype modeling, specifies the purpose to which research, development, testing, and evaluation are being directed. In the Soviet Union, newly designed aircraft fall into two categories, "test" (opytnye) and "experimental" (eksperimental'nye). Test models are designed to serve as prototypes of forthcoming series production aircraft, and the emphasis is placed on feasibility and existing technologies. Experimental aircraft, on the other hand, are not intended for series production but are built to test a particular new technology or flight characteristic--record-breaking speed, new maneuvers, a new design principle, etc.16 Prototype modeling, then, provides a link between the static traits of Soviet design policy (simplicity and commonality in series production aircraft) and the dynamic features that foster innovation (incrementalism and foreign input).
The conservatism of Soviet aircraft design policy is nowhere better exemplified than in its stress on innovation through incremental improvement. The approach blends well with the nation's predilection for commonality, since when only modest, step-by-step changes are introduced to upgrade performance, follow-on aircraft are left with many of the same features as their predecessors. While experimental prototypes (I and Ye series) occasionally introduce major improvements in technology, the predominant pattern has been gradual upgrading. Even what appear to be discontinuous advances in the performance characteristics of deployed aircraft have, in fact, been achieved little by little through prototype testing. The transition from the MiG-19 to the delta-wing MiG-21, for example, involved five intervening prototypes: (1) the Ye-50, a sweptwing aircraft with an upgraded MiG-19 engine; (2) the Ye-2A, a sweptwing model equipped with the future MiG-21 production engine; (3) the Ye-5, a deltawing prototype with the same fuselage and engine as the Ye-2A; (4) the Ye-6, a preproduction series very similar to the Ye-5; and, finally, (5) the production version, the MiG-21F/Fishbed-C. This model itself has undergone extensive upgrading since its introduction in 1960, so that the most recent version has twice the range and payload of the original.17
The other major avenue to qualitative improvement employed by the Soviets is to borrow from Western technology and experience. Numerous examples could be given, from the jet engine to integrated circuitry. Such innovation may take the form of partial borrowing or complete replication (bez otsebiatiny). As A. Fedoseev, an applied scientist who recently defected from the Soviet Union, explains: "The themes of new military developments are taken from foreign technical journals and intelligence information on foreign equipment, and often arise as a result of obtaining actual examples of the equipment from abroad."18
