Shawn Robert Woodford, Ph.D., is a military historian with nearly two decades of research, writing, and analytical experience on operations, strategy, and national security policy. His work has focused on special operations, unconventional and paramilitary warfare, counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, naval history, quantitative historical analysis, nineteenth and twentieth century military history, and the history of nuclear weapon development. He has a strong research interest in the relationship between politics and strategy in warfare and the epistemology of wargaming and combat modeling.
All views expressed here are his and do not reflect those of any other private or public organization or entity.
Meh, nothing compared to a X-Wing.
Except of course that an X-wing is fictional. The Russian aircraft low speed maneuverability is really impressive. It is rather at odds with Boyd’s Energy Maneuverability (EM) theory, which hold that a big loss of energy is almost always a bad thing in air combat. It is rather reminiscent of the Mitsubishi Zero, perhaps the ultimate in a maneuverable fighter vs the American planes in the Pacific, which were schooled to make high speed passes and avoid a close-in turning dogfight with the Zero.