Quoted:
For years our combat air patrols would fly station in the Persian Gulf with just a pair of Sidewinders (close-in "knife fight" missles).
It shouldn't surprise you that there aren't enough missles to go around in a post-Clinton military.
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I really want to know your source. This is absurd.
We do not now and never have had a AAM shortage. We purchased thousands of AAMs even during the Clinton Admin and have fired off only a handful in action since the Gulf War. We do not use that many AAMs in live fire training every year to have run the stocks down. We have a problem with air to GROUND ordinance stocks, and cruse missle supplies, but we have been dumping that shit like rain all over the world.
Nor would we send Sidewinder armed aircraft on air intercept missions over the Persian Gulf. For the last decade our aircraft have been taught to avoid if at all possible such close range engagments with Mig 29's and Su-27's because of the R-77 and its helmet mounted sight system. You stay back and lob AMRAAMS at them.
The Air Force does not keep armed aircraft lying around, nor do aircraft on training missions need to be armed. It is unsafe.
There is at last one case on record that I know of in the early 1960's where Air National Guard F100's on a weekend training mission-carrying live Sidewinders per SOP at the time to guard against a Soviet surpise attack-shot down the B-52 that was their sparring partner.
You wouldn't do force on force drills with live ammo in your rifle, why would the Air Force use live rounds for the same thing in the air?
The only shortage on 9/11/01 was a shortage of aircraft assigned to armed patrol-not a shortage of either aircraft or missiles to do those patrols.