WI 'Dogfight' Red Top and/or Matra R530?

[Rule of cool]

In response to the demands of the Vietnam War RoE forcing 'dogfights' the US developed the AIM9E version of the Sidewinder and the AIM7E-2 version of the Sparrow, while the AIM9D had started production in 1965.

WI if the British and/or French found themselves in a similar situation as the US in the same timeframe, could their missiles (Red Top, R530 in SARH & IR) be quickly adapted to perform better in dogfights? I presume Taildog and Magic start development too late to count in this scenario.

What would they need to have done? Would they be effective?

 

[BLACK_MAMBA]

Speaking only for the Matra, but during its long conflict over Angola the SAAF never once deployed its Matra R530 SARH sticking only to IR R550s even though they had a large R530 SARH stock. The depot maintenace demands were so high that missile reliability suffered majorly if not done. Thus the R530s were never deployed and used on operations as there were no facilities to service them at operational bases.

So I suspect the French would have suffered quite a bit too in a similar situation as US had in Vietnam. Part of the lessons learned there for the US was how to store and transport missiles to ensure their condition and reliability is maintained as best possible.

 

[Archibald]

Reading Air Fan back in the day, R530 was not very good. One turned a barrel roll around its Mirage F1 launcher. The pilot was delighted.

 

[Rule of cool]

The Sparrow used continuous wave guidance and the Lightning didn't have a CW emitter, so the Sparrow seeker is out. In any case the likes of the radar Red Top and the Red Top mk2 with liquid rocket were more about increasing engagement ranges and I don't know how useful they'd be in close fighter vs fighter combat. Certainly the SARH R530 was almost useless in the 6 day war, with long warm-up time, unreliable and difficult to get a lock with ground clutter.

Does anyone know anything about the IR R530?

 

[datafuser]

Speaking only for the Matra, but during its long conflict over Angola the SAAF never once deployed its Matra R530 SARH sticking only to IR R550s even though they had a large R530 SARH stock. The depot maintenace demands were so high that missile reliability suffered majorly if not done. Thus the R530s were never deployed and used on operations as there were no facilities to service them at operational bases.

So I suspect the French would have suffered quite a bit too in a similar situation as US had in Vietnam. Part of the lessons learned there for the US was how to store and transport missiles to ensure their condition and reliability is maintained as best possible.

I wonder what kind of modification had been done to the French Navy F-8E's radar.

 

[Rule of cool]

The F8 could use the aim9c, which was SARH, so maybe the French F8s didn't need much modification for the R530.