Head To Head

 Which Joe or Cobra aircraft reigns supreme?

              1983 Skystriker 

                                                1984 Rattler       

                                                1986 Night Raven

                                                1986 Conquest

                                                1988 Phantom

                                                1990 Hurricane

Honourable omission: The Firebat is a furious little aircraft, but based on its weapon loadout, it won’t last long in an air to air confrontation. It has six bombs and two small guns and is clearly intended as a high-speed ground attack vehicle. Also given a its limited fuel capacity, it would be able to dogfight for a couple of minutes before having to return to base or bail.

So how does this work? I haven’t figured that out. But I’ve watched enough episodes of ‘Dogfights’ on the History Channel to know that modern aerial engagements are all about detecting and engaging your enemy before he does you, typically beyond visual range. In that sense, the stealthier craft such as the Night Raven and Phantom have the edge. Sadly their available weapons are where they fail. The missiles these two craft carry are so small and I don’t speculate they have great range. Couple that with the aircrafts’ limited manoeuvrability (particularly the Phantom, I still have no idea how that craft manoeuvres at all).  So the verdict on these bad boys? You won’t see them coming, they will get the first shot in, but will have to get in close to take it. If they don’t nail you with that first shot, it’s anyone’s game and I feel the Phantom is ill-equipped to slug it out with a fighter, especially since it only carries two missiles. So it is better off getting out, fast. Odd that it is equipped with four laser cannons yet it’s no dogfighter, but I suppose they can be used in a ground attack capacity. One assumes a laser cannon will have greater range than a shell cannon. 

The Raven packs six missiles. Two in the fuselage and four stored in pairs within two pods. My explanation for those pods is that they store additional fuel to increase the range of the missiles. At a certain distance to target, it breaks apart and then can engage either two separate targets (like a lead and wingman) or the same target (the ‘ripple-fire’, where two missiles are fired to increase the likelihood of a hit). The Raven looks built for speed and probably would favour hit and run tactics that make use of speed and stealth over getting bogged down in a dogfight with a more capable fighter. But who knows? Maybe its control surfaces offer it excellent manoeuvring characteristics, making it a real threat in a conventional duel. I’ve heard it said in a set of retrospective reviews that the Night Raven is not a fighter but a reconnaissance plane. The evidence being that the plane it is modelled on, the SR-71 Blackbird was an unarmed high speed, high altitude recon plane. I would disagree. The presence of air to air missiles would be my first point. My second would be the fact that the SR-71 was an gargantuan plane; the Raven is a relatively small craft, thanks mainly to ‘toy downscaling’ (that being fitting all the fun of an aircraft into a manageable size). The result is a smaller, nimbler air superiority fighter. The final point is the presence of canard wings (the small wings on either side of the canopy), whose sole purpose is to enhance the craft’s handling at lower speeds. All it needs now is a gun! Sadly no forward-firing cannon is to be found on the Raven proper. It does however have a twin barrelled gun pointing directly on its six o’ clock, and two guns on the wings of its scout craft. I choose to ignore both of these loony ideas most of the time. So if an engagement was to get to that point where it’s four missile shots had been taken, the Raven would have to disengage and hope it’s opponent doesn’t give chase. Still, it’s a potent contender for the top spot.

The Rattler is an interesting addition to the list, I’ll concede. Based on the mother of all ground-attack planes, the A-10 Thunderbolt or Warthog, the Rattler surely can’t be a fighter. Yet Joe media portray it otherwise. I guess it was out of desperation since there was no competent Cobra fighter until the Raven arrived. But the Rattler nevertheless had some degree of success. Its vertical take-off and landing  capability meant it could be deployed from any number of concealed places, such as hollow fuel tanks. And its cannon and missiles were depicted as having both air-to-surface and air-to-air capabilities. The addition of a third engine over the A-10 tells me the Rattler no doubt has a greater airspeed, approaching mach 1 even. It may strain reality, but a Rattler was even able to pursue a Phantom X-19 in one issue of Hama’s original Marvel comic run. In that same issue, the pursuing Rattler had engines capable of afterburn. It is possible therefore that the Rattler can approach the speed of sound. At first I doubted it’s aerodynamic suitability for Mach 1 flight, since it has no sweep in its wings... but neither did the Bell X-1, and it broke the sound barrier in level flight. Handling at Mach 1 would be awful, but at least the old Rattler can get into and out of trouble quickly. Not quickly enough to evade other fighters but then again I doubt that would be its strategy. This plane I believe would make an excellent low level, slow speed dogfighter as it would have a superb turn radius, four short-range missiles and its devastating 30mm ‘Jawbreaker’ cannon. It would be a mistake to try and dogfight this bad boy, better to pick him off at range. So long as you can get the jump on him. But the Rattler is a jack-of-all trades and master of one-the ground attack role. It can take on attack helicopters well I’m sure, fighter jets not as well. But stranger things have happened and I’m sure a flight of Rattlers could rack up aerial kills.

The Skystriker. She is a thoroughbred fighter. Excellent weapons, speed, ceiling, climb, dive, manoeuvrability... Perfection. I have always believed it to be a smaller, lighter, more advanced F-14 Tomcat. The XF-14 is naturally experimental, produced in small numbers and therefore given to the Joes. It can engage targets before visual range with its long range, radar-guided Phoenix missiles, and middle- and close- range targets with its Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles. The aircraft also carries a cannon, and a ferocious gun pod to augment its ground-attack ability. It is a prime example of a current air superiority fighter. In the era of the F-22 Raptor, the lack of stealth option hurts the Skystriker somewhat, but it’s still a fine piece of equipment, and certainly the supreme dogfighter covered thus far.

Its brother craft, the Conquest may even have better handling, with its swept forward wing design. The increased wing surface area thanks to the sweep means more air passes over the ailerons. It comes at a cost, typically to stability and structural strength, but it’s my belief that with the Conquest (and the real-world craft it most closely resembles, the ‘Berkut’), these difficulties have been largely overcome. Its weapons loadout is more suited to the middle- to close-range assault as it lacks a long-range missile like the Skystriker’s Phoenix. Nevertheless, potent. It has the same failing as the Skystriker as it has no real stealth attributes in its design. If I were to choose between the two, I would take the Skystriker because its armament offers some stand-off distance protection from its most devastating adversary, the Night Raven. But in most scenarios, the Night Raven is king. Luckily for the Joes, these expensive craft are not often deployed.

The fighter that really impresses me as a next-generation jet must be the Hurricane. She’s  got the VTOL capability, 11 (!) missiles and an 80(!)mm cannon. Once again, the missiles look like quite a close range affair, but this craft certainly looks like it is built to get in close. The size of the gun is a bit absurd. Unnecessarily large to take out aircraft, its more to blow up battleships methink. I can’t imagine it has a very high rate of fire, so I doubt it’s a dogfighting weapon. But with so many missiles, who needs the gun?! From a design standpoint, the Hurricane is the most unconventional craft on this lineup. It has no tail, has a rather extreme VTOL mode, even more so than the Rattler. I can't help but wonder if it's tailess design has stealth attributes. If that is the case, and I imagine it to be so, then this plane sweeps the categories. I do feel it would have some range limitation as it is certainly one of the smaller craft but the engines are gargantuan and would probably rocket this plane past Mach 3 if I were to guess. This is definitely Cobra's primary fighter, if you can ignore the fact that the blueprints seem to specify that the missiles are air to ground. Oops. I buy it, but that would be such a waste. Leave the ground attack role to the Rattlers, Condors and Firebats. Cobra needs an air superiority fighter, dammit! 

The verdict my friends? While the Hurricane would have the edge in any scenario I have the strongest love for the ol' Raven. It’s the fastest, carries a lethal load, has the stealth aspect. I wouldn’t use it for a tight in, turning dogfight where the Skystriker, Hurricane or Conquest own, but for a hit and run fight, it can't be beat. It’s also my favourite (and first) plane from the line. I love that jet. It marries real world and sci-fi and does it with such immaculate Cobra style, red-tinted glass and all! If you don't own this plane, get it. It and the Skystriker are all you need. It don't get better or more fun than those two.