Curious, what is the longest range air to air kill using missiles.....
Not against a Drone or a target but in a real combat situation?

Secondarily, what is the longest range surface to air kill using a missile....
Again, not against a drone or target but against an enemy aircraft?

Did a quick Google but did not see anything.

If Tom Cooper is to be believed, there were a couple AIM-54 kills by Iran around 30 miles during the Iran-Iraq War.

If you discount the AIM-54 engagements (Controversial outside of the Iran-Cheering section) you're left with a whole stack of AIM-7 kills, possibly some by an R27 somewhere.

There have been some AIM-120 kills in Yugoslavia and Iraq I believe not sure what the ranges were on those.

As far as a SAM kill maybe one of the Missiles fired at the U-2?

USS Long Beach is suppose to have killed a MiG at 65 nm

USS Chicago also scored some rather long-range kills, I believe. Isn't there a Petty Officer who scored several kills with SAMs?

Terrible surprise for those NVN pilots with no Yankee fighters around, no?

EDIT: I just checked Wiki under "Talos Missile", and it said that Talos made three kills over NVN with launches from Long Beach and Chicago. Ranges weren't given, though

I would guess there were perhaps AIM-54 kills by the Iranians that exceeded sparrow kills in range, but there's probably no hard documentation. My guess would be that AM-7 had its longest ranged kills is '91, since ROE didn't allow it to be used at its full range in Vietnam. AIM-120 has been used several times and might be a candidate; not aware of any of the ranges however. I'm assuming you mean combat kill and kills against drones; AIM-54 certainly has been tested at ranges exceeding 30 miles against drones. Six were ripple fired at six drones for three hits and one lethal pass; one 'no test' when a drone's blip enhancer failed. I think there were a number of single fired tests against drones at 50+ nm.

Talos is definately a candidate for SAM kills. S-200 as used by the Ukraine probably has it beat, if you count accidently shooting down a civilian airliner as a 'kill'.

How about the shoot down of the USA-193 satellite recently? 'Space' is pretty far off... But the Chinese ASAT shot from 2007 may have intercepted at a higher altitude.

I think the thread is talking about air-air kills. As in, one aircraft shooting down another.


Shot

DF did ask about surface-to-air as well.

As I recall, the legend among the Long Beach's missile fire control types was that the two Talos kills were at 70 NM.

From my post a couple of years ago re Talos combat use: The book, semi official history, doesn't specify whether 65 is nautical or statute miles, I haven't read the Monthly Historical Reports of the ship, which it references. The VPAF statements potentially verify those kills.

"There was an ROE controversy about firing Talos overland, it took time for permission to be obtained for those first Long Beach shots in May 1968, and later the JCS once again banned overland shots. The May shots were, per first hand accounts on the web, conducted as ambushes where Terrier DLG's (Biddle and Jouett) radiated and transmitted data via Link 11 to Long Beach, which then went active and fired when enemy a/c were outside Terrier but within Talos range. The first shot May 11 missed, another May 23 claimed a kill at 65 miles. Long Beach made another claim in September at 61 miles, exact date unkown, but missed on 5 other occasions. Jouett missed once with Terriers in the same period. Source for dates and ranges is "Black Shoes and Blue Water", semi-official history by Muir, which footnotes action reports.

The VPAF official history (aka "Air War over North Vietnam" by Toperczer, apparently just a digest/translation of the official history) says "US a/c often attempted to lure MiG's toward the carrier groups where they were met with long range missile and AAA fire. Also starting in May [1968] were attempts to attack US ships...5 air attacks were launched without success and two a/c were lost...[b]oth pilots ejected successfully". The air attacks on PCF's and HMAS Hobart occurred in the summer of 1968, officially judged friendly fire by USAF fighters' AIM-7's; Hobart did report swept wing fighters but some first hand accounts from the Swifts still insist helicopters attacked them."

Joe

how far off was that SA=300 shot the russians did on that civilian jet? I think it was WAY past what we thought it would do.

Ukranian S-200.



Source

As I recalled, the Iranians documented its pilots using the AIM-54 on a particular date. And on that date at about the same hour, the Iraqis recorded an Mirage 1 blew up in mid-air. It was left unexplained as there was no air collision. And because the stockpile on the AIM-54 were so limited, the Iranians were pretty diligent in recording their use. So what we're left with is circumstantial evidence.

On the other hand, most BVR are circumstantial evidence.

I think that's how the story went.

Lockheed was pitching the SR-71 as an interceptor and managed to get 12 hits from 13 shots with a missile/radar combo they installed. Some of the kills were well past 40 miles, but I think they were just on target drones.

Some possible candidates for longest range kill may actually be Iraqi Mirage F1's firing Super 530 missiles. Likewise the Iraqi Mig-25 that shot down an F18 on the first night of the 1991 war is also likely to be a candidate. In both cases I doubt friendly fire was a concern.

As far as the longest range SAM shot HMS Exeter shot down a Learjet that thought it was significantly outside the missiles engagement envelope, ie further than 40 miles.

<Mods delete this post if you see it, I need to read better>