"soviet coldwar mig 21 mig 23 chaff/flare question" Topic

hi guys
looking through my old mags from that cold war era (aircraft cutaways) none showed chaff/flare dispensers for mig 21 or mig 23 .ok that info would be hard to come by then
any one tell me what the story was with chaff/flare dispensers for above aircraft during that time ?

Somewhere I have the 4+ publications on both these planes. One thing I do remember is they used to stuff the airbrakes on the MiG 21 full of chaff so a quick pop would fill the sky with aluminum foil and hopefully foil the tracking plane's radar.

They certainly had them, at least as far back as the 1970s, and perhaps even into the 1960s, though allotments to various squadrons and aircraft could probably be hit or miss.

Surprisingly, even the FAA of the Royal Navy had to make do with their Sea Harriers in 1982, when they went to war against the Argentinians. They stuffed their airbrakes with chaff, as mentioned above, for a one-time, desperation use measure.

Not sure if they had flares back then, or got them on their way to/after being in theater for a bit.

I find that to be truly astounding during the early 1980s, at what was really pretty much the height of the Cold War tensions as well, for a major NATO ally, and "1st Rate" military power.

I'm inclined to believe that the Mig-23s would be more likely to have both than the older Mig-21s, generally, but really all should have them, since the measures are so cheap relative to the value of the jets and their pilots. That's especially true when one considers how well these seem to work against older, and mid-Cold War missile tech.

Pretty much no internal dexiy dispensers until late-model Floggers.

Birds of Prey and supplements is the best available reference, better info on dates than Janes', for example.

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The detailed info on loads, users, dates, etc. is on the back.

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Etc.

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Flogger chaff dispensers were on the top of the fuselage (for the later Flogger Gs). I don't know about the 21s--I've not seen dispensers on them before, but I'm sure they figured out a way to do it. (MF series onward).