Mirage or Phantom

[uk 75]

Reading various threads here about alternative paths not taken by the West's Air Forces in the 60s onwards I always come back to two actual families of aircraft:
For Europe the Dassault Mirage in its various guises. For the US and arguably the UK the F4 Phantom.
Which made me wonder which is my favourite. No contest, the F4 is brutal and.powerful, a classic bird of prey. Mirages are too pretty.
But seriously. Many of the what-ifs we discuss here were replaced in some way or other by a Phantom or a Mirage. What are the pros and cons for each type.

 

[kaiserd]

I’m a fan of both (interestingly they co-existed in some airforces - Israel comes to mind).
The Mirage was a lot cheaper to buy and operate than the F-4.
And the French were less picky about who they sold Mirage’s to (a lot of Mirage operators would never have got the F-4).
The Mirage was generally shorter range and carry lower payloads than the F-4 but that would be generally expected given size and cost differences.
The precise differences between them also relates a lot to what variations of each you are referring to when comparing them.
Presumably you are not including the Mirage 2000 because it’s a significantly later and more advanced aircraft.
And the Mirage F1 was a very fine aircraft that closed up in capacity on it’s equivalent F-4 variant (F-4E’s etc).
From a looks perspective I’m more of a Mirage person but I damn respect the rather less photogenic F-4.

 

[dan_inbox]

Also, the Mirage III started as a pure interceptor, and thus was rather more oriented towards air-to-air, with air-to-ground added later through bricolage workarounds like the bomb racks attached to the droptanks (it worked very well, but it was bricolage). As you say this was fixed with the F-1. Whereas the F-4 always had a huge ordnance capability.

I would add the A-4 as a contender favorite. Less glamorous but holding its own in dogfights, perfect bomb truck, very affordable.
(saved the bacon of many desperately overwhelmed units on Golan at the begining of YKW, too)

 

[galgot]

Like both, have a soft stop for the Mirage tho, cause I prefer single seat/single engine planes. I did that 10 years ago (!) :

Shahak #59 renders…

galgot.free.fr

You need that old thing called flash to see the "flash book".

Then started a F-4 model, but got stuck into over detailing the cockpit... and lost the mojo.

I think they fought in different categories. Think the F-4 was the first truly multirole supersonic fighter with good range and electronics that worked OK (the E in particular).
It could replace your bomber fleet, as well as doing air fighting. Was the precursor of modern twin engined fighter-bombers that appeared after.
But then you needed lots of $$ to have it.
Mirage III was a superb fighter, later adapted to A/G, but then was a smaller plane cause that was what France could afford at the time of his conception, and was thus limited.

 

[Foo Fighter]

I believe the F-4 was a larger aircraft due to the multi-role requirement whereas the Mirage was primarily an air 2 air asset initially. Also, the F-4 was carrier capable which increases weight and the Mirage was not.

 

[dan_inbox]

I did that 10 years ago (!) :

Shahak #59 renders…

galgot.free.fr

You need that old thing called flash to see the "flash book".

very nice renders!