ACEVAL

The Air Combat Evaluation (ACEVAL) and the Air Intercept Missile Evaluation (AIMVAL) were two back-to-back Joint Test & Evaluations chartered by the United States Department of Defense that ran from 1974-78 at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Both the U. S. Air Force and Navy participated, contributing a team of F-15 Eagle and F-14 Tomcat fighter aircraft and using the local F-5E Aggressor aircraft as the Red Force. The fundamental question that needed to be answered was one of "quantity vs quality". Mock engagements showed that cheaper, lower-technology fighters armed with all-aspect missiles were able to destroy the more advanced, expensive F-15's and F-14's. These results of the AIMVAL/ACEVAL testing led to the Air Force decision to structure its fighter forces with a balance of cheaper F-16's along with the more expensive F-15's, and the Navy took a similar strategy in procuring cheaper F-18's along with the more expensive F-14's. The results had other impacts as well, such as decisions regarding missile development.

ACEVAL looked at the effectiveness of the tactics utilized by high-performance U. S. aircraft against simpler, threat-type aircraft equipped with all-aspect missiles.

AIMVAL examined 5 missile concepts under consideration as replacements for the AIM-9L Sidewinder. AIMVAL findings were that the new missiles were no better than the AIM-9L, resulting in termination of the Navy AIM-95 Agile off-boresight/thrust vectoring air-to-air missile program, which was under development at the time. Actual seeker hardware was utilized in AIMVAL.

ACEVAL/AIMVAL resulted in development of AMRAAM, but did not recommend development of a high off-boresight short-range missile, opting instead for a European-led effort to develop ASRAAM. However, the Soviet Union did develop such a missile and fielded the Vympel R-73 by 1985, taking the lead in short-range missile technology and performance for the first time since the Sidewinder entered service. This caused a number of countries to develop short-range missile programs to counter it, such as Python-4 in Israel, ASRAAM in Britain, MBDA MICA in France, AIM-9X in the United States, and IRIS-T in Germany. It was claimed that the Soviet Union benefited more from ACEVAL/AIMVAL than did its Western counterparts.

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