History RockBeatsLaser / RealLife

** Played with in this case, however, the Soviets actually won the Winter War despite the Finns' best efforts (albeit the subversion is downplayed anyway because it was arguably a Soviet PyrrhicVictory) and established a communist Finland satellite state puppet government, but they had to withdraw anyway to fight the Nazi invasion in WWII, making this work almost like a victory anyway.

* The A-10 Thunderbolt II. Built according to design principles set out by World War II ground-attack aircraft, it was not very aerodynamic, had low-power engines designed for subsonic efficiency rather than performance, and originally had a bare minimum of electronic navigation and targeting equipment required to fly. It is also [[FlyingBrick ridiculously durable]], armed with the GAU-8 Avenger, a [[GatlingGood Gatling-style gun system]] ''the size of a VW Beetle'' that can punch through the top of a tank with superb accuracy. As it turned out, the emphasis on subsonic efficiency meant that the "Warthog" could loiter around combat zones for long periods of time and made it a very stable platform for carrying large amounts of ordinance and unleashing it upon its targets. There are few combat aircraft in the world that can claim to withstand more punishment, or to have successfully [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunderbolt_II carried out more ground missions under fire]], with significantly higher mission availability and fewer friendly fire incidents to boot.

* The Polikarpov Po-2, a 1928 wooden biplane used mainly for flight training and dusting during peacetime, was successfully fielded by Soviet night bomber units in WWII: they could glide over German army camps with the engines turned off, undetected until they actually started dropping bombs on the barracks. The Po-2's top speed was also lower than the stall speed of German planes (the slowest speed a plane can do without actually losing the ability to stay airborne), which meant that pursuing German fighters would only be able to shoot a short burst of fire at the Po-2 before actually overtaking it. While Po-2's couldn't carry much more than a few small bombs or grenades that the observer had to toss by hand that did relatively little physical damage, they caused a great deal of disruption to the Germans by causing nightly commotion without any warning with near impunity. During the Korean War, Po-2's would return to the same role, this time harassing American and other UN forces by night, earning the nickname "Bedcheck Charlie"; their small radar cross section and low and slow flight made them very difficult to detect and intercept. Their preferred targets were American airbases where they damaged a number of jet fighters, including F-80s and F-86's, while occasionally burning fuel dumps and definitely costing pilots sleep. Since American fighters of this era were much faster than the German fighters a decade before, they had even more trouble with the pesky little biplane: the many and varied fighters (F-82 Twin Mustangs, F-80 Shooting Stars, F-86 Sabres, and even the radar equipped F-94 Starfires) that USAF threw against Po-2's could not shoot down a single one. The only American aircraft that successfully brought down a Po-2 in air combat, incidentally, was the lumbering (and very slow) AD-1 Skyraider, a piston-engined attack bomber designed (but not fielded) near the end of World War 2. In return, the Po-2 is also the only biplane credited with a documented jet-kill, as one Lockheed F-94 Starfire was lost while slowing down to 110 mph – below its stall speed – during an intercept in order to engage the low flying Po-2.
* During 1960s, Britain faced the prospect of a possible conflict with Indonesia over Northern Borneo. Since the Indonesian Air Force still operated World War 2 era P-51 Mustangs, British ran an exercise to examine how modern jet fighters might fare against World War 2 era piston fighters. English Electric Lightnings (a Mach 2 capable jet fighter) were pitted in mock battles against Supermarine Spitfires borrowed from the Battle of Britain Memorial Squadron and these showed that it was nearly impossible for Lightnings to fight Spitfires as their flight characteristics were so vastly different--the jet simply could not slow down enough to engage the Spitfire. While the rock (Spitfire) could not actually "beat" the laser (Lightning), the laser couldn't stop the rock.

** ...[[TechnologyMarchesOn If the A-10 was fighting in an area without serious anti-air defenses such as AA guns and missiles, or if there was no enemy aircraft capable of fending it off]]. Against an opponent who has access to any of those, however, regardless of how many people espouse its legendary toughness, its survivability goes ''way'' down. To make things even worse, it was originally envisioned as [[RedShirt having a high casualty rate]] at ''best'' in its original role; hunting Soviet tanks while NATO fighters were fending off Soviet planes. As both sides were expected to have ''large numbers of vehicles and planes'' present in a hypothetical battle, all bets were off.
** Perhaps damningly, the bare minimum avionics of the original variant of the A-10 [[https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/k7y3wq/a10_friendly_fire_rates/ made them vulnerable to making friendly fire incidents]], especially because the pilots had to rely on a pair of ''binoculars'' before the later A-10C variant fixed the problem with more advanced systems at the cost of the A-10's ability to operate from anywhere as bare as a dirt strip.

* The Polikarpov Po-2, a 1928 wooden biplane used mainly for flight training and dusting during peacetime, was successfully fielded by Soviet night bomber units in WWII: they could glide over German army camps with the engines turned off, undetected until they actually started dropping bombs on the barracks. The Po-2's top speed was also lower than the stall speed of German planes (the slowest speed a plane can do without actually losing the ability to stay airborne), which meant that pursuing German fighters would only be able to shoot a short burst of fire at the Po-2 before actually overtaking it. While Po-2's couldn't carry much more than a few small bombs or grenades that the observer had to toss by hand that did relatively little physical damage, they caused a great deal of disruption to the Germans with near impunity. During the Korean War, Po-2's would return to the same role, this time harassing American and other UN forces by night, earning the name "Bedcheck Charlie"; their small radar cross section and low and slow flight made them very difficult to detect and intercept. Relatedly, the Po-2 is also the only biplane credited with a documented jet-kill, as one Lockheed F-94 Starfire was lost while slowing down to 110 mph – below its stall speed – during an intercept in order to engage the low flying Po-2.

* The Polikarpov Po-2, a 1928 wooden biplane used mainly for flight training and dusting during peacetime, was successfully fielded by Soviet night bomber units in WWII: they could glide over German army camps with the engines turned off, undetected until they actually started dropping bombs on the barracks. The Po-2's top speed was also lower than the stall speed of German planes (the slowest speed a plane can do without actually losing the ability to stay airborne), which meant that pursuing German fighters would only be able to shoot a short burst of fire at the Po-2 before actually overtaking it. While Po-2's couldn't carry much more than a few small bombs or grenades that the observer had to toss by hand that did relatively little physical damage, they caused a great deal of disruption to the Germans with near impunity. During the Korean War, Po-2's would return to the same role, this time harassing American and other UN forces by night, earning the name "Bedcheck Charlie"; their small radar cross section and low and slow fight made them very difficult to detect and intercept. Relatedly, the Po-2 is also the only biplane credited with a documented jet-kill, as one Lockheed F-94 Starfire was lost while slowing down to 110 mph – below its stall speed – during an intercept in order to engage the low flying Po-2.

* The Polikarpov Po-2, a 1928 wooden biplane used mainly for flight training and dusting during peacetime, was successfully fielded by Soviet night bomber units in WWII: they could glide over German army camps with the engines turned off, undetected until they actually started dropping bombs on the barracks. The Po-2's top speed was also lower than the stall speed of German planes (the slowest speed a plane can do without actually losing the ability to stay airborne), which meant that pursuing German fighters would only be able to shoot a short burst of fire at the Po-2 before actually overtaking it. While Po-2's couldn't carry much more than a few small bombs or grenades that the observer had to toss by hand that did relatively little physical damage, they caused a great deal of disruption to the Germans with near impunity. During the Korean War, Po-2's would return to the same role, this time harassing American and other UN forces by night, earning the name "Bedcheck Charlie." Because the jet-powered F-94's had such trouble catching these intruders (see below), USAF had to bring back piston-engined F-82 Twin-Mustangs to guard against them--but this was not very effective either, as these biplanes were way too slow even for the F-82's.
** The Po-2 is also the only biplane credited with a documented jet-kill, as one Lockheed F-94 Starfire was lost while slowing down to 110 mph – below its stall speed – during an intercept in order to engage the low flying Po-2.

* The Polikarpov Po-2, a 1928 wooden biplane used mainly for flight training and dusting during peacetime, was successfully fielded by Soviet night bomber units in WWII: they could glide over German army camps with the engines turned off, undetected until they actually started dropping bombs on the barracks. The Po-2's top speed was also lower than the stall speed of German planes (the slowest speed a plane can do without actually losing the ability to stay airborne), which meant that pursuing German fighters would only be able to shoot a short burst of fire at the Po-2 before actually overtaking it.

* At the Battle of Assal Uttar in the Khem Karan sector in Rajasthan India during the [[UsefulNotes/TheIndoPakistanConflict 65 Indo-Pak War]], Pakistani M-60 Patton tanks equipped with the latest imaging technology including laser rangefinders [[CurbStompBattle got their exhaust pipes handed to them]] by [=1940s=] era Centurion light tanks fielded by the Indian army. So many Patton tanks were destroyed that the site is now known as “Patton township”. The reason why such advanced (for its day) tanks failed so utterly was because the various bells and whistles and advanced instrumentation proved to be way too difficult for the average Pakistani “Sowar” (cavalry soldier) to understand and use effectively. By contrast, the Indian tankers had trained on the simpler mechanical systems of the Centurions for over a decade. Three guesses as to which tankers operated their equipment flawlessly under fire and which tankers developed brain farts!

** During the early days of radar-guided and heat-seeking missiles, many US military planners were so confident of their superiority that the F-4 Phantom fighter was initially designed without guns, as they believed that missiles would make {{Old School Dogfight}}s a thing of the past. This was quickly disproven in the Vietnam War: Vietnamese pilots quickly learned to fight close to the ground, where ground clutter and thermal reflection greatly confused early missile guidance systems to the point of uselessness and could leverage the superior low-altitude/low-speed characteristics of their older and supposedly more primitive [=MiG=]-15 and [=MiG=]-17 fighter aircraft. Even if Phantom pilots managed to outmaneuver their adversaries, the lack of guns meant that they couldn't engage at closer distances; often the Phantoms had to resort to their superior speed and climb rate to escape. [[note]]A more detailed analysis can be found [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/remarks.php?trope=Main.RockBeatsLaser#latest here.]][[/note]] Somewhat a DiscreditedTrope as it has since come out that a lack of training, rather than guns, combined with restrictive rules of engagement were far bigger factors in dogfight failures. [[note]]Contrast the US Navy having more consistent kills using Sidewinder missiles compared to the US Air Force installing [[MoreDakka gun pods]] on their aircraft yet still having an abysmal kill rate.[[/note]]