Consider the case of the Sidewinder (Bill MacLean's baby) :
(from Ron Westrum's underwhelming book)
Israel had its first missile kill on 28 November 1966, when an Israeli Mirage IIIC fired a Matra 530 missile successfully at an Egyptian MiG-19, downing it. Yet, missiles were hardly used at all in the Six-Day War of 1967, whose many Israeli victories were all accomplished with guns. After 1967 there was a rapid climb in the number of missiles Israel used in combat. The Israelis soon got access to Sidewinders and used the AIM-9B and AIM-9D in the early years. Bu the Lebanon conflict (1982), Israeli planes were also carrying the AIM-9L, "super-Sidewinder." Diplomacy got Israel its early missiles, but soon it was designing its own, first the Shafrir and then its successor, the Python. The Rafael Design Bureau carried out the design of these Sidewinder variants. Israel has excellent technical capabilities, and these missiles are generally considered superior to the American Sidewinder versions.
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