Surely the only meaningful criterion to be applied in any assessment of the efficacy of the Lightning in all its variants is whether it had any significant impact on the will or ability of the enemy to kill people and break their stuff.
Not how it stacked up against Uncle Sam's hardware or that of the Luftwaffe in NATO.
So, go on. Ask the Russians or the Chinese (or the French) just whether the Lightning scared the willies off them and interfered with their dastardly plans for world domination.
Last edited by exuw; 13th Oct 2015 at 19:22.