[u10]

First, there are very few aircraft that could beat an F-16 in a rate fight, but the likelihood that 2 aircraft enter a merge are extremely low, and even if everything went wrong and two aircraft entered the merge the ability for modern missiles to fire absurd off-bore shots kind of negates the requirement to get nose on.

You might point to the early days of the Ukrainian War as a sign that BCM is not dead but that wouldn't track these days. Russia is sitting with MiG-31's flying over Belarus and Western Russia firing extremely long rage missiles. The enviroment is simply not permissive enough for the type of aggressive CAP that might result in BCM.