Why fighters?

I don't know why, but fighters seem innefficient to me. It seems that a lot of them are designed to do a lot of jobs well, but they do them for a very high price. The only thing they seem indispensible for is air superiority and lightning strikes on important targets, but you don't see the need for those in the modern war on terror.

An A-10 warthog or a helicopter seem like a better choice for ground support. The drones are better for surveillance. It seems that a lot of money gets spent on jets because they look cool and are fast, but they could buy one of these for cheaper and get more real use out of it in the current climate.

would u prefer a bus versus a motorcycle? fighters are design to clear the sky of enemy fighters that can easily shoot down slow moving bombers with payloads. bombers cant defend themselves and they cant outmanuever a cool looking jet fighter like MIG 29s, Su 27 Flankers and F-22 Raptors as well.

Not saying that fighters are horrible, especially for what they do, just wondering why they seem to be trying to take every single role in the airforce when other aircraft could do some of their jobs more cheaply and efficiently.

Because it's easier to make a fighter an effective attack platform than to make an attack platform an effective fighter. It's cheaper to develop a single airframe and give it multiple roles.

[edit on 8/24/05 by xmotex]

I can see that, since a single airframe would mean that technicians would be able to work on different versions of the sam aircraft. The big thing I see is that it would probably be cheaper to make an aircraft that does ground support (ie. one of those c-130 gunships or an A-10), and then make an aircraft that is designed for Anti-Air work. This way you wouldn't have conflicting design requirements and you could have each aircraft being made more cheaply.

Can anyone tell me what is wrong with this idea? The military does use these aircraft, but they also use more expensive fighters to perform the same roles too. Just seems somewhat silly to me.

Before you can transport troops, perform CAS, and even recce, having air superiority is a must. Otherwise enemy aircraft can pick apart your attack fleet in no time.

Most fighters nowadays are also bombing platforms as well and can provide tactical air support when needed hence the term multirole. The few exceptions to this include the F-15C. Which as a buddy on mine said (Quoting someone else) not a single pound for air to ground. The F-15E variant can do Air Superiority, but also perform the deep strike/interdiction role as well. Same with most contemporay fighters such as the Typhoon, Rafale, Grippen, Flanker et al.

Fighter thus are a necessary componet of any air force.

Hmm, to me you seem to have answered your own question.

*Speaking non-literal terms, no real numbers used, just to get the point across*

10 Bombers to destroy a few enemy bases:10,000 Dollars
25 Fighter/Bombers to destroy those same enemy bases and hold air supieriority:9,000 Dollars

1 example as to why MultiRole is essential in any well balance air force. When you do not have the means to deploy large amounts of aircraft that perform one role, you need fighters that can do those sames things for less, and because they're fighters, they will be cheaper and easier to maintain than large bombers or advanced recon planes.

It's nice to have fancy bombers, recon planes, close support, and all that fun stuff, but when you don't have most of those things at that single moment, you can just pull a few multirole craft armed with bombs, or recon equipment off of their active duty and put them into your desired missions.

And it limits have so many different types of airframes. A well-balanced Air Force requires easy maintable air frames that are simple for their mechanics and technicians.

I may be wrong on some of this, if anyone sees anything wrong, be sure to fix it please!

Shattered OUT...

If I remember correctly, during vietnam it cost approximately $100,000 to destroy a car/truck/tank with an airplane (including missiles, fuel and possibly other things that I can't remember right now). It cost $5000 to dot he same with a C-130 gunship. I am not sure how this goes into modern air power, but I think that those missiles they are shooting are still pretty expensive, whereas the bullets that come from the nosegun on a warthog are cheap.

I can see using fighters in things like air-superiority or for the destruction of high priority targets (like SAM sites), but it just seems overly expensive and wasteful to design a 100 million dollar aircraft to destroy donkey carts.

EDIT: Change C-130 to AC-130. Also, I was just thinking, and it makes sense for the Navy to use extremely multi-purpose aircraft because of their limited carrying capacity, but I don't see it being useful for the airforce, especially since the AC-130 shares an airframe with the C-130 (meaning maintainence and repairs should be cheaper).

[edit on 25-8-2005 by PBscientist]

But again that AC-130 is toast if there is no air superiority. Once that is achieved, it makes sence to use the fighters in a more tactical role such as interdiction etc.

Originally posted by PBscientist
I don't know why, but fighters seem innefficient to me. It seems that a lot of them are designed to do a lot of jobs well, but they do them for a very high price.

I Agree with you! There are many Jobs that can be done better by other airplanes. Strategic Bombing, for example, should be done by bombers like the B-2 and the B-52, NOT F-117 and F-15E. The F-15 was design to fight other aircraft, not bomb ground targets. When you try to put a plane into a role it wasn't meant for, it will always have limits. For example the 5'000 LB. Bunker Busters air too big to put inside of an F-117, but most command bunkers are in heavly defended areas. That's were the B-2 comes in. You put several GBU-37 5'000 LB. bunker busters in the bomb bay and go destroy the bunkers. If you tried to do the same using fighters, you'd need tons of supprt aircraft to even have a chance to get near the target.

The Idea of strapping bombs on fighters dates back to World War 2, when the US Army Air Force (USAAF) strapped 100lb, and 500lb bombs on P-38's and P-51's. If the fighter could do the bombing role so well, why did they continue to build bombers after the war ended? I think that Proves that the fighter is NOT an effective replacement for the bomber.

As my buddy FredT said: "Fighter thus are a necessary componet of any air force." The same is true for bombers! It boils down to using the right plane for the job!

Originally posted by ghost

I Agree with you! There are many Jobs that can be done better by other airplanes. Strategic Bombing, for example, should be done by bombers like the B-2 and the B-52, NOT F-117 and F-15E. The F-15 was design to fight other aircraft, not bomb ground targets. When you try to put a plane into a role it wasn't meant for, it will always have limits. For example the 5'000 LB. Bunker Busters air too big to put inside of an F-117, but most command bunkers are in heavly defended areas. That's were the B-2 comes in. You put several GBU-37 5'000 LB. bunker busters in the bomb bay and go destroy the bunkers. If you tried to do the same using fighters, you'd need tons of supprt aircraft to even have a chance to get near the target.

I disagree wholly. The F-15E is a multirole fighter. You equip it with bombs so that it can operate within a wider area of sorties. It can also react to changes in the mission profile. Plus bombs can destroy important SAM sites a whole lot better than an AMRAAM or a Sparrow Heat Seeker

Originally posted by Darkpr0
I disagree wholly. The F-15E is a multirole fighter.

Exactally! Have you ever heard the old saying: A Jack of all Trades, is a MASTER of NONE!? Multirole aircraft have limits becase they are design to do a bit of everything, instead of doing one thing Really Well! No one seems to have learned anything from the F-111's growing problems. It was design to be both a fighter and a Tactical Bomber. How many Dog fights has the F-111 won? You can't Dogfight well with a heavly load of bombs on a plane. There is no guess work here, just basic physics!

Side Note: SAM sites are usually Attacked with HARM Antiradar missile, not bombs. That is a highly specialized mission called SEAD, which is flowen by specially equipped planes called Wild Weasels!

Wild Weasle

Read up on the mission, you will find that it involves specially rebuilt aircraft and specially trained pilots. It is seprate from the regular strike aircraft fleet.

Tim