Whatever happened to ATTACK aircraft?

Let's talk about Fighter and Attack aircraft designations, the differences between the two, and why we don't see many new attack aircraft entering service these days.

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#f35 #fighterjet #airpower #military #aviation #defense #attackjet #short #shorts

[themocaw]

Because fighter jocks complained about the "A" in "F/A-18."

[creolespanish]

An F-35 pilot gets more work done in a mission than my whole Department in a month

[Typexviiib]

Same reason we don't see "heavy" tanks any more. Technology has advanced to the point where a mbt is faster than the old medium tanks, better armored than heavy tanks, with better guns than tank destroyers.

[guybrushthreepwood]

Modern Attack and Fighter missions are about the ordinance the aircraft carries and now the form factor of the ordinance has advanced to the point that basically any fighter can carry advanced AGM without sacrificing performance when it is loaded out with air-to-air missions in mind, thus attack roles are now available to fighters with just a change of the missile they carry. This is good because you can have more economy of scale by just operating one airframe instead of 2

[Troph]

Can you do a short on the a29 super Tucano. Its a 'Light Attack Aircraft'

[Eddie_Munster]

Happy to see a bigger volume of content from you lately. Nice work

[Idahoguy]

The F-35 can be called a E/F/A aircraft. But they didn’t…

[Teelie_]

a10 best morale booster, sounds of freedom and zooming across the sky with BRRRT

[IAmTheAce]

The distinction is only meaningful when the mission profiles demand a significant difference in airframes and loadout.

In WW2, a wildcat and a dauntless wouldn’t be best used in switched roles, but today, ordnance and avionics change the mission profile, so any airframe that can carry both can do the mission. And the aircraft can be designed for speed, range and agility more independently.

[meanman]

F15 and it’s decedent variants are both, and very good at their jobs of being able to attack ground targets with a ton of munitions, as well as defend its self against threats.

[trickn]

I've always called the F-100 "the first superfighter" because it could do both fairly well. After the F-100 we started splitting off again, the F-104 was a fighter and the F-105 was a striker.

[marksanney]

Thanks again for another great snippet.

A very distilled and accurate explanation, my friend. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸

[Ecrocken]

"F-35 is probably the premier attack aircraft on the planet."
A-10 : Hold my beer

[newdefsys]

Its about mission sets too. Back in the day they had penetration fighters, escort fighters, fighter-bombers, fighter-interceptors, etc.
But the roles of these specific fighters have either become obsolete, or merged together, 'multirole'.
In the 1970's the "high-low mix" philosophy emerged and thats what we still have today.

[regolith]

The difference used to be much more obvious in the old days, before rockets and guidance, when everything was a dumb bomb or a hunk of flying lead. The only "targeting" was done by pointing the whole plane at the target.

You had to get up close and personal to shoot down an enemy plane, cruise low, slow, and steady to drop a torpedo into the water, or dive at a near vertical drop to aim your bomb. These all made for very obviously different flight requirements. Today, nearly everything is a rocket-powered guided munition, so the differences aren't as obvious.

[alexfortin]

The real reason why attack aircraft are mostly obsolete is technological progress. Bette airframes, power plants, avionics and weapons allowed the creation of the multi role fighter which could execute most combat tasks well.

[Appreciation-Community]

Now explain the difference between a fighter and an interceptor.

[ultimateanthony]

We don't have attack aircrafts because UFO's found them offensive 🤫🌝😂😂💯

[Beet--Juices]

The A10 got a life extension because it can run the show for and do it on a slim budget

[mohammedsaysrashid]

Wonderful explaining about differences between fighter & attack aircraft....F35 designed for both tasks