Talk:Air superiority

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Contents 1 Pearl Harbor 2 F-14 Tomcat 3 Design vs. Doctrine 4 Fighter 5 F-100 and F-104

[edit] Pearl Harbor

Is the information on Pearl Harbor relevant? I'm not sure if it is, but since I don't have anything to replace it with I'm not changing it.

Well, the US sure didn't have it on that day, that's way for sure.--Wiarthurhu 19:46, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] F-14 Tomcat

If somebody tries to remove the F-14 again because he thinks it's not an air superiority fighter, I'm gonna have a fit.--Wiarthurhu 19:46, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Design vs. Doctrine

Oy. This article is about air superiority in military doctrine. It is not a place for original research about what elements of fighter design consititute or contribute to "air superiority". And cite your sources, please!

In WWI, WWII, and the Korean War, air superiority was a matter of speed and agility. In the 1950s it was thought that missles that could kill at long ranges would obviate the need for maneuverability, but combat in the Vietnam war would lead to a rebirth of Air superiority fighters, the first of which would be the F-14 Tomcat of Top Gun fame, and later the F-15 Eagle, F-16 Falcon and F/A-18 Hornet.

Look at AirLand_Battle, which is about a specific doctrine. It doesn't and shouldn't address the design characteristics of the M1 Abrams or the Bradley, especially as doctrine revolves around combined arms that involve more than one component. In WWII, there were many DIFFERENT types of fighters that combined to achieve air superiority - heavy fighters, day fighters, escort fighers, each with different characteristics. And it was not just speed and agility. Armament mattered. Survivability mattered. But this is not the place to delve in to such matters.

That's why the term air superiority fighter didn't enter usage until the F-15; until then the mission of offensive counter air was accomplished by a mix of complementary fighters; only later did it become possible to achieve all those aims in a single fighter.--Mmx1 19:50, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fighter

And you don't think even the development of the F-15 with AS as the #1 design point affects doctrine?--Wiarthurhu 20:00, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

To answer your question, no. Doctrine stipulated the development of the F-15, not vice versa. Doctrine is not dictated by evolutionary upgrades to weapons. Only with revolutionary ones (e.g. Nuclear weapons) is the converse relationship true.

The use of "air superiority" in the development of the F-15 is correct, but trying to fit the term backwards and inappropriately on historical periods where it wasn't in use is a) Original Research and b) inaccurate.

I don't want this page to delve into "what constitutes a good fighter", which is of tangential relevance to the doctrine and detracts from the topic at hand, which is the evolution of the idea of "air superiority" and its increasing importance in military doctrine. That is what drove the development of fighters, not vice versa (if anything, it's the development of bombers that established the importance of air superiority). --Mmx1 20:05, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] F-100 and F-104

"The USAF had developed the F-100 and F-104 as air superiority fighters, but these did not have the range or performance to counter the MiG threat encountered over Vietnam."

This statement is accurate for the F-100, a good example of failed development, expensive, difficult to fly and maintain, and met none of its initial objectives except for speed.

However this is untrue of the F-104. The F-104 was rejected by USAF according to their doctrine at the time, which did not believe visual range air superiority fighters were useful, and because the F-104 was small and had limited avionics (no BVR capability). The F-5, the only other successful USAF air superiority development between the F-86 and F-15, was rejected by USAF for similar reasons.

F-104s won the William Tell competition three years running. They were never effectively tested in Vietnam because every time F-104s were assigned escort duty over the North, NVAF failed to molest the attacking aircraft. The Vietnamese probably believed the F-104 to be more capable. Note that NVAF had no qualms about taking on the huge, heavy, no-guns Phantom.

Both F-5 and F-104 went on to long, distinguished careers in other airforces. The F-104's biggest weakness was being unforgiving of pilot incompetence, both flight envelope violations (German accident history) and tactical mistakes (Pakistan's experience against India). The F-104 was probably the second best energy fighter of its time after the Lightning. Its only performance deficiency compared to MiG-17, -19 and -21 was low speed maneuverability, more than compensated by its acceleration, climb rate, and roll rate. Its range was also adequate based on numerous missions over North Vietnam. Like the F-8, it was a far better visual dogfighter than the Phantom in the hands of a properly trained pilot.

If you look broadly at historical combat records, with skilled pilots, energy fighters typically defeat turn fighters. But they have to stay fast and use the vertical.--RandallC 06:25, 17 July 2006 (UTC)