[hef19898]

>> the missile making dogfights obsolete -- a little early, but true eventually.

Not true so. The US thought that in Vietnam, the F-4 (?) didn't have an on-board canon for that very reason. All new planes again have one, because dog fights turned out to be very much a thing. The Phoenix missile, and the F-14, have been built around the beyond-visual range idea. Both are out of service now. Beyond visual range works when you see the enemy but the enemy doesn't see you. If both parties see each other, the first shot will be beyond visual range, any survivors will find themselves in dog fight after that. And if both side use stealthy fighters, they won't see each other, or be able to engage each other, at distances beyond a dog fight.

[rtkwe]

That's a question we won't really know the answer to until we get a nice big shooting war between peer air forces again. So hopefully not in my lifetime. I think what they really learned was dropping guns is a gamble and when you don't /really/ have to control costs that much it's safer to include a limited gun in case you need it. AFAIK the current doctrine thinks dog fights are going to be a small part of air to air combat as both the f22 and f35 have less than 5 seconds of ammo.

[hef19898]

>> f22 and f35 have less than 5 seconds of ammo

That's one of the big challenges, isn't it? If an enemy catches a flight of F-35s / F-22s with enough numbers the result could be devastating. And the big limitation of stealth aircraft is payload. Have them carry more, on external hardpoints, and they loose stealth. Have them maintain stealth means carrying less. Having too large internal bays makes them useless as fighters. Quite a fascinating conundrum there.

[raducu]

Yes, I meant guns-only type of dogfights, there will still be a few dogfights, but fought with close-range missiles.