The Top 40

Why isn't the Air Force replacing it?

Probably for the same reason the Navy isn't building any new battleships.

Close quarters dogfighting is pretty much done. The Storm Shadow missile can shoot down a plane from 155 miles away.

Maybe this reliance on missiles will prove to be a mistake, but for now, that's the state of air to air combat.

The military establishment couldn't care less.

The country is broke, the Pentagon can't keep track of the enormous defense budget, the Army is robbing National Guard units of basic equipment. At the same time, Defense is squandering billions on a handful of high-tech weapons which won't work very well, or be very useful. There are B-52s still in service that were built in the 1950s. Every now and then the tail falls off of one of them. I read somewhere that the F-15s in service are operating at twice their design life.

The important thing is to keep the defense contracts flowing. The military performs that mission very well.

"Maybe this reliance on missiles will prove to be a mistake, but for now, that's the state of air to air combat"

Such reliance has already proved to be a mistake--in VietNam. Phantom 4s, supposedly the state of the art, didn't have guns. And accordingly wasn't very effective since it took little to evade their missiles.

As a VietNam vet Skyraider pilot observed to me, "Real planes have guns."

"Maybe this reliance on missiles will prove to be a mistake, but for now, that's the state of air to air combat"

Such reliance has already proved to be a mistake--in VietNam. Phantom 4s, supposedly the state of the art, didn't have guns. And accordingly wasn't very effective since it took little to evade their missiles.

As a VietNam vet Skyraider pilot observed to me, "Real planes have guns."

St. Thor...you have a point, but Vietnam was 40 years ago. Missile and radar technology has improved immensely. The Skyraider was a prop plane, for crying out loud. Times change.

Here's the deal. The dogfighters aren't needed anymore because nobody else can dogfight anymore. Period. Nobody else can actually put a real airforce up that won't just be shot down by the missles that anonymous referred to. Russians? They're lucky if they got anything that maintained properly enough so it still flies, and what in the world would the US fight them over now? Georgia? Not. Going. To. Happen.

Chinese? The last time a Chinese pilot tried to get cute with an American spy plane, he crashed himself. And again, what would the US fight them over? They screwed up by making their economy dependent on the US economy. Nothing to fight about there.

Iran? I don't think they *have* an airforce.

Aircraft are just flying artillery now--and manned combat aircraft may have reached their shelf-life already.

That is, until somebody else figures out how to take down the communications network the drones are flown with.

The money that once provided the bullets for the F-15's guns now goes to paying for Viagra for union retirees and welfare recipients. Through the government's money-redistrubtion scheme, the lead in one barrel has simply become the lead in another barrel.

Anonymous, although VietNam was 40 years ago, the Skyradier, a prop plane, was more effective in its job in VietNam than the F-4 was in its. The Skyradier has been replaced by the A-10 Warthog, a jet with lots of guns.
As for missile technology, missile evasion and defense technology has also improved. I will bet that an F-22 against the latest Russian MiG will rely more on its guns to bring down the MiG than it will its missiles. And it will defend itself with all the previously impossible maneuvers it can do to avoid guns and missiles. The best way to bring down an enemy aircraft is still to fill it full of bullet holes along with its pilot.

That's crap, Thor, and you know it.