What’s in a name? Fighters, bombers and modern aerial combat
By Gregory Malandrino and Thomas G. Mahnken
Thursday, Jul 3, 2025
Although designed and designated as a bomber, the B-21 Raider can more usefully be thought of as a stealthy, networked, long-range aircraft capable of employing a considerable payload of large weapons, the authors of this op-ed argue. (Air Force)
Aerial combat has evolved from dogfights between high-speed, maneuverable fighters to duels among missile-armed aircraft at long range. In 2015, John Stillion presciently analyzed this transformation. His research demonstrated that victory no longer results from the fastest, most maneuverable fighter destroying an enemy in a dogfight. Instead, air combat today favors larger, less detectable aircraft using networked information to defeat adversaries with long-range missiles. This shift has ushered in a new regime of aerial combat where future air superiority aircraft may resemble bombers more than fighters. The Chinese J-36, J-50 and the multinational GCAP aircraft appear to embody Stillion’s principles. The extent to which the Air Force’s F-47 and the Navy’s F/A-XX embody these design principles remains unclear.
Current U.S. Air Force efforts to achieve air superiority against the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) reflect the assumption that aircraft with traditional fighter characteristics — high maneuverability, high speed and small size — will remain the centerpiece of air combat. These include increasing the number of missiles each F-35 can carry, buying F-15EXs, developing unmanned Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) and fielding the F-47 Next Generation Air Dominance aircraft. These efforts are in tension with the changing character of modern aerial combat and magnify the challenge to keep pace with the PLAAF. Fielding survivable bomber-sized aircraft for long-range aerial combat could mitigate these shortfalls.
From the earliest days of air-to-air combat, “seeing first and shooting first” has delivered victory. Whereas aircraft maneuverability and speed were long fundamental to these goals, this is no longer the case. Long-range sensing and extended-range missiles have profoundly altered air-to-air combat. When an information advantage is paired with a weapon kinematic advantage, it allows one aircraft to see first and shoot first. Today, aircraft survivability depends upon reducing signatures to foil long-range detection, tracking, identification and engagement. Speed and maneuverability still matter, but these traits now reside in weapons more than aircraft.
https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/2025/07/03/whats-in-a-name-fighters-bombers-and-modern-aerial-combat/
