Talk:Heavy fighter

message: In posting some planning information here, I am assuming that the editors actually desire a sound presentation that addresses the more important issues in a top down way.  For example, why are there such things as light and heavy fighters?  How has that played out historically, and why does it matter today?  By answering those questions, someone who reads several of these related articles is coming away with a correct understanding of the big picture.  That happens to be what I appreciate in any article I read—hopefully, I am not in the minority in taking that view here.      
This article has recently been undergoing editing, but bringing it to a level that answers those basic questions would still take some work.  As correct presentation is a project among a large set of editors that needs to be coordinated across multiple articles, getting some agreement on how to go about the project is essential to success.  Agreement and focus will allow efficient editing and sound presentation.  Lacking such agreement, getting past the contentiousness of the light and heavy fighter topic will make it hard to the point of near impossible to accurately present it.  The contention is such that, for example, bringing references on whether a certain aircraft is light or heavy can lead to accusations of “disrupting” an article.  We then just end up spinning our wheels with a very low rate of progress.  
We can do much better, and technically it is a simple issue.  So, if we can agree to a few summarized points from the literature, and then simply report the references, we can make a unified presentation that is compliant with the literature and tells the truth on a topic of high historical and current significance across this article and the related Wikipedia articles.  
On the contention over presentation of efficient single engine WWII fighters as “lightweight fighters”, that is what the literature that addresses the issue reports them as, including by many of their own designers.  There is still no literature to dispute that.  So, I have to disagree with Binkster that reporting them that way is “idiotic”.  However, it is true that a great deal of literature does not address them that way (which is also true of modern fighters), and instead refers to them as “single engine fighters”.  I see no problem in compromising on this point and simply reporting that both terms are used in the literature.  The key strategic point is that lightweights/singles are about half the cost of heavies/twins, while usually performing as well or better per plane.  The reason they achieve better combat results for less budget is that in general they are more compliant to the fighter effectiveness criteria.  That has held from WWII through 4th generation.  PhaseAcer (talk) 06:11, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Your plan requires entire shelves of WWII references to be ignored because they don't talk about heavy vs light fighter issues. Your plan requires the cherry-picking of a very few sources that paste a modern viewpoint on top of things that happened in the past. I don't think we can say with finality anything about this issue in WWII except that the German and British militaries both invested in heavy fighters as a concept. Everything beyond that is a violation of WP:WEIGHT (irony acknowledged) as the literature NOT talking about light vs heavy in WWII is so much larger. Binksternet (talk) 23:47, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Summary

message: A key point is that the terms “lightweight fighter” and “heavy fighter” are really just the military and literature terms that have evolved for “small and efficient fighters” and “larger and better equipped fighters”.  If that can be accepted, we can put most of the arguing behind us.  But so far, most attempts to present the light/heavy issue devolve into arguments over classification, and the resulting default position that has evolved over a period of years is to avoid the argument by not addressing the issue.  For example, to this very day the only article that has been allowed to present the fighter effectiveness criteria of surprise, numbers, maneuverability, and weapons effectiveness has been the light fighter article.  Light and heavy are fighter configuration choices, and to talk about them in a meaningful way (beyond just reporting raw data) requires using the fighter effectiveness criteria.  
A large part of the argument also seem to come from the feeling that only two classes are insufficient.  But, that is what the literature presents.  This has occurred because fighter aircraft design has always revolved around the available engines.  Though there are large and small engines that confuse the issue by allowing a heavy single or a light twin, for the most part the design issue has been whether to use a standard sized single engine (light), or two such engines (heavy), with allowance made for variation within the two main classes to provide for more detailed description.  
Therefore, in keeping with the literature, it is proposed now that the over 40 references given above and over 20 others located since be used to finally bring this and related articles up to date.  This could be accomplished by first generating a common definition of light and heavy to be used in both the light and heavy fighter articles, presenting the fighter effectiveness criteria to explain why those classes exist, bringing this article up to date with the literature from WWII to now, and adding a summary of the issue to the main fighter aircraft article with pointers to these two articles.  With those three articles synchronized, the consensus editor position may then flow out to the individual fighter articles, as appropriate.  
Key historical points from the literature in the struggle of light vs heavy are reviewed below, followed by more detailed editing suggestions.  PhaseAcer (talk) 06:11, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Strategy of Presentation

message: The first major semi-modern contest of heavy vs light jets was Vietnam.  Early in the war the heavy F-4 and F-105 suffered a mauling at the hands of the newly formed North Vietnamese air force flying lightweight MiG-17’s and MiG-21’s.  Over various sources, the F-4 Phantom shot down 54 to 66 MiG-21s, while 37 to 104 MiG-21’s were shot down in return. "MiG-21 Against the Phantom", http://survincity.com/2013/01/mig-21-against-the-phantom/ The U.S. admits to losing 17 F-105’s in air to air combat, and claims 27 MiG-17’s in return (the F-105 apparently scored no MiG-21 kills).  Other sources report the U.S. lost up to about 48 F-105’s in air to air.http://myplace.frontier.com/~anneled/usloss.html  The subsonic but small, maneuverable, and hard to see MiG-17 was very competitive with the F-105, and shot down many F-4’s as well.  However, exactly how many American fighters were lost in air to air is somewhat obscured by the heavy losses to ground fire and SAM’s.  
With specialized training and tactics, the U.S. did better late in the war.  The total kill ratio favored the United States by 2.5 to 1, and more like 5 to 1 on MiG CAP missions.https://www.historynet.com/great-kill-ratio-debate.htm    However, in a resource trading sense the U.S. still lost that fight.  
The Israeli use of the F-4E (the improved maneuverability and cannon armed version), from 1969 forward, led to a reported 166 kills and a lopsided Israeli kill ratio, mostly over lightweight MiG’s. Israeli F-4E’s scored 85-5 in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 (17 to 1).”Israeli F-4 Phantom II Aces”, pp. 86-88. However, from the Wiki Dassault Mirage III article, Israel also claims 246 air to air kills by the Mirage and derivative Nesher in the Yom Kippur War, against only 5 air to air losses (49 to 1).  Another reference for the Mirage/Nesher record in Israeli service reported 398 total kills over a period of years by the lightweight Mirage and Nesher, against 25 losses (16 to 1).”Israeli Mirage and Nesher Aces”, p. 81.  The Mirage was certainly preferred by the Israeli pilots for air to air work, who called the F-4 the “B-4” due to its size and weight.Sprey, p. 134,  Two statements by Israeli Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Mordechai Hod are also pertinent.  First, they found the F-4 radar to be essentially uselessSprey p. 135 (more modern radar is far superior, but on-board fighters still has a slow scan rate and limited field of view).  Second, he said they could have swapped aircraft with their opponents and still enjoyed the same results.  In his opinion, the dominant Israeli victories were much more due to careful pilot selection and training, and combat tactics, than the particular aircraft.  In summary, with outstanding pilots and tactics, Israel did great with the heavy F-4, but did as well or better with the lightweight Mirage.  Of the two, only the lower cost Mirage could be afforded in the numbers necessary to come out on top in the Arab-Israeli wars.   
In the more modern era, there were two key results of the Vietnam War in U.S. fighter thinking.  One was emphasizing air to air combat ability in the F-15 (a maneuverable light heavy), as well as a furious light vs heavy fight that culminated in the procurement of the F-16.  Secondly, it also led to the United States developing an effective  AWAC’s aircraft with the E-3 Sentry, to largely eliminate the element of surprise in airspace that can be covered by AWAC’s.https://www.historynet.com/great-kill-ratio-debate.htm.  With AWAC’s coverage, the surprise advantage of small enemy fighters is greatly reduced.  Since deployment of the E-3, the United States has only lost one fighter in air to air combat (an F-18 on the first day of the Gulf War).   
In the truly modern age, since BVR became reliable around 1980, the only place that heavies have seemed to maintain an advantage is when a modern air force does not have ground radar or AWAC’s long range radar coverage of the battle space, and needs its fighters to have the longest possible radar range to try to make up for that lack.  This is exemplified by the Israeli use of the F-15 from 1979 forward.  The combat record of the F-15 is indeed spectacular, but then again so is the record of the F-16 against the same generally outdated competition that was not radar and BVR equipped.  With similar pilot quality, it is the F-16 that edges out the F-15 in modern trials against each other and competent opponents, including BVR (the F-16 radar is not quite as good, but it also is a much smaller radar target), at half the cost per plane.  
Israel has used both the F-15 and F-16 extensively in air to air (even though most F-16 missions are flown air to ground).  The Israeli F-15 record is 50-0, and their F-16 record is 47-0.https://migflug.com/jetflights/the-combat-statistics-for-all-the-aircraft-currently-in-use/  
In U.S. service the F-15 has scored 40-0.https://migflug.com/jetflights/the-combat-statistics-for-all-the-aircraft-currently-in-use/    Not using the F-16 for the air to air role, the U.S. has only scored 6-0 with the F-16.  In this era the United States has held a massive BVR, AWAC’s, and SEAD advantage to prevent being surprised in the air.  This total system of air combat has been a large part of this outstanding record.  
Pakistan, which employs the F-16 for both air to air and air to ground, has scored 10-0 with it, including against Soviet pilots posted to Afghanistan.https://migflug.com/jetflights/the-combat-statistics-for-all-the-aircraft-currently-in-use/ PhaseAcer (talk) 06:11, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Jet Age

message: For consideration, under Operational Requirement F.155 of the 1950s, the 44 ton all-up Saunders-Roe SR.187.? Compared to half its weight  Hawker P.1103.  GraemeLeggett (talk) 08:40, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another extreme 

message: So, I’ve created a section for the Netherlands, France, and the USSR, as well as expanded Germany, all over the past year. I think it’s time we added other powers, most importantly Japan. I’m seeking suggestions as well as citations. Otherwise I’m just going to go off of the list of Japanese heavy fighters on the WWII aircraft list page, and research as-needed. Any help would be appreciated. Anything I should be sure to mention, that sort of thing? MWFwiki (talk) 01:35, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Japan’s Heavy Fighters