Small vs. Medium vs. Big Fighter debate

In a way, you can’t fault the Super Hornet for what it is—a medium fighter. There are some limitations inherent to a medium fighter that you can’t magically, or physically resolve without breaking the laws of physics.

Many of the arguments in a SH vs. F-14 debate would be common to an F-16 vs. F-15 debate, MiG-29 vs. SU-27, Rafale/Typhoon vs. F-15, and maybe even in among the PLA planners in Beijing, the J-10 vs. J-11 (Flanker) debate.

You cannot simply avoid that the bigger fighter can hold more stuff—fuel, ordinance, bigger radar, not to mention two more powerful engines. The power of these engines alone would far outweigh any weight increase from the size and ordinance increase.

Simply said, bigger is better.

Hence my skepticism even for the new generation of small/medium fighters aka F-35, Rafale, and Typhoon. After the F-14 dies, the F-15 is next, and finally maybe even the Flanker itself. We hope that the PAK FA project isn’t going to produce a midget fighter like the MiG i.44, but something big and mean like the S37 Berkut.

Maybe you can compensate size with technological sophistication. But sophistication means rising costs. There is something cheap about sheer brute force.

As for the midgets of this world—the F7s, the IDFs, the Grippens, even the Mirage 2000s and maybe even the J10 and the F-16, well, small is still small, and there is still no way you can match the striking power and range of an SU30MK or a F15 Strike Eagle.

The problem of small-medium fighters is that your range and striking power may end up being a bit limited, requiring that you develop truly dedicated strike bombers, and therefore as an entire picture—the scenario will cost you much more. That means you’re fielding lots of small cheap fighters and a few very expensive bombers, when you can in fact, field the a number of the same big fighters that do both their roles. Operationally, those big fighters will cost less than a mix of small fighters and big bombers.

Bigger fighters mean bigger punch, and a bigger punch means less missions, which means less danger and lower operating costs.