Air superiority fighter

In the United States, the influential prevalence of radar guided missiles with longer ranges developed fighters with no forward-firing gun, such as the original F-4 Phantom II, as it was thought that they would never need to resort to a dogfight.

[2] The two designs were built to achieve air superiority and significant consideration was given during the development of both aircraft to allow them to excel at the shorter ranges of fighter combat.

While the F-14 had an undeveloped secondary ground attack capability (with a Stores Management System (SMS) that included air-to-ground options as well as rudimentary software in the AWG-9), the Navy did not want to risk it in the air-to-ground role at the time, due to its lack of proper defensive electronic countermeasures (DECM) and radar homing and warning (RHAW) for overland operations, as well as the fighter's high cost.

The F-22 Raptor, designed primarily as an air superiority fighter, would receive precision strike capabilities through mission system upgrades.

Due to the high costs of aircraft development, the next generation of USAF air superiority platforms will be multirole with strike capabilities designed from the outset.