The early F-18’s had difficulty with unguided munitions, the pylons caused trajectory perturbations that gave them poor CEP. Fixed with later deisgns and better munitions.
The Hornet has more combat time than the Eagle. My comment merely reflects the combat experience difference of the two aircraft. My comment may also be dated. This was certainly true a few years ago. Of late, both have gained lots of combat hours. The Hornet still has more Air-to-air experience in combat. But there hasn’t been much of that since 91
If it is one seater with one engine I think we are buying a world of trouble down the road.
The two-seater 18Fs are one of the reasons (of several) they are clearing out performing the other variants.
Two-Seaters make a tremendous amount of sense to me. Especially for the USN situations.