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I recall that all these “visionaries” of the next air war were rather embarrassed when that war came to pass. The war was initially fought with the older weapon that were still abundant and there were few of the new fighters available. The USAF of the 1950’s envisioned a long range missile war against enemy bombers and not short range fighter vs. fighter short range gunfights.

Then Vietnam came along and there were no enemy bombers to shoot with missiles. The advanced fighter of the day, McDonnell F-4 Phantom, had only missiles and no guns to fight smaller, lighter MiG-17 and MiG-21 jets. Rules of Engagement required visual confirmation before the Americans could engage and that rendered the missiles completely useless because these fights usually were within the MINIMUM engagement range of the AIM-9 Sidewinder or AIM-7 Sparrow.

It was only when the F-4E version of the Phantom was issue to USAF squadrons that the fighter's lack of a gun was corrected. Navy and Marine Corps Phantoms never were configured for a gun. Follow-on fighters of the 1970’s (F-15, F-17, F-18) all carried guns as well as missiles. One thing seems not to have changed: the ROE requiring visual confirmation before engagement. This guarantees dogfights. And now we're full circle with the F-35.

The questions become: 1) if the F-35 cannot dogfight because of the visual confirmation ROE and 2) it cannot do close air support because it is too few, too expensive, cannot loiter over the battle area, and carries too little ordnance — WHY ARE WE BUYING IT? Buy more of those capable aircraft that are in production with improved design.

“It was only when the F-4E version of the Phantom was issue to USAF squadrons that the fighter’s lack of a gun was corrected. Navy and Marine Corps Phantoms never were configured for a gun. Follow-on fighters of the 1970’s (F-15, F-17, F-18) all carried guns as well as missiles. One thing seems not to have changed: the ROE requiring visual confirmation before engagement. This guarantees dogfights.”

Originally the Phantom was designated YAH-1 and it was a fighter-bomber replacement for the McDonnell F3H Demon. Then the Navy got a hold of it and it morphed into a missile-armed fleet defence interceptor (no internal auto-cannon). Then that famous military genius Robert McNamara decided to force this design onto the USAF and it went back to being a fighter-bomber. And, of course, the Marines have a close air support mission to worry about so they usually have to make-do with whatever is in the pipeline for the other services, principally the Navy.

Boyd’s “Fighter Mafia” found all kinds of ‘faults’ with the Phantom. But many of the problems were baked into the way the program was run and from a faulty mission analysis (which is mostly educated guesses about threats and technology).

The F-4E became a great aircraft as was the Navy’s F-4J. The plane was saddled with a terrible wing-design, but for all that the plane had enough thrust to use vertical tactics to negate the agile-turning MiGs. Plus the bugs were worked out of the Sparrow — early on a lot of those missiles barely got off the rails and when they did they failed to track.