Judging by names, there are fighter aircraft (e.g. the F-16), attack aircraft (e.g. the A-10), and there are fighter/attack aircraft (e.g. the F/A-18). What features make a plane better- or worse-suited to either of these roles? What makes the F/A-18 apparently good at both?
Design, broadly speaking, is the answer. Those aircraft were designed (usually) specifically for those roles.
Others who can give better, more detailed answers will be along presently, I’m sure.
I saw an article once describing the design of the F16. The design group said they analyzed data from the Vietnam war to figure out what was needed in a fighter. Factors included - most downed aircraft never saw what hit them, despite fancy tech most dogfights involved seeing the enemy, agility was the key to winning a dogfight. So they designed a jet half the size of comparables, and give it that notable huge bubble canopy, designed it light and agile. Then they said, the follow on brass insisted on adding more weapons and fancy tech to weigh it down so it was heavier and less agile than intended.
IANAP but I’m a bit of an airplane buff for warbirds and on up until today. And while I was USMC artillery, my brother flew the F-16 for the USAF. Anyway take this with a grain of salt in your MREs.
My answer to the OP is, in no particular order: speed, maneuverability, range, weaponry, evasive ability, stealth ability, the number of targets it’s able to simultaneously engage, rate of climb, and rate of dive. I think those are the main features needed by fighter/attack aircraft.
In the old WWII days, besides the F and A designator there’s also the P designator, for Pursuit. Some of the best warbirds were Ps: the P-51 Mustang, P-38 Lightning, and P-47 Thunderbolt.
First, define the roles. Fighters are for shooting down other planes. Attack aircraft are for bombing surface targets. Now, most if not all fighter aircraft are also able to hit surface targets so it’s not a hard distinction. The F-35 for example is basically supposed to do everything.
What makes a place suited for the former? Maneuverability. For the latter? Load capacity. For both? Range, stealth, speed, comms equipment, etc.
Attack aircraft generally need greater payload, survivability but have less need for aerial combat, so, in the case of the A-10, it’s built to take lots of damage, fly relatively slow and low, carry a great deal of ordnance on many pylons/hardpoints.
Fighters need to joust with other fighters. So this prioritizes stealth (minimize the enemy’s ability to see and shoot you) and maneuverability. However, the advent of things like off-boresight targeting (with helmet-mounted cueing these days, all the pilot has to do is aim his helmet in the direction of the enemy, even if it’s 60 degrees to his left, and the missile can get lock-on), maneuverability has become less and less relevant/important.
Also, the ability to loiter for a long time (relatively speaking).
No airplane is inherently an attack or fighter plane. It depends on how you raise and train them.
Seriously though… requirements have changed over the years. It used to be all about speed and agility. Now it’s about shooting the other guy before they’re even at visual distance.
Of course, the US began taking guns off of our planes during Vietnam, then realized they were being too hasty because the weapons of the time weren’t “smart”. They had situations arise where a guy had both a MiG and his wingman in front of him but couldn’t do anything about it because his missile couldn’t tell them apart.
Today we have the tech to annihilate other planes before they’re even close. But… there was an exercise some years ago with the Indian Air Force and they found that our planes could handle something like a 4-1 disadvantage. But if any of the upgraded MiG 21s they were flying survived and made it to visual distance they could cause our guys a lot of trouble. So I believe they still teach close-in dogfighting, though it’s unlikely to come to that.
Which means you still want a fast, agile plane. But now it needs to be married to a seriously advanced tech platform. Being able to reach a high altitude is good too, as is carrying a fair bit of fuel.
P for Pursuit was what USAAC/USAAF fighters were called in WWII. After the war, the P-51 became the F-51 and the P-80 became the F-80, for example. Navy and Marine Corps aircraft used a more complicated system. Standardisation was mandated by 1962 United States Tri-Service aircraft designation system.
When I toured the Air Force Museum I got a close-up view of the F-86. Compared to today’s fighter/attack aircraft, it looked like a toy.
I toured a WWII aircraft carrier and they had a P-47 Thunderbolt on display (among many other planes). I was astonished at how big it was.
And “F” was the prefix for photo reconnaissance aircraft, because “PH” is two letters and “F” sounds the same (and wasn’t already in use).
After the 1962 designation system, all crewed reconnaissance aircraft became “R” prefix, regardless of their sensor technology (photography, radar, radio interception, etc.).
One of the reasons the nickname for that airplane was “Jug”: shaped like a jug but huge and unstoppable like a juggernaut.
Except for the Navy, where ‘F’ stood for Grumman; which is why the Chance-Vought F4U started with an ‘F’. Um… Wait a minute… (It’s been too long for me to remember why that doesn’t follow the convention.)
“U” stands for Vought.
“F” stands for “Fighter”. Hence, Grumman F6F Hellcat (in which the second “F” did, indeed, stand for Grumman) or McDonnell F4H Phantom II.
It’s probably where “F” came from in the post-1962 system.
The modern “F” and “A” designations in many cases are far more about service politics than functional substance.
The USAF F-16 is a fighter & attack aircraft. The USN F/A-18 is fighter & attack aircraft. Both are originally of similar vintage (mid-late 1970s) and named under the common set of DoD naming regulations effective back then. So why the different nomenclature?
In USAF in the 1970s when this was being decided, the fighter community was who mattered (still matters?). The dedicated attack community were (are?) 3rd class citizens. At best. On a good day. So for political reasons the Fighter crowd wanted the ???-16 labeled an F so it would belong to them, increase their share of the budget, garner prestige & promotion possibilities, etc.
Meanwhile over in USN, the dedicated attack crowd has relatively higher status. They’re second class citizens, not third, and are even occasionally viewed as almost equal to the fighter crowd. In favorable light. After a few beers. The fighter community would be losing the F-14 to the ???-18 and the attack community would be losing their equally favorite A-6 & A-7 to the -18.
So the attack community’s interests in naming it the A-18 could not be ignored. At the same time, the fighter crowd could not stand to have their precious “F” sullied by something so vulgar as a mere bomb truck. But they still needed something with an F in the name for them to fly. Quite the perplexing dilemma.
So the compromise designation F/A was invented from whole cloth just for the -18. and the nomenclature regs retroactively modified to account for this strange bureacratical hermaphrodite.
In reality if we’re going to be both logically consistent and also use common terminology throughout DoD, both the -16 & -35 should be (re-)labeled F/A. And the F-117 should have been the A-117 from the git-go. But logic and factional DoD politics rarely mesh.
Further, at the trials for the Air Force contract for a light dogfighter, Northrop presented a candidate, the YF-17, whose platform eventually evolved with McDonnel-Douglas taking lead to become the original generation F/A-18.
As stated, USAF prefers to slap a plain F on it whenever they can regardless of how they use it. Meanwhile the A-‘s in the Air Force were only vindicated by the A-10, which the brass are forever planning to phase out but always something needing brrrrrrrtting comes up so they just can’t.
I’m pretty sure the fighter aircraft have better cup holders and nicer upholstery on their ejection seats. Most come complete w/ fuzzy dice on the mirror as well. W/ attack aircraft that’s an add on.
A really, really, sweet toy.
It was a time of pure simple design. Both the F86 and its foil the Mig15 were beautiful aircraft with great flight characteristics.
Back on topic, superficially periferal features like weapons systems and avionics play a big role in an aircraft’s success at its role. The F16 apparently disparaged above has very capable performance, but if I understand correctly is still one of the best if not the best beyond visual range fighters despite being a decades old fourth generation fighter.
I say ‘superficially periferal’ because as an aviation enthusiast with truly limited understanding, I still find it hard to understand how married to the original aircraft design avionics and weapons systems are. You would think you could just equip AMRAAMs and make any fighter just as capable at BVR, but it does not work so simply.
And some weapons, like the A-10’s main gun, are really integral to the design. And while I’m sure a hit from that gun would really ruin any aircraft’s day, it’d be like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer: That weapon was designed for smashing through heavy armor that’s only ever found on ground targets.