As humanity progresses into the twentieth century, warfare is in the middle of a fundamental shift. Black powder weapons, mostly muzzle loading muskets, have been placed firmly in the past in favor of the contemporary cartridges that are based on smokeless powder and metal casings. This change in technology inevitably leads to a change in tactics.
Gone are the days of line combat at close range in open fields. Instead of a musket, all soldiers are now equipped with bolt action rifles that are capable of firing five rounds or more before reloading. During World War I (1914-1918), the power of automatic weaponry was industrialized and brought to the world stage. These weapons, capable of firing many rounds without the user needing to manually work a bolt or action, were clearly the future for standard issue weaponry.
Simultaneously, aviation was becoming a bigger part of military strategy. Not even a decade after the Wright brothers made their first flight in 1903, a machine gun was being mounted to a fighter plane. With that, a new and unfamiliar extension to the battlefield was opened as planes made from cloth and wood fought for air superiority through the skies of Europe.
The importance of airpower was well known after the conclusion of the first World War. World War II (1939-1945) saw huge metal planes with thousands of horsepower and arrays of machine guns and autocannons. At that point, combat aircraft generally flew as massive strike forces designed to obliterate targets hundreds of miles from their bases. Besides the huge bomber formations, small groups of strike planes and “fighter bombers” supported troops on the ground and flew air defense patrols.
During World War II, these huge formations worked quite effectively. Ground fire was very inaccurate and unable to stop the planes. Air defense fighter planes were forced to get in close, exposing themselves to the masses of defensive turrets. But, times changed. As jet planes became more prominent in the 1950s, so did rocket powered anti-aircraft weaponry in the form of Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs). The huge formations died out, and the prominent strategy became small groups of lighter and faster aircraft.
SAMs utilize radar and/or heat signatures to accurately hit fast planes at high altitudes. The only way to consistently get by the missiles and radar was to hug the ground and stay fast so that the ground crews didn’t have time to react. This method restricted possible flight routes and forced planes to fly in the thicker low altitude air, which reduced their efficiency. It was used regularly by jet bombers during the Vietnam War (1955-1975), where the mountainous terrain and forest cover restricted visibility from the ground.
In order to overcome this restriction, militaries needed a passive mechanism that hid aircraft from the ground. If the aircraft were never detected, they could not be targeted even by weapons that did not rely on radar. The method settled on was a special type of construction geometry and paint, often characterized by sharp and angular aircraft painted in dark grays. These are known as fifth generation fighters, and are the most powerful and versatile aircraft to date.
As our technological capabilities continue to advance, talks of a sixth generation fighter are circulating more and more. While the definition of what exactly classifies a sixth generation fighter remains a bit unclear, it is generally recognized as a supermaneuverable aircraft with extremely advanced electronic, stealth, and beyond-visual-range combat capabilities. In short, it would be primarily evolutionary improvements on the sixth generation fighters, while potentially also adding revolutionary technology.
One of the revolutionary technologies that may be seen is the use of artificial intelligence to control unmanned aircraft. It would be possible for a completely autonomous “wingman” aircraft to fly as support for a manned fighter. This sort of design would reduce manpower requirements, be more space and energy efficient, and have significantly improved flight characteristics due to being unrestricted by the human body. Due to the current developments with AI technology, it’s very likely that the newest aircraft will feature it in some capacity.
Considering the far future and the seventh generation, not much is really known. All efforts are going into developing the sixth generation, and so the qualifications for the next generation are not often considered, and must be based off of the technology available at that time. It is speculated that such aircraft may be able to operate near or in space, maybe even being launched from orbiting space stations. As of now, it is impossible to say for sure what the future will hold.
