As perceived threats declined after the Cold War, carrier air groups standardized around fewer aircraft types to reduce cost. The A-6 Intruder's purpose-built combination of range and heavy payload is compared with the F-35's similar headline weapons capacity, although the modern fighter must also satisfy stealth, air combat, and many other requirements. The comparison is not a proposal to revive the A-6 unchanged. It asks what a modern aircraft optimized primarily as an economical, long-range bomb truck could deliver that a highly multirole fighter cannot.
Notable Point · 3:07:19-3:11:17
Multirole economy displaced specialized carrier bomb trucks
Post-Cold War cost pressure favored a smaller variety of multirole aircraft, but the A-6 Intruder raises the question of what range and payload were lost with dedicated strike platforms.