Speaking of multirole fighters among the world's third-generation fighters, the first thing to mention is the F/A-18 Hornet fighter, which first flew in the late 70s of the last century. At the time, the fighter was a Macdonald-Douglas staple model. Unlike the original design of the F-14, F-15 and F-16 of the same period, the F/A-18 focused on ground and ship attack capabilities from the beginning. F/A refers to combat attacks. Now let's take a look at the main onboard armament of this fighter.
First, let's look at the Royal Malaysian Air Force's F/A-18D multirole fighter. These fighters have been in service for 22 years. Judging by the mounted weapons, their performance has been upgraded. The weapons shown in the photo include the GBU-32 and Joint Direct Attack Munitions, which are precision-guided bombs capable of performing well in combat.
In addition, the AIM-7 semi-active guided medium-range air-to-air missile mounted on the wing and the AIM-9X advanced close-range air-to-air missile demonstrate the F/A-18's air combat capabilities. The AIM-120C advanced medium-range air-to-air missile, ABM-84HK air-to-surface missile and AGM-65 Maverick air-to-surface missile on the fuselage demonstrate their diversified combat capabilities.
In addition to these weapons on display, the F/A-18 has more potential ground weapons, but due to the limited number of hardpoints, it is not possible to display them all. It can be seen that although these Royal Malaysian Air Force F/A-18D multirole fighters have been in service for many years, their technical level in Southeast Asia is not lagging behind. The surrounding U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are also equipped with a large number of F/A-18 medium fighters, which fully proves the strength of this fighter.
Based on the above information, it can be seen that although the F/A-18 fighter is not the most advanced fighter, its multi-purpose combat capability is not inferior through continuous improvement and upgrades. What does everyone think about this multirole fighter? Welcome to leave a comment.