Quote:
Originally Posted by potchip
"TSFs are really just planes on legs".
Hardly. The capabilities of a modern jet fighter is far superior to what's demonstrated so far from TSFs. Gone are the days of dog fights with cannons, jets mostly engage beyond visual range. The only advantage of TSF I can see is it's VTOL capability enable more flexible deployment. TSFs had shocking weapon range, bad survivalbility, limited deployment range and in general doesn't pack enough punch. So I'll simply assume air combat technology, doctrine, and ideas do not exist in the Muv-luv world by setting.
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Long story short, appearance of lasers forced them to abandon traditional air combat doctrine. TSFs bring the air campaign down to the ground in the sense that they have jet engines to make them quicker and more maneuverable than other ground-based vehicles, but can stay close to the ground and make use of 3-dimensional maneuverability, VTOL short boost jumps, jet strafing around etc. to avoid getting themselves killed while getting into the thick of things, making use of other BETA and the terrain as cover from the lasers, instead of flying high up where they can get taken out. That's what one means when they say "planes with legs", in a sense it takes the high speed and maneuverability of jet planes and tries to apply them to a ground vehicle designed to ninja hop and dash around to get at targets in the middle or towards the back of enemy lines. It's an imperfect solution, but it suffices until they can clear the Lasers off a battlefield and bring in actual planes and helicopter support. In an air war, actual jet fighter planes would still trump TSFs in terms of speed and range, the point of the TSFs is to try to fill a niche that was left empty once planes were taken out of the equation. They still need backup from artillery and tanks etc. to be really effective without getting slaughtered. TSF jet-powered multi-dimensional maneuvering and boosting capabilities are also invaluable when fighting within the twisting, irregular spaces of the Hive underground complex tunnels, something that wheeled/tracked vehicles and aircraft alone can't really achieve as well.
@Wild Goose: The F-15Js were probably the same place all their Type-94s where, at the bottom of the 'couldn't show due to budget' bin. I mean, just look how off-model the Jolly Rogers F-14s were. An excuse would be that we mostly saw an out-of-the-way supply depot where their defenses were lighter, perhaps the Kagerous and Shiranuis were deployed closer to the city centre and we just never saw them.