there's no need to buy a light weight air defence fighter to
replace another light weight air defence fighter. In this day and
age, most modern fighters are multi-role. Also, because of added
capability and better weapons, you don't need to replace fighter
for fighter. looking at the trend, most airforces are reducing
their number of fighters simply because new fighters are expensive.
however, with the high cost comes much improved capabilities that
doesn't require the same number of aircraft.
having both f15 and f16s, which are both capable of OCA and DCA
missions, allows flexibility in mission planning and asset
allocation. more often than not, since modern aircraft have
precision guided munition capability, you see them being allocated
missions based on weapon types that they can carry rather than
capability.
