Dogfights are pretty rare these days. Most air combat between planes revolves about launching & dodging air to air missiles that are fired from beyond visual ra

Dogfights are pretty rare these days. Most air combat between planes revolves about launching & dodging air to air missiles that are fired from beyond visual range, and dealing with surface to air missiles while doing so. Shooting planes down with an actual gun in an actual dog fight is mostly reserved for countries that don't have modern planes (i.e. anything newer than half a century). Fighter planes do have a few remaining roles. They are delivery vehicles for cheaper missiles and bombs to take out smaller ground targets or lighting up targets for missiles/bombs that are launched from far away. The longer range missiles (e.g. cruise missiles) are more expensive. An additional role would be reconnaissance even though most of that is probably done by satellites and drones these days. Then there is the job of escorting bigger, more vulnerable planes like bombers or just generally patrolling areas of interest (which could be done by drones as well). And finally there's the psychological warfare factor where flying them over the enemy has a demoralizing effect. Basically a missile is an autonomous drone that happens to destroy on impact. Missiles have a few advantages over fighters: they are much faster and maneuverable. And they are disposable by their very nature which means they can go where no pilot would go except when very desperate. And a few disadvantages that mainly boil down to cost and range. The cost is high because they are 1 time use only. The range is limited by fuel and size. Which is why using fighter planes as a launch platform is common. Autonomous planes aren't particularly hard. It's mostly the price performance that needs attention. Cheap, autonomous drones already exist. Making them bigger and beefing up their abilities is just a matter of time. That's all there's to it. At some point their abilities encompass most of what fighter planes currently do.