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Very few aircraft have been dedicated to the ground attack role, most that are used in this role are actually fighters or light bombers. Most of the dedicated designs came from early World War II when the available power from aircraft engines was so limited that every plane had to be dedicated to a single task. The most successful ground attack aircraft would generally be credited to the Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik, which was credited by Stalin for winning the war. The LuftwaffeThe Luftwaffe (literally, "air weapon", prounounced looft-vaaf-fa) is the air force of Germany. World War I Founded during World War I with the emergence of military aircraft, the Luftwaffe utilized a wide variety of aircraft. After the war ended, it was fielded a very similar plane, the Henschel Hs 129Henschel Hs 129B-1 Description RoleGround attack Crew1 Dimensions Length32 ft9. 75 m Wingspan46 ft 7 in14. 20 m Height10 ft 8 in3. 25 m Wing area312 ft²29 m² Weights Empty8,400 lb3,810 kg Maximum take-off11,574 lb5,250 kg Powerplant Engines2x Gnome-Rhone, but produced very few of them and they had no effect on the war effort.

By the end of that war the average day fighterA day fighter is a fighter aircraft equipped only to fight during the day. More specifically it is typically used to refer to a multi-purpose aircraft that does not include equipment for fighting at night, although it is sometimes used to refer to some in had more than enough capability to carry out the ground attack role, and some of the most successful designs were slight modifications of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190The Focke-Wulf Fw 190 was a single-seater, single-engine fighter aircraft of the Luftwaffe. Used extensively during WW II from 1941 over 20,000 were manufactured including around 6,000 fighter-bomber models. Designed around the radial air-cooled BMW 139 e and unmodified Hawker TyphoonThe Typhoon was a British single-seat fighter aircraft, produced by Hawker Aviation starting in 1941. Intended as a replacement for the Hawker Hurricane in the interceptor role, it suffered from performance problems, and it instead evolved into one of Wors.

In the post-war era air forces have been increasingly reluctant to develop combat aircraft specifically for ground attack. Although close air support and interdiction remain crucial to the modern battlefield, attack aircraft are less glamorous than fighters, and both pilots and military planners have a certain well-cultivated contempt for 'mud-movers.' Examples include the Blackburn BuccaneerThe Blackburn Buccaneer was a British attack aircraft. It saw service with the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm. It was widely regarded as one of the finest low level strike aircraft of its day. It saw war service during the 1991 Gulf War when exampl, A-6 IntruderGrumman A-6 Intruder A-6 Intruder Description RoleNaval Attack Crewtwo, pilot & Bombardier/Navigator (B/N) Dimensions Length54 ft 7 in16. 6 m Wingspan53 ft16. 2 m Height15 ft 7 in4. 75 m Wing area529 ft²49. 1 m² Weights Empty25,630 lb11,626 kg Loaded Maxi, A-7 Corsair IIVietnam War aircraft A-7 Corsair II A-7 Corsair II The A-7 Corsair II was a light attack aircraft which served the United States Navy. In May 1963, the Navy began a design competition for a light-attack, carrier-based aircraft to replace the Douglas A-4., Panavia Tornado IDS, Sukhoi Su-7, and Sukhoi Su-17. Otherwise, ground attack has become the domain of converted trainers like the BAC Strikemaster , BAE Hawk, and Cessna A-37.

In the late 1960s the US Air Force requested a dedicated air support plane that became the Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II. It eventually became primarily an anti-armor weapon with limited capability in the interdiction and tactical bombing role, and even in the anti-tank role it was met with ambivalence. Current US doctrine increasingly emphasizes the use of US Army helicopters for close air support and anti-tank missions. The Soviets' similar Su-25 Frogfoot found greater success in the flying artillery role, although it, too, shifted to anti-armor use in later versions and has largely been phased out in favor of 'fast mover' fighter-bomber versions of the MiG-29 and Su-27.

Nevertheless, the role remains well-defined and in use, resulting in dual designations like F/A-18 Hornet. More recently, the term strike fighter has been gaining currency as the way to refer to these dual-role aircraft. Ironically, in British parlance "strike" was for some years a euphemism for the nuclear attack role, with "attack" used to denote conventional (non-nuclear) missiones.