You're not going to be making landings if you don't have air superiority. Just getting one or two strike fighters shit their cluster munitions on your beach is going to ruin your day whether your stealth fighters have gun pods or not. Even in close combat they don't usually go for the gun immediately but rather for a radar or IR missile. Some of the modern missiles are very effective up close and have a vastly superior range to the gun and don't need you to get a good lead on the target either. Shooting the gun from beyond 500m or so means that even a slow and cumbersome fighter can simply dodge the rounds coming at it so the precision of the gun is not that important on the long range and on short range well you're saturating an area in space with cannon rounds and there's not an aircraft in the world that would enjoy being in that area being saturated. As for the dogfight the thrust vector control as well as the ridiculous raw power of the F-35's engine give it a a nice advantage. Simply, you're bleeding energy in tight curves and this is one factor limiting your ability to make a lot of tight curves in tight sequence - but if you have a stupendously powerful engine it's OK to bleed energy because you've got so much thrust to compensate with - so the other guy is bleeding energy and not making up for it while you on the other hand can just keep pulling those gees.
I meant a gun is probably more useful for firing on ground targets. That's the entire purpose of the f-35B. since it isn't intended to dogfight (it's meant to be a long range killer and not really get into gun range). Though it can apparently dogfight now. I think the losses against f-16s in early version were mostly due to the computer program being incomplete. And old habits from the pilots who went from f-15s to 35s. also an F-35B. Pretty much the only air target a B version should go after is helicopters.
As for toothing problems and gremlins, hell, I can't make a simple touchscreen GPS nav system without having some issues getting it up and running and it's all based on already existing thousand times proven solutions. I don't know any aircraft development that doesn't run into massive problems early on, that's just what it takes to make some new complex system like that, not unlike making a space rocket. Using a stealth fighter to attack ground targets with it's cannon seems outrageous. You'd be flying into the range of SPAAG's and electro-optically tracking missiles and all of that, losing all the advantages that being airborne and having stealth bring to you. In some cases even AA machine guns could target you, as well as every tank, car and ship based autocannon who also tend to have programmed delay airburst munitions available just so they can better engage aircraft and drones. I wonder if they took out the cannon from the Marines' version to keep them from using it like that You know like they had to ban hatchets because they feared that Marines were going to start charging at the enemy with them instead of relying on their firepower. Assuming you were to ever fight against a country with big modern military then you cannot simply go and say the Marines would only ever need close air support - even against Iraq despite thousands of sorties against the air fields the Iraqi Air Forces managed to not just get planes off the ground but shoot down Coalition aircraft. Now - being stealthy makes that far less likely to happen but you're still going to like having some air to air missiles on some of the planes because you can't easily guarantee total air superiority against all opponents. Even during Desert Storm it was shown that having multi-role capability was good when F-18's on bombing mission spotted hostile fighters intercepting them and could shoot them down and still hit their designated ground targets. That's not something you'd want to give up. Also I checked and it looks like the bulk of the US aerial power for all branches of service is going to be F-35's. There's a reason why there was such a massive and relentless media campaign against the F-35. It's fear.
I believe the Navy and air Force have lowered how many they will buy (mostly due to because it's taking so long) and both have started their 6th generation programs (probably just stating what they want and looking for bids at the moment). So Lockheed is looking for more buyers outside the the main contributed/investor countries. I think the Marines are the only ones who haven't changed how many they will buy but they are stuck with whatever version of the harrier they have and same with whatever hornet they have.
Even worse when it changes a correctly spelled word to another word for unknown reasons (incomplete dictionary?)
The latest is that they'll still be all buying: As for selling, it was always their plan to sell to whomever is eligible as much as they were willing to buy - but only the F-35A version, it is the only version that has been greenlighted for export beyond partnership countries. Even then to be offered the F-35A is in itself a privilege. It's not garbage you know - it's simply the most advanced fighter that exists today.
They are still buying. Just not as many as they originally planned. That's not alot of planes among 3 services. It's not a huge decrease in how many they are buying. But enough to free up money to buy other planes (because the logistics lines for parts and build them is so slow and probably won't pick up in pace for 10-15 years). And by the time it is acutally ready (procurement wise) the 6th generation planes will be coming out. Also I believe for the moment the F-22 is still the most advanced fighter. It will probably be surpassed by the F-35 in a few years. Quite a few countries are working on 6th generation fighters. U.S. Air force and navy have separate programs (with a hopeful first flight being 2025 but more realistic in 2030-35.) All before the F-35 was even in an operational status. Of course I think these examples are supposed to replace the air superiority aircraft (f-15s and f-18s mostly even the aging f-22s). Which the F-35 is not suppose to replace any of those (at least not in large numbers). Taiwan has a program going as well as China. Russia, Japan, two joint programs (UK/Sweden/Italy and France/Germany/Spain). Just most of the planes the F-35 is supposed to replace it can't. Due to a combination of things. Like Range, payload, (related to range) loiter time over a battlefield (yes the f-35 is supposed to replace the a-10 in the close air support role. Which it simply can't.) Also most of the technology in the f-35 is already 20 years old.
Apparently a prototype for the U.S. air Force's NGAD (their 6th generation program) has already flown. And was developed and built to flight ready in less than a year. Almost nothing know about it. Not even which company actually built it. //www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a34030586/air-force-secret-new-fighter-jet/
Yup, the F-35's first prototype flew in 2006. And now they're still having some toothing problems. The F-22 is a lot more expensive than the F-35 and since due to various reasons it was scrapped from it's 750 planned planes to 187. Over time the ability to produce more was lost due to the production not being kept up. It also had a significant issue with the very expensive stealth coating being ripped off at supersonic speeds. The F-35 was built to be more versatile and with it's different configuration models the 'all purpose stealth fighter'. The F-22 will fly until around 2060's and the F-35 until 2070's. The Gripen first flew in 1988. It was introduced to service in 1996. It has no stealth. Same for pretty much every aircraft out there by the way. The B-52's will fly if I recall until 2050's. I wouldn't go about scrapping having massive edge in air to air and ground to air defensive capability and survivability. I think that it's a scary opponent that is able to field it's primary general purpose fighter in large quantities and in all aspect stealth. If you need just something that can drop a lot of ordnance for cheap then a 'bulk bomber' will do - but that's hardly the nature of warfare these days. Americans have fought so many occupation wars that they've forgotten about what war looks like. Minor skirmishes with AK wielding insurgents is not warfare. It's just low intensity occupation and used to be regarded as 'garrison duty' as opposed to warfare - someone stirs up shit, you show up in force and kick some bubblegum until it goes away and rinse and repeat ad nauseam. Meanwhile electro-optics, advanced radars and all manner of sophisticated air to air and ground to air systems keep on evolving. Missiles are a lot cheaper than aircraft and if you don't push for the survivability onion's "don't get spotted" you're going to end up the war of attrition when your planes are shot down. Remember that F-35 is still a fighter above all else. For delivering payloads there are dedicated bomber craft under development. Both EU countries and the US had their own "strategic stealth bomber drone" initiatives but due to PR reasons and popular opposition they were shifted to 'stealth drone dedicated refueller' designation. But the tech is there, if cost was the primary consideration then you should expect to see a higher push for low cost bomber aircraft - but the air defenses are difficult to neutralize and the casualty expectations are nowadays quite high for flying easy to acquire aircraft into modern air defenses. I mean if you were to now roll out a new fighter with no stealth - as some are doing - that will last until 2050's or even 2070's, it means that you're stuck at around 2060's with a fleet of 20th century tech trying to make do. This reminds me of all the people who asked "why did they have biplanes when WW2 started even though they could see that they were such rubbish" or "why were they still building battleships for that war when there were so many theorists proving that the battleships had lost all their impact". Well it's a lot like now with everyone trying to apply wishful thinking and insist that they'll make do with their fighters that were started in 1980's without stealth against foes that they can't see with their instruments. Mind you - Electronic Warfare is developing constantly and it's presence and significance keep increasing. It's not just about linearically saying "well, if your radar cross-section is 5% of mine I can now see you at 30km instead of 100km" - you have to take into account the EW as well, which includes signal masking, decoys and just saturating opponent's sensors.
But the F-35 is designed more for ground strikes and I think to maintain air superiority. Not to establish it. That is a good point though. Could the U.S. fight an actual war (if one somehow started with a country with a similar technology level). Since most of our tactics revolve around skirmishing and small unit engagements? heck I think the three largest "air forces" in the world are the U.S. air force, army and navy. yes the U.S. army has nearly as many aircraft as the air force. mostly helicopters. I think any fixed wing aircraft the army has is transport or observation.
They also have 50 naval vessels. As for establishing air superiority, what does it involve? Fly there, take out their air fields and as many fighters as you can. Additional points for any AA that is neutralized. Bonus points for avoiding heavy losses. The F-35 can certainly fly there, it can shoot down enemy aircraft and it can bomb air fields and prevent the enemy from using radars - and even if they dare and put up their radars then before being hit themselves there's not a whole lot to be seen. With non-stealth fighters the issue is already annoying in that if you turn on your radar you are going to be hit soon yourself. But what about when there's almost nothing to see? As soon as those huge long range but non-precise and easily jammed radar installations are out of the picture most of the mobile radars will both be at risk of being immediately engaged when turned on and also unable to see much. So is there much point in having radars against an enemy that relies primarily on stealth? Man, you have to watch this: (Note: the aircraft icons are not indicative of the actual numbers but an individual icon can represent a whole squadron or just a single plane) As you can see, in this operation there was none of that "small scale skirmishing" going on. It was "hit them with the biggest hammer we've got till they stop moving" as the first thing, no kidding around or probing or any of that. And also as you can see in that operation they were expecting a lot more casualties than they had and really had to worry about the radars, SAM sites and being intercepted by the enemy. Now imagine that the bulk of the strike forces would have full aspect stealth. Imagine the operational freedoms that this would give them and the mission planners.
I just read that today - "Saab decided to withdraw Gripen from offer because of it's unfinished state". If that reads right it would certainly explain the massive Saab presence the other week at the air show.
I guess Switzerland held a referendum on buying the gripen 6 years ago. in 2014 if you mean withdrawing talking about the swiss deal yeah that would make sense why they are trying so hard for Finland.
So the Eurofighter needs external fuel to have a similar combat range to the f-35A. I don't know if the F-35 can even carry external fuel. It doesn't have great range (combat range is 669-760 nautical miles 1239-1410 kilometers depending on loadout.) Gripen has a combat range of 810 nautical miles. I think that is just off the internal fuel but I'm not certain. For Finland I'm guessing endurance/loiter time is slightly more important than range. Huh. The Rafale actually has the best combat range out of everything at 1,000 nautical miles. And F-18 is easily the lowest range. I think it will come down to not the aircraft themselves but the support stuff (industry they can get in Finland, the logistics of getting parts and maintenance times and costs).
The more I think about it the "6th generation" demonstrater that the U.S. air Force flew is probably more of a proof of concept 1 off design than an actual serious bid for a fighter. And probably testing more design (software 3-d design) and manufacturing stuff. Because apparently it was designed and built in less than a year.
pretty much, plenty of X planes that will never be commissioned without a lot of more in depth design. They can build them easier when they don't have to consider such inconsequential things as routine maintenance and structural entropy.
