Big-E,
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They will rotate with JSF therefore cutting flight time of the F-22. Having 1,600 JSF and 183 F-22 is far better than 1,000 F-22s. You forget the F-22 is a pathetic strike aircraft.
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No. Because there's a really good chance nobody is going to have 1,000+ new airframes of /any/ type, post Iraq. Not if they run 100 million plus. 500 F/A-18F (ACS as combat controller) and F-22 (VLO as D1/R1 IADS assassin) is possible however; simply because the lines are up and particularly in the case of the Super Horror, large scale production is already 'halfway there'.
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Not to mention you still have to give the Navy and Marines OUR aircraft!
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The problem here is that you have one already. Indeed, an F/A-18F with HSARM and Meteor is _better than_ an F-35 for the primary role of 'standoff escort' to VLO assets. While the latter is itself a seeming oxymoron; the fact remains that USAF F-15s have shot /thru/ F-117 formations in a BVR permissive role. And the APG-79 and advanced (big) missiles, carriage at low drag penalty in some numbers, makes the Bugliest more mission capable (repeated salvos of multiple weapons types) than the F-35 with it's all-of-two-missiles-today-and-always LO restrictor.
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The F-22 is incapable of conducting the most basic of missions required of strike aircraft. There is more to being one than just dropping a couple JDAMS.
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Actually, the rule of thumb is 18 bombs for one target in the 1970s. 6 bombs for 1 target in the 1980s, 2 bombs for one target (SALH) in the 1990s and 2 bombs for two _aimpoints_ (IAM) in the 2000s. 2010 will see that expand to 'as many aimpoints in as many target matrixes as your LO will let you reach' (though any airframe with the 1760 ability to interface with a BRU-61 smart rack will have at least 50nm worth of standoff).
What the F-22 specifically brings to the game is the ability to '3 here 2 over 35nm over there and 3 more 100nm further thataway' THREE TIMES A DAY. From an 800nm radius.
Such is something that the F-35 cannot do. And never will.
Indeed, against 'hard' targets the Raptor can also do at least a modicum of this from 18-25nm with the GBU-32 whereas the F-35s subsonic-all-the-way approach to GBU-31 delivery means a 10-15nm delivery approach that is firmly within an IADS overlap on Buk or HAWK type systems, never mind S-300 and PAMS.
At which point you have to ask: WHAT EXACTLY does the F-35 /do/ that justifies putting a 112 million dollar airframe at risk instead of a 1 million dollar AGM-158? Of which an F/A-18F can carry FOUR.
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The Raptor can't even conduct SEAD, ELINT
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Though it was 'not a highlight' of the initial Block-3.0 software tape, ALR-94 integration is gradually improving to the point where the F-22 is now considered a 'collection node' for exactly these kinds of missions. Better munitions (MALD and Increment 2 SDB plus A2G AMRAAM modes) will do the rest.
The problem is that the weasel role is relative to the onset rate of the subsonic jets you escort. First In, Last Out, gains real nail-biter meaning when you are on the wrong side of a tanker. While the ferret mission is 'all about' the _endurance_ to capture that one signal that may be put out for five minutes during a 15hr mission.
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or Naval Strike...
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True enough, if your concept of this is AShM centric to a Harpoon. But the AMSTE JDAM has proven able to hit naval targets using both direct and E-8 driven targeting-
http://www.strategypage.com/military_photos/200412181.aspx
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3738/is_200503/ai_n13638364
While the use of any large-body weapon without folding fins requires external carriage on both the F-22 and the F-35 and is already endemic to the F/A-18.
My question then being the extent to which 'stealth on the ingress' is both itself compromised by lower wavelength naval radars (the Type 42 track on the F-117 comes to mind). And the level to which the sudden release of unpowered weapons can actually saturate a modern naval targets medium/point defenses relative to a truly supersonic launch of say 'inertial mode AMRAAM'.
X8 increment 2 GBU-39 as a skeet shoot vs. 6 AMRAAM boring in at Mach 3+, I will take the AMRAAM. _IF_ they can be 2-way LINK driven to impact an ISAR mapped image of the ships radar directors and/or major missile magazines. Sinking the hull then becomes a matter of functional convenience.
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The F-22s limited range of ordnace and their inability to use surplus stores of older ordinance make them a luxury we can ill afford.
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This is a cost-of-PE argument not an anti-Raptor or pro-JSF one.
Nonetheless, the U.S. has already switched to an 'all precision engagement' model for it's fleets so /standardizing/ on a single range of GBU-31/32/38/39 munitions makes sense because, in the long run, they will be cheaper than say the GBU-12 which has an 80 hour MTBO teardown interval. Or the Maverick which is not even in production.
Indeed, the F/A-18E/F does not even use (is not cleared as a weapon carrier) conical fin Mk.82 anymore (they are not going to sea so the Bug-1 is 'in the same boat').
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The purchase has been limited to 183 because the utilitarian value of the F-22 in an extended conflict is limited. We need an aircraft that extends commonality and serviceability among all branches of military aviation.
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But the JSF is not ONE airplane. It is three. And 'commonality' is only as valuable as it is numerically dense in any given basing mode.
There will be 10 F-35 on deck in the USN. Simply because they are only set to purchase 170 of the most expensive variant.
There will be 6-8 F-35 ondeck with the Marines. Simply because the V-22 and CH-53K are so huge that you cannot put any more aboard an LHA/D.
Assuming post-Iraq doesn't completely deflate the budget, I'm guessing that there will be 500-750 USAF models but only so long as there is a 10,000ft runway to base-in with.
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We need an aircraft that can use the full range of inventory. We need an aircraft that can be sold to our allies that doesn't compromise our national security. This is not the F-22...
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You're absolutely right and it's the F/A-18F. As a precision bomber, the Lot II Hornet is a superb aircraft, much closer to the F-15E (and in some ways superior to it) than the F-35 will ever be.
The problem here is not that of having the F-35 square off against the F-22. It's a failure to define what you earlier called the 'extended conflict'.
Because winning that model of (Iraq/AfG) airwar means flying hours and hours and hours and hours of NTISR or Non Traditional Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconaissance. A task which pilots in the theater /despise/ because it's looking through a soda straw at empty roads and vacant stretches of desert around petroleum industry sites.
In an extended SSC there will likely be ZERO air defense threat. And the cost per flying hour (if the F-35 matches the F-16 at 5,000 dollars) will preclude large numbers of manned airframes simply because the rotation needed to fly 200 sorties per day will be /tremendously/ draining to both mission logistics (every airframe in a deployed squadron will have to be capable of 6-8hr missions to keep the pilots fresh) and ops account budgets.
OTOH, if you can build an airframe which is 'somewhere between' the 1,200 dollar per flight hour MQ-1 Predator. And the 2,500 dollar per flight hour JAS-39. And has no pilot limiter inherent to flying a 10-12-15hr mission window. You can fly a 60 sortie day and _still be right there_ to cover any urgently developing ground scenario.
If that jet is further 'non fighter classed' so that systems investments and structural hardening are restricted to perhaps a 25 million dollar cost threshold. You have a system which is fully amenable to being 'compared with' the JSF.
Both in terms of common fleet-as-basing-mode type. And in numbered manufacture of same.
Indeed, it's perfect counter to the old saw: "So (in)expensive that the USAF, USN and Marines will have to agree to use it on alternating days!" methodology.
Whereby a carrier cruise that 'went hot' could suddenly be augmented by nominally 1-2 squadrons of _land based_ jets. While (putting jets over the beach for more than 10hrs) still maintaining a relatively low-impact cyclic air ops effect on the deck crews.
THAT is what true 21st century airpower is about. Getting the FULL use of the ENTIRE inventory. Rather than splitting them by convenience of basing mode as 'service uniform preference'.
It is a fill-force BOMBER that you're after. Not a fighter. And certainly not a 'Joint Strike Fighter'.
We're already halfway there with the AETC. Which just need to continue the effort into the combat branches.
KPl.
