Quote:
Originally Posted by CroFlames
Doesn't F-35 just make sense?
It seems that the combined US military branches have a mixture of F-18s and 35s, and European NATO allies have a lot of F-18s.
So a mixed fleet of F-35 and F-18 seems to make sense to me, especially since we are closer (physically, politically) to the US than Euro NATO allies. Plus, Europeans are ordering a bunch of F35 to replace the SU and MiGs that are aging out.
I think nothing Russia has compares, so ultimately whatever new generation fighter/multirole craft they get will work. I read a hilarious comment on Reddit once that if there was a conventional war with Russia over this Ukraine business, Russia would be hilariously embarrassed on the battlefield that commanders would start sending dick formations of aircraft to bomb the Kremlin.
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The only time we'd see a mixed airforce concept for Canada is if we deploy to NATO with F-35's to support allies that have 4th generation jets.
The whole concept of a F-35 is to use its advanced sensors and interoperability to scout the battlefield to find threats and then deal with the threats. So for example eliminate anti-air platforms, or use BVR weapons to deal with things like AWACS or enemy fighters. Or to bring in assets to deal with them.
Then you have options, if you remove radar or anti-air or fighters then in a Norad sense you send in the bombers.
In a sense with a pure F-35 you send in a first team with a lighter missile load heavy on anti-air and anti-radar to clean the area, then you can load up F-35's in a rhino configuration to act as pure bombers.
The one thing that Fat Amy really isn't built to do is dog fighting, in fact I read an interview with a F-35 pilot where he stated that if you take a F-35 into a merge, you're a bad driver.
I mean the F-35 isn't going to survive a battle with something like an F-22 which is one of the greatest dog fighters ever made. In a dog fight the F-35 would probably lose to something like a F-16, or 18 or on the Russia side some of the pure dogfighters.
However its likely that those same planes would lose to the F-35 in BVR.