I would just like to point out once again that the AMRAAM is not a magical weapon, as far as I remember they had 3 or 4 of them fired against MiG-29s in Serbia in order to bring down one airplane. And this happened given the fact that the opponent had no ECM whatsoever, no radar, almost no GCI support, and RWR that was not always functioning => no chaff. All that against an attack from multiple directions (the attackers having the advantage of high altitude and thus more energy for the missiles) with AWACS support. I can’t imagine an easier target.
In any large-scale engagement between F-35 and Su-35BM/Rafale/Typhoon on relatively equal terms, I would not rely on 4 AMRAAMs only. Given that you will probably have to fire 2 missiles per target or go for single missile/single target, the success rate won’t be high. You should consider the fact that once you are left with 1 missile or no missiles at all, you need to get out of the situation fast. This means that the BVR engagement (we assume that the F-35s will have the first shot, given better stealth) will not start at close ranges, as the F-35s would have to risk running into a dogfight with the surviving enemy planes without having anything to shoot at them. One should mind the fact that once detected, the F-35 will be chased by the enemy, and supercruising won’t help that much at short dashes when the enemy uses their afterburners and his radar is scanning the back of your aircraft (no stealth). This means that the AMRAAMs will have to fly further, which increases time for detection/reaction/countermeasures. The opponent’s airplanes will have time to try and outmanuever/bleed the energy out of the missiles. Also, complex ECM could be employed easily within a formation of aircraft. I know how great “home on JAM” sounds like, but the opposing aircaft could use a relatively loose formation while constantly changing the number and position of aircraft that are activating their ECM (could be done on automatically). For example, if you are effectively jamming the incoming AMRAAMs from the left of your formation, the missiles will turn towards it. Then you switch to employing ECM from the right of the formation, forcing the missiles to make a turn and so on. Here I do not even count the possibility that some of the enemy fighters have dedicated ECM pods or that there are dedicated aircraft trailing the fighter formation and providing additional ECM support.
Thus, I can’t see how an F-35 with 4 AMRAAMs could score more than one kill against a relatively sophisticated enemy, and this is done given the fact that the enemy airplanes are twice or four times cheaper than yours. Also, they carry more missiles, so even a few survivors with R-73/4 or ASRAAMs could mangle your F-35s when they have ran out of missiles.
-Were these 3 or 4 AIM-120As fired one at a time or rippled?
-Did only 1 of the 3 or 4 come within lethal range?
-AIM-120C5/6/7/D are considerably more effective
-The F-35 can carry more than 4 missiles internally(at least 6 and possibly 8 according to some sources)
-The F-35 is still stealthy from the rear, just not as stealthy as from the front
-Being that the F-35 will have the element of surprise, its targets most likely won’t be aggressively maneuvering or employing ECM
-The F-35 has LOAL, so a pursuing aircraft could still be targetted
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