The weakest link of the B-1B design was its electronic suite, which made the swingwings look extremely inexpensive in comparison.

To be fair, the USAF does include space programs. Divide their budget in half and you get a fairly even set of programs compared to the army. The USN gets the lions share of funding, but they also have to account for 2/3’rd of the planet surface.

Here’s my representation of F-18V, the stealth rhino…

…And your sources for the Italian decision are?? Which Italian sources to you intend to quote?

My cousin Vinny said the 777 is luckier than all of the others combined. But looking at the big picture then one really ought to wonder why they are strapping themselves to a single boom. The requirement should contain an amendment concerning the need for multiple booms.

Surely someone has some more comparisons to make.

The F135 was designed for lower costs and fewer parts to maintain compared to the F119. You wouldn’t dare waste a well bred horse for plow work. You probably want the Lightning to be the plow puller and general work(-me-to-death-)horse while the Raptor is good for running to town on Sundays.

Why would they waste time trying to add low observability to a flying reflector the size of a barn? If they were going to reduce its rcs then they’d need a much more drastic redesign then simply changing a few shapes on it. The materials alone used in its construction would need to be largely rethunk.

A straight shooting 30mm built into a helicopter makes no sense when they have gunpods that already do it.