The problem is, that the present F-22 will not operate in a mission enviroment it was designed for. BVR-weapons and look-down/shoot-down capability were tailored to the arial situation in Central Europe. The F-22 had to engage Flankers and Fulcrums at medium heights or even high up, when those are backed-up by SAMs. The USA did stick to strike packages at medium heights, when most other NATO-members did still prefer low level strikers or as the US did with their bombers.
To do “supercruise” in an usefull manner the F-22 has to stay high up, when it has to face the most problems against low-level opponents today. In that case “supercruise” is of little use. By the way the Russians had find out something similar before, when they did add subsonic capability to the MiG-25, which did become the MiG-31. In that years you could find multi-layered attacks from strikers/bombers with stand-off-weapons, which had to reach a firing point only or to strike packages to overcome the defense of a prime target in numbers. “Cheap” robots could saturate defenses, when they could be outsmarted by the defenders too. So all kinds of attack were kept to keep the tactical flexibility from that. In Cold War times no side did assume to overhelm the other side in short notice, when both were aware, that every attacker would run into a time-force-problem. Both sides had planned to reach their main military goals within 30 days or to run into an atomic disaster.
In the meanwhile the USA had learned, that the military world had changed in general and that there is no longer something in need like the F-22. The Europeans have transformed their air-superiority fighters into strikers, when the F-22 failed to do so with the FA-22B. The F-35 is more than enough for the future needs. The most important message from that is, there is no longer some need in “supercruising”, when stealth is still important, despite the high costs and limitations from that.
Oh come on now you’re just being silly again, F-22 has no mission, European fighters are no longer air defense fighters but strike fighters (tell that to typhoon pilots who fly intercepts) ,the F-22 has no strike capability (except 8 SDB with DIME warheads or two 2000ib class JDAMs) etc etc.
It really is getting beyond a joke how an armchair expert can keep being so right in his own mind whilst those in the know, who operate and fly these jets are regarded as simple confused fools who don’t know what they are doing with them.
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