It’s safe to say those F-15C will provide cover for F-35 and not the other way around,
F-35 is for A2G work

After 2025, in denied environments.. put the bottle down :very_drunk:

Mais non… it has…. le Rafale! 🙂

Joking aside spuddy you win for most nationalist claptrap I’ve read today.

Try widening your knowledge, take a look at the UCAV systems the Euros (including the UK ;)) are working on.

Try actually reading and understanding a post before commenting.

There was nothing nationalistic in what I said. All I said was that the F-15C/D can stay in service because the F-15C/D will not have to be the top fighter for the US throughout it’s whole lifetime.

Neither the Eurofighter nor Rafale have a replacement on the drawing boards at this time. No, UCAVs are not it either. They are barely in their infancy in an A2G role and even assuming they can compete in an A2A role in the next 10-15 years is wishful thinking.

You can download the document at file:///C:/Users/Paul/Downloads/Requirements_Matrix.pdf

That’s a link to YOUR C drive 😉

You don’t need a navy to have ASCMs.

You do if you want to target the LHDs. Before you say “airforce” or “UAVs”, that’s what the F-35s and Aegis is for.

If you have not figured it out, the USN would tailor the response to fit the threat. They would not park the LHDs within sight of shore and would target any airfields first to keep the USN ships safe while they operated.

However, the times when you need a (marginally) supersonic (sorta) VLO aircraft and don’t have a CVN available will be few and far between and fail entirely to justify the F-35B commitment, with an aircraft acquisition cost alone equivalent to 600 Super Hornets.

Super Hornets cannot operate off of LHDs or from the austere bases they plan on using.

btw, You are just making yourself look petty when you make comments like “marginally” and “sorta”.

Remember that during the Libyan campaign the only carrier in the area was an LPD.

You will not always have a CVN in the area to go after high value targets in denied airspace.

There is a quite similar system on the Rafale…

That’s good (and exists on other planes like the F-22/35 where it’s called “middleware”) but requires rewriting and integrating the middleware any time hardware changes. It is also limited to replacing existing systems (1 for 1 replacements).

Don’t misunderstand, I still think it’s impressive none the less.

UAI (and by association NUAI) allows for adding new weapons (& pods later) without any Block code changes across any platform that supports it.

meh… UAI is for the F-35… and the F-16/15E/F-18E/Apache/Predators/etc.

I never said it was a F-35 only system.