Don’t the Russians have S400s there? If they knew about the strike with an hour’s warning, why didn’t they just knock down the missiles?

Note that the items that are not “common” are structural.

Right, and that goes back to the structural differences between the A and the C, and why you can’t just swap a few components from the C onto the A and have a carrier-capable A. Theoretically that would have been possible with e.g. the F-4 or A-7.

In any event, the concept wouldn’t work because of safety issues. USN pilots will use the Magic Carpet system but they will still have to train and be capable of fully manual arrested landings. It’s a basic requirement, otherwise you would start losing aircraft and possibly pilots due to computer problems, airframe damage, or weather beyond the system’s ability to compensate. If you really want a land-based force of F-35s that can be carrier-based in a pinch, you need F-35Bs. Which, of course, we have.

“Oi! Come back here with that aircraft!”

All turbofan and turbojet engines require subsonic airflow to the fan. So air intakes for supersonic aircraft must be designed to slow down the airflow, while at the same time minimizing drag and airflow disruptions. This is a difficult task.

Ideally, the intakes would maintain the airflow reaching the engine at a constant pressure, so that it could generate maximal thrust at any speed. This is not really possible. As the speed increases, pressure losses due to shockwaves reduce the engine efficiency, and ram drag caused by slowing down the air increases. Eventually the ram drag exceeds the thrust the engine is able to produce. Of course, in reality there is more than just ram drag acting on the engine, so ram drag alone is not the limiting factor in supersonic speed.

As to earlier upgrades, there was also the APG-70 for later C models.

The last 43 F-15Cs produced were equipped with APG-70. However, all of the APG-70 F-15Cs were later refitted with APG-63(V)1 and the APG-70s used for spares on the F-15E fleet.

Also, 18 F-15Cs in Alaska were equipped with APG-63(V)2 AESA sets. They are still operational with these sets, but this was more of an experimental / validation deployment and never intended for flee-wide upgrade. The APG-63(V)3 performs better and is lighter than the (V)2.

Saturation bombing worked in WWII because it was easy to find the enemy. If you wanted to destroy German civilian infrastructure to make them lose the will to fight, or destroy German industry to deny them resources, you bombed Germany. There is no ISIS-land to bomb and no cities or industrial centers populated entirely by ISIS people. As such, saturation bombing of the cities where ISIS is known to operate is unlikely to significantly harm ISIS but guaranteed to kill a whole lot of innocent civilians. It is really annoying when your enemy doesn’t cooperate with your desire to use 70-year-old air warfare doctrine by arranging themselves in easy-to-find strategic targets, but unfortunately that’s the reality we have to deal with.

Not at all. High dash speed is extremely useful even in loitering missions. Your bombers can’t be everywhere at once, so being able to go supersonic to respond to a call for air support is extremely useful. B-1s did this numerous times in Afghanistan; their speed also allowed them to orbit over the Arabian Sea and dash in when needed.

Definitely. But it’s a lot easier to sneak a bunch of operators into a city under siege.