As I understand it, the external hard points and ordnance render the airplane no longer stealthy which kind of defeats the purpose of a stealth fighter.
Kinda depends on where you are in the war. Early in a war, when the enemy still has radar-controlled, anti-aircraft defenses, the F-35 would most likely go in "stealthy".
After the enemy's air defenses have been neutralized, or against an enemy without such defenses, the F-35 would likely load up to the max required and go in either very high or very low to avoid visual/IR defenses.
The F-35 was never intended to be a stealth-only aircraft. Stealth is intended for “first day of war” then for non-steath large payload strikes thereafter.
Exactly right. Then its just a non maneuverable, non accelerating, 180 round of ammo moonpig. The people who tell us this is a fantastic plane also tell us women are fine as Marine infantry and trannys are too.
Huge grain of salt.
That is true. Something to consider though is that not all missions require stealth. The A-10 is about as unstealthy as you can get yet, in the current use environment, it is very successful.
there’s a huge difference from first day of war where stealth is needed for the battle of air superiority, and later in the conflict when air superiority has been won and you can operate with relative impunity on the air battle field. F18s and A10s would be sitting ducks to gen 5 fighters on the first day of war. only F22s and 35s are going to win in a modern air battle as door kickers. followed by heavy bombers, penetration B1b, and B52G with heavy ECCM jamming from the wild weasel fleet and multiple decoy drones.
I think CONOPS is that the bird will stay stealthy and only use internal weapons until the most serious air and ground threats have been attrited. Then it can be an air-to-mud bird using the external hard points.
The A-10 really wouldn’t have much of a chance in a contested battlefield environment with a modern foe. It does great against unsophisticated foes, and people keep forgetting about that critical distinction. A China or a Russia or their client states would make life very hazardous for the A-10 guys.
From what I understand, the stuff that the F-35 can do when teamed with F-22s is a game changer. They can give “battlespace management” a whole new definition.
Most new birds entering the inventory have a lot of problems. They called the F-16 a lawn dart during development. The Osprey and other airframes also had big problems. The F-22 guys kept suffering hypoxia because the oxygen system was malfunctioning for their whole fleet. Just goes to show, the greater the complexity, the greater the chance for problems.
And the left has always reflexively criticized every new weapons system. Probably because every dollar spent on defense is a dollar not spent on their pet unconstitutional boondoggles.
Stealth is most useful in the early phase of an air campaign and is not needed for most air missions after aerial supremacy is established. Even when air space is disputed, F-35s loaded with long range missiles and bombs can be cued and directed by stealthy F-35s and used as arsenals to take out enemy aircraft and surface targets. Finally, the flexibility to be stealthy or non stealthy and loaded with ordinance depending on combat needs means that a smaller number of aircraft can be used. This in turn permits more rapid deployment with smaller logistical demands.
Lets see,
incoming threat detected,
externals jettisoned,
Lighting II goes all ninja like.