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I’m relatively sure the naysayers are likely gamers with only knowledge they’ve gained from the concepts provided in their games. Having served active and civilian for the government, I know that there are ALWAYS two (sometimes more) sides to everything: unclassified and classified.

The video games usually feature, at best, unclassified information and some speculative fantasies as to classified technologies. Practically every great military that went down to defeat had prepared to fight the “last war”. The current generation four aircraft we have were, and still are fantastic performers, however S300/S400 air defense systems are rendering them impotent. Yes, there are ECM systems and decoys, etc. that can be used to try and defeat the SAM systems, but the SAM’s must be overcome first! That takes time and resources, and sometimes that’s still not enough. You cannot conduct operations underneath that kind of protective umbrella (sea Arab-Israeli wars of the past if you have any doubts).

F-35’s are designed to operate in those environments to first destroy the SAM umbrellas so that other less capable generation four aircraft can operate in those environments. Unlike the video gamers who can open up “editor mode” and add state of the art systems in and advantageous position on the fly, in the real world much preparation has to occur way before the missiles can fly. There is no “editor mode” in the real world. And unlike the cyber universe of video gamers, resources are much more scarce, and cannot be easily repaired or replaced in a timely manner if they are damaged. Either your stuff works as designed for it’s mission(s), or it doesn’t. There is no time for “do-overs or replays”, and when your pilots are killed, there aren’t any reruns for them to reappear in. The same thing goes for the bad guys.

World War 2, Korea, Vietnam, even the Gulf Wars are the “last wars”... we don’t need to prepare to fight them again! We need to be ready to fight and win the next war using newer, improved state of the art equipment.

So, unless you have no-shit classified access to all of the information concerning the design and use of the F-35’s, you might be just blowing smoke up everyone’s skirt.

[The current generation four aircraft we have were, and still are fantastic performers, however S300/S400 air defense systems are rendering them impotent. ]

Is that really true? Can’t S300/S400 systems be targeted in the same way SAM sites were back during the Gulf War, going all the way back to Vietnam, when F-100’s used AGM-45’s against SA-2’s? At worst, aircraft loss rates would revert to Vietnam-era levels - high compared to anything since the Israeli experience in the Bekaa Valley. Of course, with around 2,400 lost in combat during the Vietnam war, these loss rates would require a big expansion in the aircraft inventory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_losses_of_the_Vietnam_War

But here’s the question - could aircraft losses really get back to Vietnam-era highs? Don’t long range air-launched cruise missiles like the JASSM-ER provide the ability to destroy systems like the S-400 without putting pilots at Vietnam-era risk levels?