The 'pylons galore' comment prompted a thought for those of us who have had to turn the 'B bring back capability into reality.
The 'B's 'bring back' capability is open source and I have no issue with what is in the open domain. Now try to imagine the exact same performance scenario with 2 AMRAAM in the bays, 2 ASRAAM / AIM9X on the outer pylons and all the other pylons fitted but empty.
Yep, no bombs at all but feel free to guess if this fit requires more or less available performance.
This is the challenge the USMC is facing right now. The bring back scenarios are reliant on the fact that no IR missiles are fitted and 6 pylons plus gun are safely stored on the ship. Equip the aircraft with pylons and the gun and jet is starting to look pretty heavy all on its own. For the USMC role the pylons are pretty important and the option of ditching a bunch of weapons so that they are only carrying the weight of the gun, 2 AMRAAM and 6 pylons does not appeal to them at all.
Again, not challenging the 2 bombs plus 2 AMRAAM requirement, but this is the '1st day of the war' fit that the USMC cares little about. Carrying a mixed weapon load on 6 pylons to serve their customer for all the other days in the war is giving the USMC kittens.
Sorry that I cannot quote open source info on the 6 pylon fit, but we all know the weight of the 1st day fit and work the rest out with a pencil...