Salute!
From the Colonies, and with current doctrine, we look at OCA with lottsa SEAD for the first move unless on the defensive. And starting out on the defensive is one aspect of warfare we should prolly look at.
Pearl Harbor still rings in our old, poor ears.
If we are on the California or Virginia coast and meeting hordes of carrier-based somethings from some power nobody knows about, the F-35's will earn their keep due to the low number and basing of the Raptors. And then there's the horde of Vipers and Hornets to contend with. So it's the "protected" places associated with treaties and pacts that pose the problem. Great subject for its own thread, huh?
From this old warrior and Ops Plans weenie of the first F-16 wing, the allocation of assets depends upon the scenario. Number one is self defense. If there's an associated land battle, the goal is to achieve air supremacy over the beach head or border or whatever. As far back as Normandy, no Allied grunts had much to worry about from enema airpower.
My Israeli students had been thru Yom Kippur and one had been in the 1967 blitz. They can talk about protecting the grunts.
I gotta tellya that I like the F-35 for first day SEAD, with maybe a few flights loaded for bear with Slammers and IR missiles. Raptors would be neat, but there are too few, and those must be allocated to the highest priority of the overall situtuation.
Red Flag 19-1 stuff is interesting reading and you can hunt down stuff with a little effort. Raptors were downplayed, so the F-35 carried the load.
Gums sends...