F-35B - Facts but no Figures...
MM and others,
F-35B does have wet hard points. All 3 variants do. Why wouldn't they? All to note - the US are not stupid.
The fact is that Typhoon and F-35 (especially F-35B) are two radically different aircraft sitting in two different design spaces. Typhoon is an out and out air superiority fighter, optimised for high speed, high G sustained combat from BVR to close in. Period. Weight and internal volume is pared to the bone to achieve that - any ground attack capability it has is secondary. With all stores carried externally, it's 'mud-moving' range is severely degraded. But it's a truly excellent fighter - like it was designed to be.
F-35 is a strike fighter, which translates as 'not a bomber'. Small to keep cost down, designed to deliver weapons (especially precision weapons) in hostile environments. Has 'first day' stealth, then the ability to 'mud move' with external hardpoints. F-35B is a powered lift aircraft, which drives its design in large part - but it has a zero minimum flying speed. F-35A is a B with more fuel and bigger bays, F-35C is a B with lots more wing (driven by need to take the wire at an acceptable speed) and even more fuel (big wings have big tanks). But it does also have a good bit more drag and airframe weight to take carrier launch and recovery.
I agree, we probably need both EF and JSF. What we don't need, I believe, is the number of EFs that we have stuck to since SDR - it was always hard to justify, and I would not be surprised if we tried to scale back or cancel T3 to fully fund JSF.