Good, cancel F-35B
ORAC,
Thanks for this. It's increasingly unclear to me what the strategic point of the F-35B is for the US, to be frank. I understand that the USMC want their own toy, and remember the battle when the USN took their carriers away, and the USMC said "Never Again" etc etc.
But why is the US taxpayer is being asked to fund the most expensive and least capable (payload / range) version of JSF? Presumably because in the depths of the USMC HQ, they can envisage a day when a MEU / ARG (or whatever it's called this week) will have to storm ashore against a credible air to air and double-digit surface to air threat without a CVBG to help.
Ummm....
It just doesn't add up. I get the scenario in which:
(a) a MEU would do its thing with AV-8Bs against the local not very impressive air force and (maybe) some low grade SAM threat.
(b) USMC assets would be involved in first night of the war high intensity stuff.
What I can't see is (b) happening without the support of one of the 11 CVNs.
If this is the case, why press on with the F-35B? Bin it now, and if this means that the USMC needs some new build AV-8B++, fine. But it doesn't need stealth and all the other gubbins from the JSF. For those capabilities, F-35C off the CVNs should be fine.
S41