ICBM,
I would love to agree with you. Flying off small strips etc was really good fun and gave us a really flexible option. As you say it allowed us to operate from KAF for the years that no-one else in the UK inventory could.
But the Harrier (1 and 2) were made for the job and worst case you could operate with a bowser and a truckload of KRETs with one weapon hoist.
I now stray from the bit I consider myself an expert in to the bit I don't.
I suspect that the F-35B cannot do 'bare base' the way the Harrier could because of what you have to take with you, what kit you wear and what bombs you drop. I might be wrong, but you're only as flexible as what ever brings your kit behind you, and you're only ready to go on the timeline that your support assets can meet.
So I can see (and fondly remember) the utopia of unsupported ops, but think we need to be careful looking forward when we could be comparing apples and oranges. It might be that if the C-17 is u/s or the strip is 10ft shorter than the C-130 can accept, or the maintainers left the spgr for the bombs behind....you get the idea...that 'flexibility' might not be the same with such a high tec beast.
Flying off roads is cool. Being u/s on a road because the jet can't start before it chats to Fort Worth isn't. (Don't know if this is a possibility but you get the idea)
Of course I could be wrong which is why I asked.
Now. You raise a very valid point. This all needs sorting out once and for all, then it all becomes irrelevant. One would have thought that if SDSR was done properly and if all the guesses about costs had actually been estimates and if ACA had actually designed the flexible design all those years ago....if, if, if...we wouldn't be in this sorry a##ed mess.
For all those involved in the CVF, JCA and SDSR programmes undoubted hard work we have created a saga you simply wouldn't believe if you saw it in print.
I also tend to have a lot of sympathy with the 'we'll make it work' chain of thought. Because we will. But in my mind, one variant will be alright for a small island nation, the other will be a world beater.