Commentary on DoD Buzz concerning the CNO's speech:
Did CNO just take a big swipe at F-35?
Interestingly he did, as a naval man, address my point above. I'm sure the air force would contest the figures based on the number of targets over a full campaign, otherwise they've got problems ahead - even more at risk are the carriers and their air wings, if the intent to build/preserve the conventional ship fleet of littoral, destroyer, frigates, cruisers etc.
The ability of a few very-precise standoff weapons to be more efficient and effective than a larger number of less-precise weapons leads to a surprising result. In modern warfare, precision standoff weapons such as Tomahawk or the joint standoff weapon are now more cost-effective in many situations than short-range gravity bombs such as the joint direct attack munition (JDAM). A Tomahawk missile, for example, costs about $1.2 million, while a JDAM is about $30,000. To strike a single target, however, the total training, maintenance, and operations cost to get a manned aircraft close enough to deliver the JDAM is several times higher than the cost of launching a Tomahawk at the same target from a destroyer, submarine or aircraft operating several hundred miles away. That is one of the trends leading us to focus more effort on improving and evolving our standoff sensor and munition payloads.