Originally Posted by FoxtrotAlpha18
People mistakenly think CAS is solely about getting down and dirty in the weeds and mud...it's not!
Nobody here thinks or believes that CAS is solely about getting down and dirty, the F35 would be terrible at that anyway.
The next generation CAS missions will be mostly dependant on future stand off weapon capabilities, the F35 won't be any better than the existing platforms in this regard.
Also the idea that down and dirty will no longer be needed is a fallacy as well, the technology to strike from a far distance might be very promissing, inevitably in turn it will also be (partly) negated by new technologies developped to protect against this SOW tech on the battlefield.
Fact is, the F35 was sold as the true Harrier/A10/F16 succesor for exactly these missions and while these kind of missions might be mostly fullfilled by helo's and UCAV's in the future, with the F35 we pretty much loose the option of doing this with a manned fixed wing fighter.