Quote:
Originally Posted by melmothtw
Au contraire, for the UK the F-35 was intended to be a carrier-borne aircraft capable of air defence of naval and ground forces and self-escorting ground attack (as set out in Staff Target 6464).
If it is unable to perform this mission, then it is defective.
Your approach leads me to suspect that you would have judged SHAR defective and prevented it from ever entering service. Accepting its ability as a bomb truck, do you believe the F-35B's AD capability is going to be significantly better or worse than Harrier in any of its forms?
That's actually a very good point FODPlod, and one I have considered on several occasions. I'm well aware that when the Sea Harrier entered service it was considered little better than a toy, only to prove its critics massively wrong during the Falklands (I know there was the US-supplied Sidewinder issue, but many of the kills were with guns).
I do truly hope that the F-35 does the same - believe it or not, I don't
want it to fail.
To answer your question, I honestly don't know if the F-35's AD capability is comparatively greater than the Sea Harrier (given the increased capability of the threat also). I have to assume that it is, but the reports I am reading (the facts of which the JPO does not dispute, only the interpretation) lead me to wonder.
Regardless of the comparative capabilities with the Sea Harrier though, I find the JPO's argument that because the F-35 is not designed to dogfight (a change from its previous position) that it will never have to, to be spurious and disingenuous.