A thought experiment: a look at the F-35B Block 2B from the JFACC's viewpoint.
"Welcome to Al-Bungabunga AB, old boy. Nice new crates! Mind if I assign you to some DCA? We've got a bit of a Sukhoi threat and the odd civilian Johnny blundering through, so we need to get out there and check 'em out with the Mark One Eyeball before we let fly."
"Sir, yes Sir! We're super hot on DCA - just that if it's either Sheik Yabooti in his G650 or a Su, and they're above FL400, we can't get up there. But give us some notice and we'll be blasting out there at our full Mach 1.2."
"Pity. We do need some CAS up north..."
"Sir, yes Sir! We are Marines and unlike those milquetoast Chair Force ladies, we live to support the tip of the spear, within our operational and weapons limits. Our EO-DAS and EOTS can detect a mover, whether it's an armed Hi-Lux or the market bus, and if it's not moving too fast we can obliterate it with a 500-lb LGB, Sir! We carry two of those, but until we get drop tanks we can give you 10 minutes over target at 350 miles, but we'll make those count, Sir, and we have a cool workaround that's 10 per cent as effective as Rover when it comes to avoiding blue-on-blue."
"Keen as mustard, eh! Unfortunately the local chaps take a dim view of us blowing up their wives and goats, and the last time we put up a CAS sortie with Rover INOP, things got a bit pear-shaped and the next we knew we had this frightful bounder in the CAOC, wearing wings and a dagger and saying he would 'slot the ****ing lot of us' if we did it again. We'd better leave CAS to the A-10s and the Tornado mates with HDTV and Brimstone. How about some NTISR?"
"Absolutely, Sir. We'd be glad to go out and acquire medium-rez MWIR imagery! And we'll deliver it as soon as we land and the data has been sanitized in our SCIF. No more than eight hours throughput time, we guarantee, Sir!"
"Hate to say this, but I'm not sure that the intel shop will be too happy with that. Now, about the Emir's birthday fly-by..."
Last edited by LowObservable; 18th Jul 2015 at 18:29.