geauxtohell
Choose your weapon.
Navy1960 said:If I left you with the impression that geau that I as simply advocating for the F-22 at the expense of the F-35 that would be the wrong impression. As a former A-6 Driver I know full well what CAS is. I was simply trying to point out that it's not a wise thing to do to eliminate an air to air fighter for many reasons. The biggest of which would be Air superiority to dominate the other sides air power to the point where it becomes useless in a battle scenerio. While we have many great airframe currently and when matched against their current rivals they stack up well. The F-15 in fact has never been lost in air combat against any russian made aircraft from SU-27's to Mig-29's. However when matched against newer offerings such as the SU-35/37 or the Euro-Fighter they tend to show their age a little, especially the F-16 which is outmatched by both of those fighters. However, none of those comes close in performance to the F-22 and in CAS none matches the F-35's ability. While some will point to a recent mock combat sim. by the USAF as an example of the F-35's weakness against the SU-35/37 this has been disputed but will post it here for all to see anyway..
I just don't see the point in dumping a ton of money into the latest and greatest fighter when we already have plenty of platforms that are adequate for the mission at hand.
A decade ago everyone thought the A-10 was going to be scrapped. Now that aircraft has flies more missions than it can handle.
It's the same logic with scrapping the Crusader. It looks cool on paper, but what can it really do that the Palidin can't?