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You're wrong on several points. The US has air dominance in Afghanistan, so even a Stuka would look good. And the F35 has such a small production run that the

You're wrong on several points. The US has air dominance in Afghanistan, so even a Stuka would look good. And the F35 has such a small production run that the Air Force would run out in months. Which they won't do for another agency for CAS. In Vietnam we learned that having airplanes in-theater are much, much cheaper to operate than carrier and remote-based aircraft that take multiple refuelings to arrive on target. For those not familiar with high-performance figher/bomber jets, they have to be refueled immediately after carrier launch and typically at least one more time after that before a bombing run. It's ridiculous, and exposes the tankers to risk.

varjag 7y ago
> The US has air dominance in Afghanistan, so even a Stuka would look good. USAF had air dominance in all recent wars, and A10s suffered the highest losses. Going against an enemy with functioning air force and air defence with those would be unwise.
chipsa 7y ago
You're wrong on enough points that I'm unsettling to put in the time to refute all of them... But the easy one is: there are 490 F-35s built, with the next 3 lots buying almost that amount more, for less than it'd cost to buy F-16s/-18s. It's not a small production run.