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Without a capable stealth fighter the US & allies could lose air superiority to China very quickly in the Indo Pacific. And operations in the Middle East could
by spacebanana7 2y ago
Without a capable stealth fighter the US & allies could lose air superiority to China very quickly in the Indo Pacific. And operations in the Middle East could become much more high risk from SAMs.
However it’s interesting to compare the F35 program to the alternative of producing several hundred F22s, or some other stealth solution.
- CuriousCosmic 2y agoThe F-22 is still a better dogfighting craft than the F-35. In many many ways the F-35 is effectively a commoditised, specced down version of the F-22 geared towards general multi-role operation while the F-22 is hyper-specialised towards killing any other aircraft. And importantly, the US wants to export the F-35 but keep the F-22 close to chest so that should push come to shove, the US can always maintain air superiority.
- throwaway2037 2y agoWhy don't you think aircraft carrier deployed F/A-18 Super Hornet would be effective against China to protect Taiwan?
- spacebanana7 2y agoAs a measure of deterrence, carries with Hornets can be useful. They do make it more difficult and expensive for the Chinese to take Taiwan. However, it's unrealistic for them to establish anything like air superiority over the Taiwan Straits. Each carrier has fewer than 100 aircraft, and only a couple can be deployed to the region at a time. The opposing PLAAF has over 2000 combat aircraft including hundreds of stealth planes. For the US to be competitive such a contest they need planes that are qualitatively better than the Chinese ones by a huge margin. American advantages in stealth, missile range and avionics are essential just to stay in the game.