JASSM's NOT in the Super Hornet package, JSOW is. JSOW is in service and performing well, and an anti-ship variant is in development. JASSM will go onto the classic Hornets under Project 5418.
It's not just recent ones, though they seem even worse than in the past, & the overall failure rate is 42%. At that rate, even firing two at every target gives you significantly less effectiveness than firing single Storm Shadows or (AFAIK) KEPD-350s, which suggests the much-vaunted lower price is somewhat illusory.
Naaahhhh mate, i never said it was a bad platform, same as the SH, i never said that was a bad platform either. I never said we shouldnt buy the Sh & I never said we shouldnt buy the F35. What i did say is there are some threats the F35 might not be able to handle, however the F22 can, easilly. All i said was that i think its a bad idea for us to be relying on the F35 to do everything. In the CAS/BID role it will be the most capable platform ever flown. However i'm somewhat scheptical as to its A2A capabilities vs dedicated Air superiority fighters as capable as advanced flankers, and i'm allso concerned about its capabilities an interceptor, especially with the proliferation of ASM's and standoff weapons generaly throughout the region. In the role it was designed for it will be without peer, it should be very capable in most other roles too.
My apologies. I'm going a little senile with age.
I have to admit i understimated the full effect of the Wedgetail/F35/AIM120D/JORN/High speed datalink combination. I was looking at things from a 2 v 2 perspective, and with ESM cued advanced IRST+Laser range finder, cueing BVR IR missile shots, The Flanker in a 2 v 2 sort of scenario would have a pretty good chance against an F35, since apart from the LO and avionics it outperforms it by a mile.
regional threats extend to more than indonesia....... What about PLAAF?????
indonesia isnt a threat at all, even if they bought their planned 48 SU30's and upgraded them with all the planned bits and peices they dont stand a cheance vs the RAAF in their own airspace let alone ours.
Having the F35 as the basis for our force structure is a good idea, its much better value for money than an all F22 force. But both platfroms are designed to be part of an Hi Low mix, and will be by the USAF. I agree a perfect soloution would be to replace the SH with F22's.
That certainly seems to be the case and seems to imply that perhaps "rushing in" to join the SDD phase might not have been quite the bad idea that those against Australia's plan think it is...Hmm, did I get this right?
Everybody except the original partners get a downgraded export version of the F-35.
So the offer for Japan is also not a full scale F-35.
I don't think the Japanese are very happy with that.
Hopefully this helps the EF offer.
I don't say that because of false national pride but because every additional EF user makes it more possible that developing of the EF goes further and makes updates cheaper so we might also see some of them.
Not to mention the opportunities for worksharing... I would presume that even some of the parts for "down-rated" F-35s would come from JSF participant nations.
the Japaneses might be even be in for the EF replaceing the older F15J if they won't be getting even the full spec F35 that the partners nations are buying and the F22 isn't for export they might be even be interested in METEOR missile to replace the AIM7 [or am i too hopeful]
Money. Jobs. Keeping the companies which built it alive so they can keep building things for us to defend ourselves with. All the obvious reasons.
Perhaps we Europeans belive that others than we have the right to defend themselves as we do. Also Europe isn't into waging wars all over the world so the risk of going to war with countries armed with European fighters are very small. But the main reason for not selling the F-22 on export is really to not disturb the sales of F-35.