The Eurofighters IRST is much better than the Raptors,

AFAIK the F-22 doesn't have one *at all*. IF the Eurpfighter's has
to be cued by the radar then it's pretty much dead meat against the
F-22. Unless the IRST out ranges AMRAAM it's pretty much in the same
boat. About the only time it would make a difference is if it could
help the Eurofighter take an entirely passive Meteor shot from outside
AMRAAM's range.




its has a wider
range of missile countermeasures,


So the decoy-on-a-string is better than all-aspect stealth huh? You
must know something the USAF doesn't.




just a couple of areas where the
Raptor 'Comes up short'.

How about something tangible?






Your
Eurofighter comes up short in the speed department and a plethora of
other areas.

Speed department? are you talking supercruise, or top speed, either
way tactically there's little in it,


Cruising at Mach 1.7+ has little tactical advantage?




BTW Cost is better too!!.


No arguement there :-)





All fighters have to trade something, the Raptor is no different, The
Typhoon has a better instantaneous turn rate than the Raptor


From what I've read it depends on the flight speed.




.... one
could argue that for R&D money the Raptor has cost, it should be
better in _all_ areas regardless, and be cheaper to manufacture and
support...

There are tradeoffs in where you apply your R&D dollars too. You
figure they built four prototypes of two different designs and two
completely new engines in addition to breaking ground pretty much
everywhere. And sometimes even the mundane ends up costing $$$ when
you factor in the necessity for stealth. I imagine the radome on the
F-22 costs a few bucks more than that of the Eurofighter. Even the
nozzles on the engines are likely significantly more expensive, even
the vectoring aside. None of that stuff comes cheap and it doesn't
help that they stretched the program so long.



Its not all one sided you know!.


Oh, I know. Out of the gate the F-22 will pretty much be a one-trick
pony (air to air) like the Tomcat was for so long. It just seems like
certain individuals have an almost irrational hatred of the F-22.




Cheers