"Rob van Riel" wrote in message
om...
Everything I read seems to indicate the JSF is intended to do air to
ground
work primarily with high-tech weapons like JDAM bombs. However, I get the
impression that such weapons require a considerable amount of advance
planning.
This would seem to make loitering near a combat area waiting for a call
for
support if and when the need arrises more or less impossible, in turn
making
this combination of weapon and aircraft useless for that sort of work.

Not really. It will just require the pilot to enter the target coordinates
he is given (or maybe even datalinked by the time the F-35 is in service).
According to FAS: "JDAM provides the user with a variety of targeting
schemes, such as preplanned and inflight captive carriage retargeting."

Perhaps
this is not overly relevant when engaged in wholesale warfare, with hordes
of
Apaches to take care of targets of opportunity/necessaty (SP?), but how
much of
a problem would it present in a small scale bush fire war? Is my idea of
CAS
totally outdated? Or am I mistaken about the capabilities of weapons like
JDAM?

To a certain extent it is likely a bit dated. We are now producing the
Tactical Tomahawk cruise missile, which features the capability of being
retargeted in flight--the Navy's SLAM-ER ATA already has that capability. So
programming the coordinates for SDB's or larger JDAM's into them while
enroute to the target is not going to be a big deal. Nor will these be the
only weapons used by the F-35 in the CAS arena.

Brooks

How effective is a JSF with dumb bombs, or LGBs, or, for example, AGM65
missiles?

Rob