Why not use the F-22 to replace the F/A-18 and F-14?

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
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"puttster" wrote in message
om...
"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
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By ship , C-130 or other battlefield airlift asset.

Keith

I might could buy resupply with C-130's . They are STOL themselves,
landing fully loaded in under 500 ft. We would need a lot of them
though, to set up a deep mission.

Which is why we have em

Maybe a situation like OIF where
Turkey would not let the Army come in from the north. With enough
C-130's maybe you could quickly set up a wing of F-35B's up in
Kurdistan, with a regiment of Marines to support them.

The thing is though there were usable airstrips there already.

Not many in point of fact and that isnt always the case.

Even
if there weren't any, the first C-130's should be bringing in the
runway, then you could bring in C-5's for supply and you could build
twice the force in the same amount of time. Any your fighters could
have normal range and loads.


And what pray tell is protecting the C-5's and C-130's in the
meantime ?

Plus it never ceases to amaze me the number of folks who think that (a)
bringing in enough aluminum matting (and we don't use PSP anymore) to build
a fighter strip is a piece of cake (and trying to support a C-5 on one is a
mean proposition), (b) installing the matting is all there is to it (no
cut/fill, drainage work, or subbabse and base course prep required),
getting the requisite engineer equipment and units into the site is an easy
matter, and (d) this will all happen over a matter of a day or two. Laying
in a fighter-length strip from scaratch is a *major* engineer operation, and
quite different from that required to construct a minimum length rough field
C-130 strip.


f-35B's seem like an Idea without a mission to me.

The RAF , RN and USMC disagree

Add the USAF to that equation--they just officially announced that they are
interested in revamping their programmed buy to include some B models as
well.

Brooks


Well, maybe some
isolated rescue stuff, but what do the marines need 400 of them for?
I could see two dozen maybe, to go along with their Ospreys. That
should be it.

Lacking either a crystal ball for perfect prediction or the ability to
limit the forces an enemy can bring to bear I disagree

There are a lot of even 3rd world airforces that can bring more than
a dozen modern fighters to a hot spot.

Keith