[boomerpusher]

Wasn't it the USAF that sent F-4's into Vietnam without a gun because in the "new" air war a gun on a jet wasn't needed, that 'winders and such were all that was needed? That didn't work out so well as I recall. And, the M14 was "replaced" by the M16 as our main battle rifle and then we had to dust off the M14 for use in "the sandbox" cause the M16 didn't fit the need. We seem to do this to our selves over and over again. Sometimes "old" is good because it works. Are all the "bugs" worked out of the F-35 now?

 

[boomerpusher]

Actually, we need both - low and slow and high and fast. The A-1 and A-10 supplied support for the troops in combat and the high fliers kept the Migs off their a$$e$. The F-35 MAY someday be a good plane and MAY someday do all that it is designed to do BUT it doesn't do it now. The F-22 seems to be a good plane and seems to do all that it was designed to do but it is not intended to be a weed-wacker like the A-1 or the A-10. The grunt on the ground has to have the CAS or he is in deep do-do. The Cobra or Apache works for what they were designed for but are still open to ground fire ,sam, and fighters so you still have to have the fast movers. Got to have both. Now if we could get the different branches of the service to work together instead of fighting each other, life could be good. Ya, fat chance of that.