[JohnBooty]

    stealth isn't that much of a factor in defense, especially in the Alps

I'm far from an expert. Can you elaborate?

I know that mountains can help planes evade radar and missiles.

But any fighters used in a defense role (against Russia presumably) are definitely going to need to contend with (Russia's apparently rather capable) air to air missiles.

I think they might well need to deal with SAM as well. Sx00 batteries are portable and presumably an invading Russian force would be bringing them along for the ride with ground forces. So I don't know; stealth seems like one of the most important things these days, if you're planning on engaging anybody with modern air to air missiles.

[orwin]

If you only have to contend in air battle and do not need ground control, like in a mountainous area, multipurpose jets will likely act as mobile SAM batteries. The range of METEOR missiles make it unlikely that your plane will be detected before it has time to launch, and even then, will be out of range of SAMs. The issue is that stealth mostly make sense on SEAD/DEAD (where frankly, BVR missiles and AWACS make even more sense), or bombing runs. It isn't useful in CAS where having more ordonance is better (if your enemy only have manpads and VSHORAD you are safe with any modern plane), only SHORAD with more than 15km range are threatening, and nowaday you have missiles that will target those from a longer range. Just equip yourself with those, destroy SHORAD SAM/Radars with ARMs, engage enemy army with Apaches (or if you have the means, LORA), go back, refuel, go again (that, you can't do with f35 in Beast mode, because they overheat. Other plane have refueling issues too, but none of them have that long of a downtime between runs)

Overall, i really dislike the idea of multipurpose stealth jets: it limit your electronic warfare capacity (the issues with the new f35 radar array were caused by its nose profile), it isn't usefull for real CAS, and it greatly increase costs.

To me, you can go two ways. The first would be multiple costly, but dedicated planes that will be superior to your ennemy in their field: the F22, or the B2 (or the A-10). I even like the B21 concept, i'm not anti-US planes, i like the f35 engine (well, no, not really, i think it isn't safe, and make emergency landing extremely dangerous, but i like the principle behind), i dislike the motivation or idea behind the f35. The other planes the USAF have are great, and have reasons to be as they are.

The second would be to have a multirole jet, cheap, with high availability, easy to maintain, to train all of your pilot on it (with 200 real flying hours/year, not simulator, wink wink Russia). Unless you fight the USA, this will likely be enough to at least give you a fighting chance. stealth here is just another cost factor that will lead you to have less planes, less pilots, and more operating costs. The reason Switzerland chose the f35 is that it was sold at 45% of its original cost, and with the promise to have 60% of that cost spent locally, to swiss industry.