[noir_lord]

Agreed and specifically in the case of the Gripen the “test condition” was “Needs to be serviceable by a few conscripts working under the direction of one person who knows what they are doing”.

It’s an extremely different design goal, the US doesn’t mind exotic weapons that require exquisite (and expensive) methods of servicing, they have the budget and the assumption that a well equipped air field will be immaculately maintained.

Meanwhile the Mig-29 designers assumed it’d operate from damaged/poorly maintained fields, so on the ground you can shut the primary air intakes and it uses ones on top of the plane to get air, drastically reducing the FOD risk on taxi/takeoff.

I do wonder how well the F-35 would fare in an actual shooting war against near peers when all the peacetime assumptions breakdown.

[throwaway85825]

That's a reason the Mig-29 is no longer in production. Point defense fights are obsolete.

The F-35 was just in a war, in Iran. It performed as expected and was able to roll back Iran's air defense network in days.

[GolfPopper]

>It performed as expected and was able to roll back Iran's air defense network in days.

"Rolling back" Iran's air defense seems like very fuzzy phrasing. Certainly, Iran was not able to close its own airspace, nor prevent ongoing airstrikes on many American and Israeli targets. At the same time, my armchair observation is that a great many US and Israeli airstrikes were accomplished using stand-off weapons [1], which would not have been needed if the United States and Israel had achieved 'air supremacy'[2] as has been the case in America's conflicts in recent history.

The observed trend in USAF readiness has been downward for some time [3][4]. Air war is more than single sorties. If you have anything resembling an accurate summary of sorties flown, targets successfully hit, and number of combat-ready aircraft throughout the (currently on hold) war, and so on, please share. Absent such detailed information, all we have are various degrees of speculation.

1. https://news.meaww.com/us-used-tomahawks-himars-standoff-wea...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_supremacy

3. https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-mission-capable-...

4. https://havokjournal.com/culture/military/the-hidden-erosion...

[throwaway85825]

Iran innovated with the loitering optically guided missile. This was enough to dissuade a longer air campaign. Political support is low so any losses create a political problem.

[imtringued]

Ok sure, the US didn't have air supremacy, didn't stop them from sending B-52 filled up with JDAMs.

[throwaway2037]

    > an actual shooting war against near peers

Who could this be? I can only think of Russia or China.