OK, THAT is something I was never aware of. The only Navy guys I interacted with directly for any length of time were not pilots so shop talk tended to go a different route.
The only way to settle this one is to find out if that 10% figure is in any way credible. Think about it: if they only do STOVL ops 10% of the time, then subtracting (for the sake of argument, I'm making this up) 5% for training leaves you with 5% for normal shipboard ops. That would seem to be implying that there won't be a lot of them deployed at sea, because at sea they have 1 option: STOVL.
It doesn't matter how much of their air arm is landing vertically, it's the assertion that only 10% of F-35B ops will entail STOVL, meaning that less than 10% of their operational time (minus training, although using the word operations might mean training is discounted?) is planned to be at sea. THAT implies that there won't be a lot of them at sea at any given point, which is why I said you can't count on having a gator with the B model embarked anywhere near where someone goes retarded.
That part I agree with. But it still means you'd have to surge, which goes back to the point that they might not be where they're required right away. Not that it's necessarily wrong or some sort of lapse, just simple geography.
...and it could be argued that the UK needed jump jets precisely because they'd gotten rid of their flattops. In fact, maybe with their Bucs and Phantoms down there the RN would've been of a mind to kick the crap out of the delusionals to a much greater degree, forestalling the current idiocy. ANYWAY, those guys aren't entirely relevant the way I was thinking, because I didn't figure that the expense of making the B would've been paid had the USMC went with the C. The RN was already waffling about the B or C anyway, so they would've just gone with the C for their new decks. Everyone else totals a number too miniscule to justify the added development expense, in part because two ideal customers either 1) represent someone we're afraid to deal with rationally or 2) represent someone who refuses to realize that history is some stuff that already happened.
Whether or not it'll do is a whole different argument. Based on our current history of only bombing anyone a few generations behind in the air defense concept, yeah, it'll do just fine. Now if the DoD wasn't in fact thoroughly talking out of it's ass to get funding, we'd be in a different environment entirely, and then you're gonna wish you had about 100 more B-2s real damn fast if you don't want to play with the big boy toys.
Parking one offshore makes non-Iranians tend to not be stupid. Plus they do have a significant purpose when France would rather support terrorists blowing up discos.
When you think about it the USMC will now be able to theoretically use the Sea Control Ship concept pretty effectively.
ICBMs, yes, depending on a few factors, one of which would be getting more SSBNs. Problem is the ICBM is far cheaper to deploy. F-35 triad...LOL. I'm gonna have to use that, in an Aardvarkian context.
And for them, and Taiwan, it'd actually make a lot of sense. But again, not quite relevant to my train of thought as they weren't getting them if the USMC didn't have the B requirement. And then there's the aforementioned allusion that one to those three is someone we're scared to give the A model and one is someone scared of the concept of a flattop. The ROK really should build one, it'd be hilarious.
The point is that if the USMC requirement for the B didn't exist, those guys weren't getting one.
