It’s fashionable to hate on the F-35, but let’s face it: if the allies have to establish air superiority somewhere in the world, they will be using F-35s to do so, and I’m not aware that anyone has the platform to stop them.
At the very least, N drones can't be destroyed at once (unless stored really carelessly) and can be individually specialized in a way that provides wider spectrum of capabilities.
A massive bonus: pilotless aircraft can perform manoeuvres unsurvivable for humans, and the ability to maneuver was always a strong point in the air.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incid...
It’s obviously possible to imagine a scenario where you have a massive number of drones, the question would be whether you could channel that into tactics that would give you an advantage. Numeric superiority is sometimes useful, and sometimes a liability.
The F-35 currently has a massive advantage over cutting edge drones - a MK I brain in control of the airframe that cannot be jammed. Its electronic warfare capabilities could create havoc for the drone swarm and deny the enemy remote sensing etc.
Until there’s actual conflict though, it’s pretty much like asking whether Mike Tyson or Bruce Lee would win in a fight :)
It doesn't have to be theoretical at all. The air force can just easily have mock battles v drones to evaluate performance if they wanted to.
The speed of autonomous avaition navigation development is far exceeding the speed of innovation in traditional nth generation fighter planes. Inherently the human will always be slower. The drone will have higher manuverbilty has high g will not be a factor. Imprvoing the algorithms to match or improve human response will happen sooner or later (it is not hard AGI category of problem). The drones are cheaper and easier to manufacture then fighter planes or pilots trained for this kind of high end aircraft.
AFAIK the electronic warfare capabilities of f35 are not designed towards drones. Even then performance against cluster of drones is different matter altogether.
Who says it has a fragile supply chain anyway? It certainly has a complex one, but then so do things like nuclear weapons and nobody is clamouring to abandon them on that basis. Protecting that chain and the logistics around it is a staple of military operations. It’s not like someone is going to surprise them by going after supply chains.
If the US is unbeatable militarily then you, as a poorer advesary, don't try to match it, you use one of the other avenues like causing political de-stabilisation for example, interfere with elections maybe.
Therefore is the military persuing "perfect" at high expense instead of "good enough" at a lower expense which would still be good enough to fulfil its requirements.