F-35A is the one that needs the full runway. This is a big deal, as the F35A has the best performance overall but needs the nicest conditions to launch. If the "hardest to launch" variant can be flown from a highway, then the other two models will do even better.
This is a "steelman argument". We're demonstrating the worst F35 at this job. All other variants will do even better.
Other way around: F-35B is the Marine Corps STOVL variant, F-35C is the Navy CATOBAR variant.
(No reason an F-35B couldn’t take off from and land on a regular carrier, too, but its the C that is made to launch with a catapult and catch an arrestor hook to land.)
This is a dumb waste of money.
It could be a dumb waste of money either way, but your conclusion doesn’t follow from your premise.
Consider the current Russia/Ukraine war, Russia destroyed the vast majority of the runways Ukraine could have used but Ukraine still has an air force.
That's a generous statement.
The Russian air force has taken massive losses, both in terms of planes and pilots, but it also continues to exist, from a non-generous and factual perspective.
Last I checked, they literally had more trainer aircraft than actual combat jets left.
It’s amazing that such a small airforce manages to prevent russia from gaining air superiority and even manages to effectively conduct sorties isn’t it.
Just shows you how different it is when your the invading force. russias airforce losses largely outsize Ukraines even though Ukraine has a smaller airforce and they older planes.
You have named two countries with credible and substantial air forces. Critically, both the Algerian air force and Chilean air force exist (the claim that I initially defended). Indeed, both Chile and Algeria have similarly-sized economies to Ukraine, and both countries operate sizeable air forces relative to other countries in South America and North Africa.
It is worth noting that the Ukrainian air force has 50+ F-16s scheduled for delivery in the near future.
>> Last I checked, they literally had more trainer aircraft than actual combat jets left.
They did have a relatively impressive number of L-39 jet trainers at the beginning of the war, as you alluded to. It is difficult to assess how many have survived the war. I would presume that you are correct to estimate that trainer aircraft have a lower attrition rate than combat jets during war.
Some rankings list Algeria right below Russia, and above Spain and Canada in terms of air power, and Chile is ranked above Korea and Norway.
https://www.wdmma.org/ranking.php
Also, apparently that's all it takes to ground the self-described second army of the world.
I'm not sure you thought your argument through.
Can’t exactly fly combat sorties when the whole country is littered in NASAM and Patriot systems
So, tellingly, the Russian air force failed to establish supremacy over Ukraine when Ukraine fielded only Soviet-era aircraft and anti-air (and in comparatively small numbers). Which strongly suggests that the Russian Air Force is not a particularly good opponent either.
But critically, the Ukrainian Air Force continues to exist as a fleet-in-being. So while it may not currently be capable of much force projection (I would argue that the Russian air force is also not capable of much force projection against a serious adversary), it does force its adversary to strategically deploy anti-air.
As Russian anti-air systems become depleted (which may be sooner or may be later, but due to the rapid destruction of S-400 systems of late, my money is on sooner), it is quite possible that the Ukrainian air force will play a larger role, especially given that training on F-16s commence in a handful of weeks.
The CNA and RUSI have both released excellent reports on the VKS challenges and performance.
SEAD/DEAD missions seem to be much harder than the US has made them look in the past (granted against much weaker GBADs than Ukraine or Russia have).
https://www.cna.org/reports/2023/04/Russian-Combat-Air-Stren...
[1] https://balloonstodrones.com/2022/10/19/looking-back-at-iraq...
You should read the news regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine has been operating their air force out it's highways and is making a fool out of Russia's armed forces with opsec tricks like fixing airways and hangars bombed by Russia but printing tarps with images of the bombed out runways to fool it to believe they are still decommissioned.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/04/11/to-dodge-ru...
Ukraine has been playing Russia so masterfully that they led Russian intelligence into believing Ukraine's air force was operating out of a secret network of tunnels.
This increases when rival powers gain heavy-lift capability. If you can lift a few tons into orbit, you can drop rocks on targets. Not sure if there's much a target can do about that, other than not be there when it falls.
It's not quite as apocalyptic as nuclear holocaust, which is nice.
Yeah, you can move and hide planes and put them in hardened bunkers, its kind of hard to do any of that with airbase runways, so that is one scenario for it.
But mostly its “we want to operate in an area and haven’t built/don’t control purpose-built airbases there yet”
Though ideally you want the planes in air before the bombs lands. With that scenario these hundreds of temporary runways all over the country make much more sense.