swiss wrote:Didn't you say some time a go the advantage of the SH is to carry so many missiles. Not only 6 per Aircraft.
Stealth my friend,
stealth
It makes all the diference.
Or like others have hinted (yourself included) having stealth is much better than having "extra" air-to-air missiles.
Now in scenarios between aircraft which can't hide that much from each other - which is the case of the SH and Rafale and a tentative confrontation between both - then having "extra" air-to-air missiles could bring an advantage. But again, this doesn't apply much to the F-35 because of stealth (not to mention the ability to "guide" missile from other platforms and so on...).
Moreover, I echo SpudmanWP's words. If there's a need for the F-35 to enter a "top number of air-to-air missiles carried contest" then there's always the F-35's "beast mode"
swiss wrote:Seriously i fully agree with you. 4/6 AIM-120D/Meteor should be plenty enough in stealth mode. Especially when the F-35 will outnumber any other 4.5/5 gen Model by far. They are even more F-35 out now than Russian Su-30sm, Su-34 and Su-35 combined.
Yes, of course. I also agree with what you said above.
However note that what you mention doesn't apply to the SH and Rafale since the ability for them to hide and evade from those same Russian threats is much, much more limited, if any! As such (and again) in these cases having "extra" missiles could be very important.
“Active stealth” is what the ignorant nay sayers call ECM and pretend like it’s new.