“The Navy’s idea was much more about, the F-35 has a command and control node that might be part of a strike package that’s mostly F/A-18s rather than F-35s doing a whole strike mission by themselves, which is what the Air Force model might be,” Bryan Clark, naval analyst Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) and former special assistant to past Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, told USNI News on Friday.
“We’re going to use the F-35 more as an enabler and a strike lead and as a command and control platform than as a fighter platform on its own.”