Last week I was having a conversation with the other pilot about the recent US F-15 order. My argument was that it’s an old airplane not suited for a war with China. And furthermore, yet another taxpayer money-grab by Boeing, masters of the art. His was that it’s a tough and proven design that has a sensor suite that keeps it relevant. You can’t watch that Mach loop video and say, “Eric wins!”
Mod EDIT: In splitting the topic, I didn’t want the reference to the Mach Loop video to be confusing 
You can’t, no…but your point stands, though.
Nobody has tried out a fully fledged stealth vs non stealth air-to-air conflict in real anger, but from what I hear, the training scenarios tell a rather sobering story about how far all that raw power and capability takes you when you can’t see your opponent.
“Lock-Mart’s” good at this too. “Corporate Welfare” or “Good Jobs”? I’m not smart enough to answer that.
It’d be nice if we didn’t need these things (the irony), but human nature has shown this not likely.
Back to our regularly scheduled program…
Guess if you had enough of these ‘missile- trucks’ (and could target the missiles) you could overwhelm them? Just need to find a ‘way’ to fill the seats with volunteers.
A gigantic ROW started last time I mentioned the whole bomb truck principle seemed like a solid plan to me.
I’m not playing this time but I still think it is true.
The funny thing is, nobody actually knows the answer either 
From memory, back when the idea of aircraft carriers was first floated (pardon the pun), all the old beards at the admiralty were outraged that anyone would dare suggest anything would ever replace the mighty battleship…their professional analysis and conclusion was sound based on their then-current paradigm but was rapidly displaced (ah…pardon the pun)…
So who knows, maybe the missile truck would be a great idea, but hopefully we will never find out 
If they want to go for the whole bomb truck idea… Why not just update the design of the phoenix missile and load a B52 or a B2 with as many as can fit … To have a stand off anti aircraft system … This of course may just be the rambling of a slightly de-ranged sim pilot … 
It has been contemplated doing this with B-1s. They decided against it because the thing would be vulnerable and without numbers. Compared to a bone, an eagle is fairly expendable.
Could you imagine the Soviet version … load up a bear with as many s300 as it could hold … And have a flying version of the ground radar now that would make things interesting …
Sod it, I’m going for it
4 x f35/f22 painting targets from a stealthed position and being used to fight other stealth aircraft with advanced sensors.
16 x F15ex carrying (I think) 12 amraam each.
1 f35 for four of the ‘bomb trucks’
Thats a lot of heat to dodge.
There was also a book by a strange author who Iiked quite a lot, despite the books being a little ‘out there’ Dale brown had some cool if impractical ideas about stealthy B52 and Bones using skin that warped rather than control surfaces.
This was a long time ago but the idea was pretty interesting if borderline impossible
The next level of that would be the f15x being replaced by those large type drones the navy uses for refueling and load them up with amrams…
Sounds like a book I read recently 
I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the plan all along. The -x is a two seater, right? Have each eagle control four stealthy, expendable “loyal wingmen” out front.
The way I see it is, the USAF is buying an extremely flexible and well understood airframe to replace some old worn out airframes. Like some of you have pointed out, it can run as a missile truck, a bomb truck or just kit it out like the old models and it’s a very good 4th gen air superiority fighter. You still need the F-22s and F-35s, but you don’t need them for everything!