Huh??? A billion dollar fighter with a gun pod?? Why, absolutely nothing, not even an A-4 Skyhawk could get close. So why the gun?
Maybe for CAS??? Yeah a billion dollar machine brought down by a five cent round from an SKS.
This concept is nothing but a ditch waiting for an American bound man and an assasin.
This cannot be the entirety of our air-air effort. It will be overwhelmed by good enough at some point.
I would suspect easily overcome by sheer numbers of non stealth, cheap by comparison, high performance fighters. Sacrifice of some necessary for the defeat of superior technology. I believe as a necessity we need both technology and numbers. Kind of like how the navy has a protective screen around the expensive carriers.
The first perceptive response on this thread.
That is what we have C-130 variants and A-10's for. It sounds like we have a plane without a mission and they are trying to backfit one onto it (a mission requirement, I mean).