> The F-22 was and is an excellent aircraft

I love jets and the F-22 is both my favorite fighter and likely the best air superiority fighter in the world, so I get where you are coming from, but it is not an excellent aircraft for the current USAF mission when you look at it as a whole.

Not only is the procurement cost of an F-22 extremely high, operationally it has been plagued by issues that hare only partially elevated by a maintenance program that even by fighter jet standards is considered expensive and frequent. The stealth coating in particular is very finnicky and has to be worked up constantly. Approximately half of F-22 are non-op at any given time, even getting training time is extremely difficult.

The F-22 is like an exotic sportscar. Nobody denies that if it's in the air and functional, it's a great performer, but we would never make the bugatti veyron the standard patrol car for all police - not only would it be mindbogglingly expensive, durability and high maintenance would make it impractical, not to mention overkill in most situations. To make another car analogy, it would be like buying a Ford F350 for picking up your groceries once a week.

I look at the F-22 as an aircraft that was born too soon. The ATF program started in 1981, but nobody anticipated the fall of the Soviet Union. So it really never had a real need. Now its technology is outdated (in terms of electronics), and the stealth technology is expensive to maintain and support. It's still an incredible fighter, arguably the best in the world.

It's like some of the pocket battleships produced between WW1 and WW2. The technology was incredible, but expensive. And by the time war actually came, they were outdated. I think the F-22 will meet the same fate (and the B-2 as well). Silver bullets that were never really needed.

I also think many of your criticisms are due to the small amount actually produced. Spares were never produced in adequate volumes, and when a single accident reduces your aircraft inventory by almost 1% it makes you risk averse.

Essentially no battleships that weren't complete by the start of the war for whichever country actually saw combat in WWII. The vast majority of battleships that saw combat were from the interwar period, if not WWI.

Also pocket battleship mostly refers to the heavy cruisers that Germany built during their rearmament program.

I think you're first paragraph is incorrect. For example, the US entered WW2 in 11/7/41, and the BB-63 Missouri was commissioned in 6/44. Missouri saw combat at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. BB-62 (New Jersey) was commissioned in 6/43 and fought at Guam and Okinawa. BB-61 was commissioned 2/43 and fought in the Pacific after being transferred from the Atlantic.

For the UK, five King George class battleships were commissioned after the start of Britain's declaration of war in 9/39. They all saw combat.

France's Richelieu was commissioned in 4/40, and saw limited combat in Dakar.

Even Japan's Yamato class battleships were commissioned before Japan invaded China.

Perhaps you meant that no battleships that weren't laid down prior to the start of WW2 saw combat?