The F-35 has been used in combat by American forces for the first time.

A F-35 at an airshow. AFP.

The F-35 has been used in combat by American forces for the first time in Afghanistan. AFP. The planes used were the Marine F-35B VTOL variant launched from the Amphibious Assault Ship, Essex. The F-35 has first been used in combat in Syria by the Israelis but this is the first strike conducted by America. The F-35 program has come under massive criticism due to high costs and performance issues. 

My Comment:

With all the other news outlets exclusively covering the Kavanaugh hearings I thought I could write about something else. I don't really have any more to add to the Kavanaugh story so this post about the F-35 will have to do instead. 

We were, of course, beaten to the punch. Israel managed to launch the first combat mission for the F-35 in May of this year. They struck targets in Syria with the plane and all accounts state it was a successful mission.

Indeed, that missions was a much better test of the F-35 than this mission in Afghanistan. In Syria there were air to air defenses and hostile jets that could have intercepted the F-35. I don't know if the mission succeeded because the fighter was able to evade those defenses or because Syria and Russia didn't want to provoke an incident with Israel, but either way those fighters were in much more danger than the F-35's that struck in Afghanistan. 

It is good to see the F-35 finally being used by the government that paid for it. The F-35 was a huge boondoggle and there are real criticism of the platform, but we are kind of stuck with them now. We might as well get some use out of them. 

The actual attack in Afghanistan was not very notable otherwise. It is only one of hundreds of strikes targeting ISIS and Taliban targets in Afghanistan. It is only notable because it was the first time the F-35 was used. 

That being said it sounds like the attack was a success. Had it not been it would have been an extreme embarrassment for everyone involved. How that would even happen would be beyond me. I guess their could have been a crash or something but it's not like there are any Afghan air defenses.