I thought all were going to be built in Australia. Australia has an accomplished ship building Industry with submarine experience. Its a mistake not putting nuclear reactors in them but the public hates the idea. The RAAF is ga-ga over the F-35 and I trust them more then I do Carlo Kopp and his 2 hours flight time in an F-18.
Future wars will be won by stealth aircraft. The first airplane to get a shot off without being detected will win and most air wars will be won by strike aircraft anyway. Besides the current lot price for F-35A isnt much more then for a Super Hornet and a Growler is much more expensive.
The RAAF Growlers have our latest AGM-88E Advanced Antiradiation Guided Missile which has the addition of a MMwave seeker so even if the enemy radar is turned off the missile will home in on its radar return. The AARGM extended range missile is in the works and will fit inside the F-35 carriage and its said it will have double the range of the AARGM putting it in the 150+ mi class. Thats far, far outside the detection envelope of the best Soviet radar systems. Its said the S-400 can't detect the F-35 frontal until at most 30 mi out which means the S-400 is in SDB-ll glide bomb range before it knows the F-35 is even there, let alone a HARM missile with an 80 mi to 150 mi range.
And getting a target lock for the AAA missile itself is even more difficult.