We stuck to library paste and paint chips in my day, As I stated before at my level if could not fly off a boat and drop some bombs or put some warheads on foreheads it was not going to do me much good, It had a lousy bomb load as it was. It was how ever a pioneer for the technology that todays aircraft have. It was a start.
I was on active duty when the Air Force was forced to go public with the airframe after Panama. AF never intended for it to do ground support in support of say a platoon in contact, That's where my viewpoint stems from. As I mentioned before is is an amazing piece of pioneering technology and it's not a bad thing that it is earning it's keep. Rumor mill at the time was that there was weird things (Not just the MIGS) flying up there in Nevada and if you saw anything to remember that you saw nothing.
Those F-117s brought as much (perhaps more, as they could carry 2 GBU-27s or GBU-31s.) loadout to a fight as a Harrier could, minus the gun.
It allowed those attack airplanes to get to you.
There are some great Americans who laid it on the line, going into downtown Baghdad on night 1, with nothing but the promise that our stealth tech worked to keep them safe. My old man is friends with
Dale Zelko. I've been lucky enough to have a few conversations with him over beers at barbecues and what not and got to hear some of his stories. The one that stick with me is when he talked about night 1 in Baghdad. He said it was like flying into the heart of a finale at a fireworks display on the 4th of July over Washington, DC. "I hope this (yet unproven in combat) stealth stuff works against the 5th largest military in the world." Those dudes on night 1 had giant brass balls that needed a wheelbarrow to walk out to the airplane.
Everyone is useful, everyone has their role to play. If one part fails, the rest of us are going to have to work extra hard to pick up the slack.