Why Finland Selected the F-35A (2021)
corporalfrisk.com
corporalfrisk.com
It's very typical of tech people to think we know more than domain experts.
A hint they got from the world of software development clearly... :-)
"...At extremely high altitudes, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps’ versions of the F-35 jet can only fly at supersonic speeds for short bursts of time before there is a risk of structural damage and loss of stealth capability, a problem that may make it impossible for the Navy’s F-35C to conduct supersonic intercepts...
The Defense Department does not intend to field a fix for the problem, which influences not only the F-35’s airframe and the low-observable coating that keeps it stealthy, but also the myriad antennas located on the back of the plane that are currently vulnerable to damage, according to documents exclusively obtained by Defense News...
...The F-35 Joint Program Office has classified the issues for the "B" and "C" models as separate category 1 deficiencies, indicating in one document that the problem presents a challenge to accomplishing one of the key missions of the fighter jet..."
[1] - https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/06/12/supersonic-speeds...
Those two countries do not do carrier ops, why would they care about this at all?
/flamebait
To contribute something productive: I'm actually often pleasantly surprised how non-IT people with relevant experience often show up on HN comment threads.
/s
"The number of major F-35 flaws is shrinking, but the Pentagon is keeping details of the problems under wraps" - https://www.defensenews.com/smr/hidden-troubles-f35/2021/07/...
"“Details of [deficiencies] — even unclassified [deficiencies] — are not publicly releasable because the information is operationally sensitive, and its release could be detrimental to U.S. and international war fighters operating F-35s worldwide,”... Seal noted that all remaining critical deficiencies are classified as category 1B issues, which represent a “critical impact on mission readiness.” The more serious category 1A problems indicate a risk to the operator’s life..."
"...In June 2019, Defense News published an investigation into the F-35 that detailed all 13 category 1 deficiencies on the books at the time — the first and only time a full list of F-35 critical deficiencies has been publicly released."
Since Finland selection was done way before, how many of these were disclosed to them?
I would build F35 over the weekend in Rust.
Or is it a NATO member that’s anti-NATO? But in that case I can’t imagine that the government provides a lot of anti-NATO propaganda…
Because those weren't the deciding factors. Cost and maintainability were. (It's implied that the planes were close enough in capability that the "gate checks" were just that. Gates. Not goals.)
Finland didn't want to end up with another Betamax fleet.
I think it's the other way around. Technically, the F-35 has been superior all along, but it used to be expensive.
Now, with the cost coming down, the reason NOT to pick it went away.
Also, the data would be from simulations. Outside of Ukraine, there haven't been many fighters of advanced nations shot down in decades.
Terrain maps beyond a certain resolution are classified. As I remember, the somewhat lower resolution terrain maps were still ITAR controlled munitions. Some of the radio propagation models are classified.
Even half-way decent simulation outputs are likely also classified.
In my case, for the most part, the simulations were used to shorten the turnaround time in the early prototyping stages, and also a fair amount for the sales team to sell military hardware to governments.
The topic of "spectral stealth" is complicated. It is vulnerable to systems of networked radars, among other things. It is one feature that may be very useful, but it is not a "panacea".
There is little to suggest that the Israeli F-35 was taken down by a missile; the sources involved are not especially credible. Eurasia Times, for example, is basically Russia Today (RT) and is not really trustworthy. Most of the posts elsewhere, e.g. Quora, are from questionable accounts and aren't credible either.
It's possible it happened and they're spinning it as something birds -- which is pretty lame and damning if true -- but most of the pro-shot-down points are difficult to take seriously.
If true, I don't think it necessarily presents the F-35 poorly. But it's only a rumour. And if true, it most likely would be classified as secret, since reporting it would be like handing the enemy a damage assessment report.
If a country’s Air Force is getting in fair fights, I’d suspect either they are in pretty dire circumstances, or they have some questionable decision making going on!
There are at least three within the first tenth of that long article alone that I read, namely:
* the most boring factor, simply the sheer amount of F-35s sold is a huge benefit. As has been stressed from the outset, Finland can’t afford to be the sole operator of an aircraft
* Lockheed Martin provided a unique tailored solution to Finland – one described in their BAFO-press statement to “includes many opportunities for the Finnish defense industry related to the direct manufacture and maintenance of the F-35 that have not been offered before.”
* Which brings us to what has been the most controversial aspect of the program: cost. The acquisition cost has come down nicely,
I'll grant it's a badly written article for clarity and it's hard to pick the details out from the noise and fluff but it's simply incorrect to claim that not a single reason was mentioned.
( other than on the technical grounds that more than "a single reason" was provided in the article. )
Those don't have stealth of course and having Russia as a direct neighbor it's much more likely they'll see combat against an advanced military (much more do than western Europe) so I can imagine they wanted that advantage even though it's not perfect.
The concern isn't being sole operator at time of sale, but decades down the road. The Gripen, for example, is used by Sweden, South Africa, Hungary and Czechia [1].
I really wish they'd send a couple of squadrons of Gripens to Ukraine, because I think they'd be the perfect aircraft for that theatre.
Agree about Ukraine too. Sending highly sophisticated jets that will take months to learn is wasting Ukraine's time - Gripens, maybe Mirage 2000s, MiG-29s make the most sense.
Stopped being produced 15 years ago.
> MiG-29
Ukraine can't get new ones.
> Gripens
Could be an option, but available only in low numbers.
The Ukraine war will be won through stocks and new production.
Ukraine can't afford a dead-end platform. Especially because "sending highly sophisticated jets that will take months to learn".
The F-16 is probably the best option, still being made, but much more importantly, available in large numbers, thousands of them out there.
Or on the diplomatic table. While I agree it is a good thing to send Ukraine all we reasonably can, it is a nonzero probability Putin gets into hot water and ousted - bad health, pissed-off bureaucracy, domestic protests once he's forced to conscript people in central (ethnic) Russia.
Ukraine being a part of Russia is a mainstream opinion in Russia. It's a core part of Russian propaganda abroad and has been so since the 1800s (Novorossya).
I'm not saying it's impossible, but a new leader will adopt many of the nationalist tropes.
Russia completely leaving occupied territories, especially Crimea, diplomatically, will be extremely hard to do.
And Ukraine without Crimea will always be exposed. It's too easy to choke off their maritime access without it.
And European messaging is... strongly in favor of Ukraine but at reduced/no cost for Europe. So in practice European messaging is actually weak.
There are quite a few big European economies that would want to open up the Russian economy again. Conflicting interests are still fighting it out and we can't be sure which side will out. It could very well be that the winning political side in the West says a chopped up Ukraine is sufficient at the end of this war.
We'll see, it's super hard to predict.
For Russia at least, wouldn’t that be plenty enough to get by on?
Doesn't really matter when there are hundreds in stock (recently decommissioned or soon to be decommissioned) - they're faster to deliver than ones that are yet to be produced.
> Ukraine can't get new ones.
They don't need new ones, they need flying ones, yesterday. The proposed swaps with various NATO countries like Bulgaria sounded like the best option - Ukraine gets jets they can fly today, and the other country gets an upgrade for their help.
I guess, it really depends on your threat model.
If you assume that Russia is the main threat, and assume that what's going on in Ukraine is what future combat would likely look like, forward deployed SAMs are the main threat to aircraft. I have to imagine that advanced stealth capabilities would really help Sweden maintain an air capability in such an environment.
From what I understand, the Ukrainian airforce has taken a pretty severe beating (understandably). Heck - the Russian airforce has been pretty limited as well - they do run sorties, but they aren't exactly operating with impunity.
With or without pilots?
But even without pilots, and crewed by Ukrainian pilots lacking training on the system, I think the ability to lob 100 km range missiles over the horizen, has to be worth something.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_JAS_39_Gripen#Operational...
That makes the Gripen a non-starter for picking a new aircraft to base your air force around in 2023. Stealth is now the single-most important factor, bar none. Non-stealthy aircraft are sitting ducks to a wide variety of threats.
> it does have over the horizon radar, can carry the Meteor air-to-air missile which has a 100km range
Yes see this is the kind of capability that allows stealthy aircraft like the F-35 to completely obliterate a Gripen at long range, with the Gripen never having a chance of even detecting the F-35. And of course the F-35 has long range air-to-air missiles for it too.
There is a probability (only indirect rumors) that F-35 can already be detected in some situations on some systems (global eye?) and there is definitely no guarantee that F-35 will keep it's stealth ability in the future.
> there is definitely no guarantee that F-35 will keep it's stealth ability in the future.
Of course as radar and computer systems improve it's likely that stealthy airplanes will become detectable from farther away, but they're not just gonna lose their stealthy characteristics entirely, in a boolean manner!
Only Sweden and Brazil ordered the new Gripens.
Not really, and even if they did, it might not be worth the effort. Instead they got a super attractive technology transfer deal from SAAB.
For example, Australia became the sole operator of the F-111 from when the USAF retired it in 1998, until the RAAF retired it in 2010. The Australian Army also found itself in the position of sole operator of the ARH variant of the Eurocopter Tiger, a situation which lead to severe sustainment issues and exorbitant per-hour flight costs (estimates of up to AU$34k), and eventually lead to the 2021 decision to replace them with Apache Guardians.
The question is how they are going to be used in practice, with everything that entails. The decision also includes a gamble on how the platform develops in the future, and how adversary's capabilities develop.
If Finland joins NATO, it makes sense to combine air forces[5] in Scandinavia, in which case I can imagine there's a lot of benefits from having the same airplane as one of the other members. Obviously that w as not a direct consideration back when the decision was made, but surely some of the people involved were eyeing close cooperation in Scandinavia if shit hit the fan.
Regardless, I imagine Finland has had a chat with the Norwegian Air Force about the plane, which feedback should be highly relevant given the similarities between the countries. So far from what I've read the Norwegian Air Force seems quite happy with the F-35.
[1]: https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/f-35/f-35-glob...
[2]: https://www.tu.no/artikler/norske-flygere-har-for-forste-gan...
[3]: https://www.ffi.no/aktuelt/podkaster/16-slik-har-ffi-forsket...
[4]: https://www.f35.com/f35/global-enterprise/denmark.html
[5]: https://www.nrk.no/trondelag/luftfartssjefen-vil-ha-felles-n...
Heck they were figuring out how to operate in Thule this month.
But yeah, seems like it's definitely not an issue these days.
[1]: https://www.f35.com/f35/news-and-features/north-to-the-futur...
[2]: https://alaskapublic.org/2023/01/23/the-air-force-is-swappin...
And yes, you spent your money with friendly nations.
This is a NATO buy in.
"All warfare is based on deception" - Sun Tzu
For example, the F22 has a slower top speed than the F15 (although higher non-afterburner speed).
Speed also provides an energy advantage against SAM's and very long range ATA missiles.
The F-35 can probably go faster than the stated top speed of M1.6, though, if surivival depends on it. I would guess its real top speed is around M2, similar to an F-16.
No it's not.
Modern US doctrine favors early detection and long range engagement by missiles.
What would a US carrier group do to stop a large group of Tu-160, Tu-22, Mig31 and similar aircraft armed with anti-ship missiles with ranges that in many cases exceed 1000km, and some of which are supersonic or even hypersonic?
If the carrier is several 1000 kilometer from land, maybe F35's flying CAP + any additional scrambled fighters may provide enough protection.
But the closer the carrier gets to land, the more vulnerable they may be.
What kind of missile would you use against these bombers, and at what distance?
Now keep in mind that the enemy can stay in the air for a while far within their friendly airspace, and then suddenly start a dash towards you at a speed of Mach2.
In cases like this, I would believe that having a few F-22 around (possibly from land based air bases in the area) would be a good addition to the fighters on the carrier, simply because the F-22 could much more easily dance with the enemy bombers as they were repositioning.
What now? A Kinzhal will probably fly that far, but it won't hit a moving ship at that distance.
Kh-55 has a similar range, but lower speed (sea-skimming, though).
Then there is the Kh-32 with operational range stated as 600-1000km.
And then there are plenty of missiles of ranges from 300-1000km.
Also, China is actively developing similar systems.
I suppose it's classified at what ranges these systems would be able hit targets such as carriers. But if they're able to at all, it would be at rangers much beyond what you can defend against with aim120/aim160 missiles.
RIM 161/SM3 would provide some protection, but they are probably not very accurate at the extreme ranges, especially if targetting supersonic attackers.
Which means that interceptors may be the best option. Against large groups of enemies, the speed of the interceptor is still relevant, and there are certainly some in the Navy that worries about the loss of the F14, in particular in the Pacific.
For now, I suppose it makes sense to have some F22's and F15's in the general area where such conflicts could take place.
Which may be true in a land attack role, but is obviously not the case in an anti-ship role (if that capability really exists at all!).
Realistically, you'll be very happy if you hit a target 300km away with current anti-ship missiles.
If it has any kind of ability to home in on the ship based on radar, sattelite or similar, it shouldn't matter much if it's fired from 200km or 2000km. And even less if it carries a nuke. Even at 40kn, a ship doesn't go THAT far in 3 minutes.
Of course, if it's not performing per specification, it wouldn't be the first time for a Russian weapon system. So it makes sense to take the claims with a grain of salt.
The main point, though, is that in some places, it's hard to protect important assets from all angles against enemies that are a lot faster. This may not be all that important in Eastern Europe. It might be more important in the Arctic, Middle Eastern or Pacific theatres, though.
At the very least, speed allows each plane to patrol a larger area in relatively remote places.
The F22 is an air-superiority fighter. To quote Wikipeda interceptor role is mostly dead:
> the strategic threat moved from bombers to intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Dedicated interceptor designs became rare, with the only widely used examples designed after the 1960s being the Panavia Tornado ADV, Mikoyan MiG-25, Mikoyan MiG-31, and the Shenyang J-8.
I'd note the most recent of any of those is the Mig31 (operational since 1981, production finished in 1994). It's worth reading combat reports from Ukraine against the Mig31 - where it is being used in an air-superiority role. There the big advantage of the Mig31 is its R-37 missile (range 200+ miles).
The F-22 can go faster and further than the F-35. It's also more maneuverable and a touch stealthier. (The F-35 has better tech, is cheaper to build and operate and can carry more armament.)
Than the F-22??
It's also unlikely the projected numbers are ever going to be acquired simply due to the fact that projected budgets and reality don't usually agree.
Particularly during R&D you can kick and scream as much as you want to deny reality about things. At some point it will set in that while the F-35 does in fact exist as an aircraft, it isn't practical, meets none of it's objectives and may actually be operationally inferior to existing aircraft.
If you don't believe me read any of the DOT&E reports on the F-35. Even they mention that for things to work out would require the F-35 program to suddenly go from never meeting any of their own objectives to meeting 100% of them for the forseeable future.
My personal projection is that acquisition is halted in the next few years and in less than 20 years the available aircraft will be in storage in Davis-Monthan or a similar facility.
Most nations want to hang onto that technological edge as long as feasible.
The "multi-role" thing is what made developing and debugging the F-35 such a pain.
However, that seems to be paying off as now it gets manufactured in more and more volume.
Not so much the multi role part as the fact that it's really 3 different aircraft that they tried to make as similar as possible.
Had they only made the F35A, with the rules of F35B and C covered by other planes, then it would probably be either cheaper or more capable in some ways.
In a dogfight I do not think that there is an aircraft on this planet that can compete against an F-22. The F-35 is no slouch, either, but the F-22 is the alpha predator.
That would be…impressive, actually. But I doubt any variant of the F-35 has demonstrated takeoff, vertical or otherwise, without fuel, though I suppose if you were extremely generous with your definition of “takeoff”, the F-35C might be able to, given its CATOBAR capability.
The F-35B is STOVL (Short Takeoff/Vertical Landing), not VTOL (Vertical Takeoff and Landing).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW28Mb1YvwY
Lockheed Martin says of the video: "An F-35B test aircraft completes its first-ever vertical takeoff (VTO) at NAS Patuxent River, Md., on May 10, 2013. While not a capability used in combat, VTOs are required for repositioning of the STOVL in environments where a jet could not perform a short takeoff. In these cases, the jet, with a limited amount of fuel, would execute a VTO to travel a short distance."
The F-35 comes with a bunch of other technology that make it truly formidable. The cost has also come down substantially, so it’s probably the cheapest option out there as well.
Mind you, eventually this will be correct... just it's been declared prematurely for 60 years and so this still may not be the correct moment to say so.
> The F-35 pilot just needs to point their head towards the enemy to lock on.
Missile performance won't be equal in this case; if the enemy can launch missiles with higher pkill, well..
The enemy COULD pop out from just behind the mountain/hill in front of you, and force you to have to resort to short ranged (FOX 2) missiles or even guns.
Still, though, this is not enough to prioritize extreme agility over stealth today. The F35 is more than agile enough for the few times this occurs, especially if there is a wingman around.
My understanding is that the "dogfighting is over" rhetoric stopped being proven wrong during the Iran-Iraq war, when Iraqi fighters started mysteriously exploding in the sky during operations.
If you can safely entirely rely upon on IFF and deconfliction, all is great.
If you ever have to close to identify targets, then you might end up with some significant maneuvering, etc. Of course, the F-35 isn't terrible at this, and stealth and efficiency lets it better choose the terms of this engagement.
A naval variant capable of carrier landings of the F-22 was considered by the US Navy but was ultimately not adopted. The airframe is definitely capable of it, if given sufficient military and political will.
For example, lets see what Bayraktar MIUS will be doing.
Someone will eventually produce an aircraft to rival the 5th gen capabilities of the US, but it hasn’t been done yet. Every competitor so far has been theater. Meanwhile, the US is actively developing and testing 6th gen combat aircraft.
But aircraft tech, yes - absolutely. The US knows how to build impressive planes. But stand-off ballistics and drones are now the better bang for the buck.
What do you mean “ballistics”? Ballistic missiles? If so, then, sure, Russia has much longer range conventional SRBMs than the US (though that should change this year, with the PrSM coming online), which has largely (until comparatively recently) focused on manned aircraft abd cruise rather than ballistic missiles for the same use.
> But stand-off ballistics and drones are now better bang for the buck.
In the specific tacrical environment of the Ukraine war, they may be, given the inability of either side to achieve reliable air superiority. Certainly, as terror weapons against civilian populations it is true.
More generally, that's less clear.
Ukraine is not the United States military, and is not being armed with its full complement of weapons for very specific diplomatic reasons. Whereas Russia has been free to unload all it's conventional weapons as it sees fit.
The problem is: what exactly do you bomb? I.e. what is the battle-related purpose of this machine?
Bombing tank formations would, of course, make sense, let's say if you encounter a formation of 10-15 tanks a F-35 sortie would make sense. But then the enemy adapts and starts only using tanks in "solitary", so to speak, or at most in "pairs". Does it make economic and operational sense to fly and risk a F-35 just to destroy two tanks? I don't know.
The same goes for enemy artillery. Does it make economic sense to risk a F-35 sortie just to try and take out howitzers scattered over the entire front line? I think it doesn't, for example the Russians have been reasonably good at taking NATO-sent M777s just by using counter-artillery or Lancet suicide mini-drones (orders of magnitude cheaper than a F-35, excluding the opportunity costs of losing an airplane pilot's life).
Of course, F-35s would be best in destroying civilian infrastructure related to the enemy's war effort behind the front-lines, stuff like power transmission units, bridges, railways etc, meaning what NATO did in Serbia in 1999 and what the Allies tried to do against Germany in WW2. But, again, it's much cheaper to do it with cruise missiles (the Russians have also proved that that is doable during the current war in Ukraine), ignoring the fact that it might not work (the Germans carried out producing war stuff until the early months of 1945, despite the very heavy aerial bombings).
I think the US military has been the victim of its own success in the first Gulf War, when indeed air superiority allowed them to get the Iraqis out of Kuwait with almost no losses on the US side. But the second Gulf War proved that once the war gets more complicated (in that case when it got close to Baghdad and to populated centers) then relying on airplanes alone is not enough.
If there's a war in 5-10 years with china, will drones be fighting on the battlefield, maybe preventing the us' billions in fighters from doing things?
If I were an accountant for the US military, yes, I would do that. But, of course, things are a lot more complicated, because if they have built it they'll have to use it, you can't go in front of a Congressional budget commission and say that it doesn't make sense to use a F-35 when the F-16 can do the job just as fine, because they'll furiously ask you why did you need all that money for the F-35 in the first place.
> If there's a war in 5-10 years with china, will drones be fighting on the battlefield
Could be. Either way, I think we haven't reached the "maximum" when it comes to the use of aerial drones in modern warfare, not by a long shot. Partly also because of institutional reasons, when you've spent so much money on a project like the F-35 you don't ask your best military minds to think too much about drones so that you could best employ them on the battlefield, you ask those bright minds to put the F-35 to use (because a general's future career prospects depend on it). This would only get alleviated by the US having to fight a real war, when, supposedly, those institutional motives would be overcome by the reality of war.
About a possible US war against China I can't comment much because I don't know the situation in that geographic area all too well. It is my understanding though that the US is preparing for a war over the vast area of the Pacific, a repeat of their WW2-campaign if you wish, but I'm not sure China will fall into that trap. But this is pure unsubstantiated speculation from me, time will tell.
You then use your vast fleet of less capable planes to ramp up sorties, provide air support during combined arms operations, etc. You can still use your magic airplane for protection of those assets during sorties, and for strike missions on high-value, high-threat targets.
That is why it is not a problem to have 'few' expensive magic planes. The US only had a hand full of U2's and SR71's, because you're not doing spying runs over Russia 10x a day.
That works for a very short war, like those in Iraq/Kuwait in 1990-1991 and in Serbia in 1999 happened to be, meaning it was cost effective to have invested so much money in the far more superior US planes because the wars in themselves were short (so the US got a good ROI out of using those advanced planes).
But what to do in case of a war that spans over an entire year or more? (like the current war in Ukraine). The marginal utility of those first debilitating air strikes carried out by advanced planes goes down quite rapidly, nobody cares after 12 months of intense on-the-ground war if some airfields behind the front have been blasted just as the war started, most probably those airfields have already been repaired.
And there's also the opportunity costs. The money spent on developing a very advanced plane like the F-22 could have been put to better use by investing in the US's artillery shells-making industry (of which the West has not enough of right now), artillery shells which provide a much better ROI during a 12-month land-war compared to an advanced plane.
It's all a matter of what future wars the US plans to get into and how it thinks those wars will actually develop.
Then you've already won. Tanks are by far most useful on offense when concentrated. Individual tanks can not break through infantry lines, if the infantry has any amount of anti air weaponry attached.
> The problem is: what exactly do you bomb?
F35's main responsibility would be to ensure air superiority, by keeping the air free of enemy aircraft (including any medium to large drones) and by supressing and finally destroying enemy air defences.
Once that is achieved, they can be used for any kind of traditional CAS or go hunting enemy artillery positions. When on the defensive, aircraft are superb at limiting enemy mobility, by attacking trains, convoys bridges and rail heads.
Also, and espeicially in large wars where satellites are likely to be shot down, having aircraft over a warzone provides a huge intelligence advantage. Even when out of bombs, the aircraft can use cameras and data links to send coordinates for enemy artillery, bunkers and tanks back to HQ or to friendly forces.
And obviously, once air supremacy has been achieved, all the 4th gen aircraft can also join in the CAP/Ground Attacks/Interdiction missions.
> it's much cheaper to do it with cruise missiles
This is not true. Cruise missiles are quite expensive when compared to bombs. A tomahawk missile costs $2M per unit. By comparison, a JDAM bomb costs about $25K. Even when including aircraft maintainance, fuel, etc, bombs are an order of magnitude cheaper than cruise missiles.
> But the second Gulf War proved that once the war gets more complicated (in that case when it got close to Baghdad and to populated centers) then relying on airplanes alone is not enough.
The second gulf war was primarily a TV war for public opinion. The best approach to wars where you're not willing to use the amount of force necessary to win it, is to not fight it.
fwiw, if you're looking for a particular kind of strike target, the F-35 is widely regarded as the USAF's most credible SEAD/DEAD platform. It's suitable for a wide range of other roles, but SEAD really sets it apart.
The F-35 was designed to be a mass produced aircraft that (1) could be exported widely without risk of leaking too many secrets and (2) reduced absolute performance and features based on a more pragmatic cost-benefit analysis where it only needed to be good enough and not the best possible. Economies of scale factored greatly into its design.
Supersonic flight without afterburners (supercruise). In theory, at least, that should be a huge advantage on either side of an interception scenarios.
Using F-16 the baseline, Rafale is 30x smaller, F-35 is 600x smaller and F-22 is 6000x smaller. So there's a factor 10 in favor of the F-22 when compared to the F-35. On top of that F-22 is said to be more optimized in all directions, while for the F-35 the focus was more on the frontal RCS, so the F-22 overall average RCS is probably even better.
Europeans will note that in terms of RCS, the 4.5 Gen moniker of Rafale/EF is well deserved: halfway between an F-16 and an F-35...
[1] Figures gathered from this thread: http://www.air-defense.net/forum/topic/20630-rafale/page/202...
When it WAS in production, it was 2 decades ahead of anything else. Had it been the F35 in production at that time, it too would be illegal to export.
You might think history proved Gates wrong, but no air power can compete with what the US has now, sans the F-22, and it would have been very expensive.
For example, a war with China, if it happened, would be most expected around Taiwan; how would F-22's reach the fight? There are no airbases nearby, except on Taiwan which would be innundated with missile attacks. The F-22 doesn't fly from aircraft carriers (which are imperiled by China's missiles regardless). The US needs a longer-range fighter in the Pacific, to cover the vast territory without bases.
Also, the F-22 afaik doesn't integrate with the new network-oriented joint force, where every asset is a sensor and node on the network, all sharing and a view of the battlefield. It doesn't integrate with 'wingman' drones, now the concept for at least part of the Air Force, where human-piloted planes control several drones.
Instead, the US spent that money elsewhere at the time, getting a better return on investment, remains in the lead now (with F-35's), is building a bomber for the China contest (B-21's), and designing a new fighter.
True, same with the Seawolf-Class Sub's, just too expensive for the "now"-state. However i think with china, the US has to go back to the far-ahead-tec doctrine....fast...
The F-22 was a pretty radical departure from what came before it, and I think it served as a prototype for all the subsequent next generation platforms from which many things were learned. As good as it was, you aren't going to get everything right the first time and technology progresses.
Would an f-35 with awacs support beat an f-22 with awacs support in Beyond visual range combat?
It's not going to have next-generation stuff like Multifunction Advanced Data Link. I assume that's because of its older avionics, and because it has been deemed not worth upgrading because of its age. [0]
It's not my area of expertise but it's probably accurate to say that the F-22 is stronger than anything at its specialized, traditional air superiority mission but it will be left behind when it comes to flying alongside drones and other interceptors. The F-15EX and F-35, along with unmanned drones, will be able to do amazing things in concert by communicating with one another over their network. That is a different paradigm.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multifunctional_Information_Di...
That's a big factor for countries that can't afford BOTH air superiority and ground support craft.
F-35 is just... a pretty good airplane for a pretty good price.
It's still probably the Ultimate Fighter.
Also, it's not operating alone. Wherever there is an F22, you should expect to also find other assets, including the F35. The F22 is just the tip of the spear, to be committed when it's speed or manouverability is required.
Edit: One thing the F-35 has that the other planes don't: Interoperability across basically all NATO nations and beyond. And it is the most up to date, and still in volume production, model.
The only thing the F-35 has a decisive advantage in is STOVL capability. Everything else is compromised to achieve the "one plane fits all" vision; the F-35 is a jack of all trades, master of none.
It's like you give zero credit for either stealth or that fancy radar, which are pretty important in a modern air superiority role.
F-15 and F-18 are not better at air superiority. The latest flavor of F-15 can still hold its own against other 4th gen aircraft but it will struggle against 5th gen aircraft. This has been demonstrated many times.
The F-35 can carry much more weapons payload than any of the 4th gen aircraft you mention and has more range. That on its own is a huge win, stealth and sensors notwithstanding.
You don’t seem to understand the criteria against which military aircraft are judged.
Yet we keep flying it in the face of repeated attempts to retire it, with the USAF even going on the record that the A-10 will be kept in inventory "indefinitely"[1]. The A-10 is clearly not obsolete and continues to proudly serve the USA and its friends and allies, and enjoys much adoration from its pilots, mechanics, infantrymen, and civilian fans.
>F-15 and F-18 are not better at air superiority. The latest flavor of F-15 can still hold its own against other 4th gen aircraft but it will struggle against 5th gen aircraft. This has been demonstrated many times.
The F-15 has suffered no airframe loss to enemy combat action in its entire service history, that is a feat not easily met. The USAF even went as far as to procure new F-15s, the -EX model, because F-35 production wasn't keeping up.
As for the F/A-18, the Hornet boasts superior flight range and payload capacity besides being significantly cheaper, to say nothing of its proven air superiority and multirole capabilities.
>The F-35 can carry much more weapons payload than any of the 4th gen aircraft you mention and has more range. That on its own is a huge win, stealth and sensors notwithstanding.
That is patently false. The F-35 must sacrifice what little stealth it has to carry more payload, otherwise it can only carry a small handful within its internal weapon bays. Even accounting for carrying payload on its wing pylons, it still can't hold a candle to the other fighters; the F-15EX in particular can carry patently ridiculous payloads.
As for range, it pales in comparison to air superiority fighters (eg: F-15C/D/E/EX, F-22) or 4th gen naval fighters (the F/A-18C/D/E/F).
[1]: https://archive.ph/20170912212105/http://www.theaustralian.c...
Is that the reason? I thought it was the need to counter the Chinese strategy of mass producing fighters with an idea of overwhelming western fighters through sheer weight of number. F35 is weak on per hour running cost and uptime per unit, and loses to the F15 variant if you are looking to scale.
The f35 can operate in a similar role to an e8 alongside a mix of cheaper aircraft.
> F-15EX in particular can carry patently ridiculous payloads.
But also this. Which touches on F35 being very complicated to develop for, and taking ages to integrate weapons vs F15s. And some operational considerations like not wanting to retrain F15 pilots.
Look at USAF 4+1 for next 15 years of procurement. Basically F35A, F15EX, F16CD, A10s and +1 being F22s that will be replaced by NGAD.
Read between the line consideration is F35/F22 was made for Europe/RU theatre, lacks range in PRC theatre without tanking, which are vunerable to J20s with longer range and air to air. Hence NGAD being mid sized bomber, and acquiring 100 B21s that cost as much as 1000 F35s.
>Adding new F-15s was not an Air Force idea, but instead came out of the Pentagon’s Cost and Program Evaluation office, or CAPE, and was endorsed by former Defense Secretary James Mattis. While the Air Force’s long-held position has been to invest only in fifth generation fighter technology, it has defended the plan to buy new F-15s as a way to maintain fighter capacity, given the aging of the F-15C fleet and the slow pace of F-35 acquisitions.
>While the Air Force is adamant that buying F-15EXs will not reduce the requirement to build 1,763 F-35s, history and the Air Force’s own budget request suggests otherwise. The 2020 budget submission shows the Air Force buying 24 fewer F-35s over the next five years compared to last year’s plan.
Further reading: https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/f-15ex-vs-f-35a/
Because the US has, in the past decades, not waged a war against a near-equal opponent who could have held together any kind of air force or air defenses for at most the first few days of a US invasion. In all of the US wars since the A-10 might have been obsolete against a near-equal opponent, it was more advanced than the mass of opposing tech, and could be used well. For counterinsurgency, the cost of actually modern tech is more of a problem, given that the cheap old stuff is still far superior to anything a Taliban commander can put in the field, and given that guerilla warfare has as it's aim not tactical victories, but increasing the cost to the bigger party into politically untenable regions.
It is very much obsolete in the sense that the US also requires air capabilities for large, near-equal conflicts, and there is no unsurprising way for A-10s to be useful there. In summary: keep enough A-10s around for CAS against outclassed opponents, but don't plan on having enough to take on China, seems like a wise strategy.
FYI your argument was going so well until you employed this fallacy. What GP does or doesn't understand is entirely irrelevant, not to mention that mind-reading is forbidden, not really, but it is also fallacy. Only what is stated is relevant. Now if you'll just accept this, I actually do not want to argue. I was hoping you would not mind answering my questions, because I do not understand.
> It would get wrecked against any modern air defense environment.
Obviously, we have a modern air defense, and the F-35 and F-22, among other elements, are a part of it. Who else does? Russia? North Korea? China? I'm just curious who threatens our 50 year old technology. IOW, besides our allies, who has 4th and/or 5th gen aircraft that we need to shore up against and not let them wreck our jalopies?
> The latest flavor of F-15 can still hold its own against other 4th gen aircraft but it will struggle against 5th gen aircraft. This has been demonstrated many times.
same question, who, other than our allies, is operating 5th gen aircraft that we should be concerned about? I'm not making any point. I really don't know. Appreciated.
In the specific case of the A-10, it was designed for a world that had extremely primitive sensor systems that couldn’t even reliably lock onto a plane when looking straight at it. We aren’t in that world anymore. Not only is the terminal guidance sophisticated and reliable but the warheads are designed specifically to destroy aircraft like the A-10. Everyone has had 50 years to work on that problem.
Modern Russian and Chinese systems effortlessly deal with an A-10; it lacks the power systems to support modern counter-measures against modern systems. It isn’t upgradable like that because that wasn’t a design objective.
Modern military aircraft like the F-35 have critical combat roles that don’t involve dogfighting. Their sensor suites and processing capabilities are at least as important as any other particular feature, and other aircraft don’t have that. Their systems can measure and exploit their environment to an astonishing degree.
The Ukrainian air force with mostly su-24's and su-27's should not exist or even be able to operate against Russia's supposed air defense capabilities(s-400, s-300, Tor, manpads) but war is almost always a battle of information and the stealth and network capabilities the F-35 has puts it a league of its own. One which only the f-22 could transcend but the raw number of F-35's being pumped out negates that advantage to a degree
one side has untouchable radars and AWACS.
At what altitude? Earth isn't flat, so even at 20km and superb electronics you don't see what happens near the ground.
Though probably someone already published their routes, but I too lazy to check, honestly. Still my point stands - As can be downed (and everyone would clap, especially in the US) while Es "NO YOU DONT THATS ARTICLE 5"
Over distances of 600km the vertical offset due to earth's curvature is about 20km. If it flies at it's operational ceiling of 14km, it can offset most of that but wouldn't have direct line of sight on planes at extreme range flying below 6km. If it has over the horizon capability though, which honestly seems highly likely for a recently updated system, then it should be able to compensate for the remaining shadow with some loss of resolution. Which I'm guessing is why it's estimated range is considered 600km. I'm sure the military analysts making those estimates know about these effects.
Anyway, southern Ukraine can be directly radar imaged from over Crimea so it's really not an issue. It's petty clear Russia can have full radar coverage of all of Ukraine without having to put their air radar assets close to Ukraine.
It is of course possible Ukraine might decide to try a long range anti-air strike, but I think that's unlikely due to the possibility of hitting a civilian plane, or the target coming down on a civilian area.
The only nation that is a realistic threat to Finland, is Russia, and against Russia, the F-35 is a near-perfect aircraft.
By having F35, Finland also has much improved capabilities to interoperate with Nato nations. If the US needs to reinforce Finland's air bases, US planes can be serviced locally. Or if Finland is being overwhelmed, their fighters can fall back to Norway, Denmark or Germany.
Apart from operating costs, there are very few disadvantages to the F-35.
If the F-35 has any of its weapons though, then the F-16 gets pasted by a missile the F-35 fires whenever it wants because it can essentially shoot behind itself.
In reality the F-16 gets killed without ever knowing it's being tracked.
The A-10 is better at close air support
That doesn't leave you with many viable use cases.
But yeah... if you've wiped out your enemy's air defenses (or they never had them) including man-portable rocket launchers and all they've got left is a column of unarmored trucks then absolutely, the A-10 going to be devastating.
The Gun [1] penetrates 76 mm armor at 300 m range, which would surely hurt a bit. I'm not sure how successive rounds interact with thicker armor, but would hate to be the one to find out on the ground. :/
I find it almost hard to believe that it can fire 65 rounds per second, where each round weighs almost 400 g, and all of that while flying. It's an incredible piece of Very Angry Engineering.
The US Army is even on the record that they would fly the A-10 themselves if the USAF retired them[1], which played in to USAF keeping the A-10 "indefinitely".
>Sources say the Army is interested in obtaining A-10s should the Air Force decide to retire the twin-engine jets, which have been flying since the 1970s.[1]
The A-10 is adored and respected by our service members, so it's absolutely not obsolete and not retiring any time soon.
[1]: https://archive.ph/20130915210441/http://www.defensenews.com...
Thinking of it, do yoi think attavk helicopters are obsolete as well? Or MBTs? Just because there arebportable missiles out there that can hurt those?
The answer? Don't use fighters vulnerable against modern AA against modern AA.
Benefit of the A-10? Lower speed, longer loitering in CAS, something quite valuable in combined arms. And faster than attack helicopters, so A-10s can move faster between mission sites.
It is almost as if certain tools have certain use cases.
And tgat an organization as large as the US military
might what to have those tools for all the use cases
they might run into.
So people who point out the A-10's weaknesses aren't saying the A-10 has literally no value at all, because it clearly does. They're questioning the cost vs. the alternatives.
Benefit of the A-10? Lower speed, longer loitering in CAS,
something quite valuable in combined arms. And faster than
attack helicopters, so A-10s can move faster between mission sites.
1. Are willing to challenge the US military in direct combat
2. Can't scrape together $100K for a rocket launcher
3. Don't have sympathetic allies that will be happy to give them rocket launchers for free in order to harass the US by proxy
USAF already investigated and answered that question: The F-35 was slated to replace the A-10, but the plan was axed in favor of keeping the A-10 indefinitely upon finding the operational risks and costs of flying the F-35 for CAS missions were not feasible.
Among the problems noted were: More dollars spent per flight hour, higher airframe cost (both in dollars and potential technology leakage) assuming an airframe loss, inferior protections afforded to the pilot, inferior airframe robustness and sturdiness, inferior payload, inferior flight range (and thus loitering time), and too fast minimum airspeed.
In fact, the F-35 was slated to replace the A-10, F-15C/D and potentially -E, F-16C/D, F/A-18C/D/E/F, F-22, and AV-8. The only aircraft the F-35 has thus far successfully replaced is the AV-8 owing to STOVL being a unique and niche capability. In all other cases the F-35 has at best complimented the preceding aircraft, and at worst failed as their replacement.
Yes, the A-10 is insanely superior for CAS, for all of the reasons you mentioned. If your enemy is so impoverished and cut off from allies that it doesn't have dirt cheap MANPADs or anything else from the last several decades of anti-aircraft technology.
There are of course mitigation strategies for AA. Combined arms are a thing. SEAD is a thing. Utilizing weather/darkness/terrain is a thing. Cutting your enemies off from arms shipments is a thing. Hammering them with CAS until they have proven they can actually thwart it is a thing.
It's just that a lot of those mitigations start to break down when your foe's AA is "a dude carrying a cheap, essentially fire-and-forget portable weapon who can duck back into a cave, a house, or a literal hole in the ground and instantly blend back in with the populace or otherwise become effectively invisible."
This isn't theory.
You can see countless examples for yourself of Russian choppers and slow (but faster than A-10, I think) Su-25 getting absolutely wrecked in Ukraine in exactly the manner I have described. As a result, the fight has largely turned into a ground war with Russia chucking missiles at Ukraine but only from safely within Russian airspace. And this is Russia's military we're talking about; they have copiously demonstrated that they're not particularly concerned about the casualties they're racking up. The US tends to be far more conservative and risk-averse.
You can say that the US would utilize combined arms, SEAD, etc more effectively than Russia. I'd agree; it'd be hard to do much worse. But the fundamental reality is that AA (particularly against unstealthy foes) has gotten really good, really cheap, really portable, and much harder to suppress.
F-15E Strike Eagles, F-16C/D Fighting Falcons, F/A-18C/D/E/F Hornets and Super Hornets, B-1B Lancers, B-2 Spirits, and US Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles among others are perfectly capable of performing the alpha strikes necessary to severely damage and destroy enemy defences and infrastructure and clear the way. A-10s along with other "vulnerable" CAS assets like the AC-130 Spooky and US Army AH-64 Apache then perform their missions with impunity.
It could be, if necessary, spun back into production. It would be very expensive and take time, at least $50B to produce 200 more and a few years to get restarted, but it's not like it would need to be designed again. We know how to make them. The issue seems to be the concern that future threats will make F-22 a poor match, and that it will compete financially against new programs that may be a better match. But who really knows what the threat will be in 2035? Maybe the F-22 is just right, and if it is and we need more, we'll make more.
I think in reality spinning up production again would essentially be a new fighter based on the same core design, maybe reusing a lot of the parts.
The Eurofighter could of course carry and drop US nukes. The issue is that it would need US cwrtification to do so, and for rather obvious reasons that certification was close to impossible to get.
Again, the F-35 is a great plane. There are reasons so why it is not not even for the USN and USAF, only one.
Edit: The reason for the outcry over French nukes is not that they are French, but rather the need to change the laws around nuclear participation to allow the switch. And that legislative changes would lead to a ton of public debate everyone wants to avoid, as this debate would kill nuclear participation in general. So nobody in governmant wants to take this risk, hence the procurement of a US platform to replace the aging Tornado fleet as a carrier of US nukes.
And the French, which excluded their nukes from NATO oversight, might actually be reluctant to share them with Germany. Using Rafales insteads of Eurofoghters might helo, but then Germany is in the same position it is with the F-35. With the added "benefit" of a potentially hurtful public debate.
But German defense policy is built around self-defense and coalition defense: NATO, EU, UN. Nuclear weapons are opposed by Germany, and it's only because NATO is viewed as essential that nuclear sharing is accepted. Most Germans don't know about it though. A bilateral (FR-GE) extension of nuclear policy would be politically unacceptable to Germany, and require extensive legal change.
I think the German acquisition of F-35s is a bit subtle. The Luftwaffe always wanted to buy F-35. I suspect they stalled the subject of the Eurofighter nuclear certification (which would take a good ten years) to force the German government to buy F-35s to keep its commitment to nuclear sharing. The whole thing happened at a time where the ministry of defence seemed disorganized and plagued by scandals. To be coherent with the Eurofighter policy, nuclear certification should have been a top priority ten years ago...
The relationship between the German government, the Luftwaffe, the US industry (and Lockheed...) and the German aerospatial industry has always been complex, and Germany has often been keen to use allied programs to avoid internal defense industry problems, with more or less success. See the Starfighter article on Wikipedia for the most egregious example.
With the German industry stalling the French-German-Spanish fighter project, I also suspect that they'll plan a similar manoeuver with the Eurofighter replacement.
The main pain point in all those large European defence programs is industrial workshare, especially between France and Germany and within Airbus between various sites.
You need an extensive set of avionics to control and arm the nuke in the plane which add substantial cost and aren't designed for/integrated into all aircraft.
Which begs the question, why didn't Germany collaborate with France on nukes where they could be a more or less equal partner, compared to the US where they would always be the subservient party with little to no control?
De Gaulle wanted sovereign control of any French nuclear deterrent and did not trust that, if it came to it, the US would put itself on the line for Europe: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_139272.htm - presumably, for similar reasons he did not want any dependence on allies, even ones closer in location and likely part of the same conflict.
The US did actually help the French nuclear programme once it started going, under the reasoning that multiple nuclear-armed NATO members is better than one.
I presume that they require US launch codes (and the F35 has a kill switch?). So what is the use for Germany?
The fear in Europe (confirmed by Westpoint graduate Mearsheimer long before the Ukraine war) is that if Russia strikes a single city in Europe, the US will get second thoughts and not retaliate. Germany then cannot retaliate either, so what is the point?
This is the reason for France to have its own nuclear arsenal and fighters.
The deal does mention "opportunities for the Finnish defense industry related to the direct manufacture and maintenance of the F-35..." which I'm not sure exactly what it is. I thought the US and Lockheed were extremely reluctant to this kind of transfer.
In addition, this is an F35A vs Gripen E, so the Gripen has a better STOL capability, likely better radar (rotating GaN), more mature avionics link, supercruise, similar RCS (apart from frontal, it's likely to be smaller, red flag exercises hinted that they were not really detectable) and faster software updates.
WRT stealth, if you want to be stealthy you can't use active radar, only passive. As such having IRST capability in addition to a good datalink is extremely useful to detect other aircraft. The F22 has no IR capability so is at a disadvantage in BVR from that, similar for the F35 which (I think) only has a downward targeting IR.
From a reliability perspective, the Gripen is a long way ahead, the duty availability F35s is probably 70% at best by now (2019 figure was 50% https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/defense/2019-06-16/q...) mainly due to parts shortage. The F35 still can't fly in stormy weather due to lightning strikes etc.
I've no doubt the F35 can be a capable aircraft, just not compared to it's competitors. The decision, as usual, is more a political one.
The Austrian Eurofighters can fly and operate without those keys, they just won't be able to join NATO Link-16 networks or other encrypted NATO communications or navigation networks. This is standard practice for all modern combat aircraft, incidentally, as encryption keys are rotated on a regular basis and need to be loaded into the aircraft's onboard systems before flight. The data can also include additional interoperability elements such as TDMA slice allocations in the case of Link-16.
The reason it has to be done by the unnamed contractor is because Austria is not a member of NATO, so it can't be given control over key handling. The same is true for Sweden & Switzerland.
It's a logical tradeoff. Austria, Sweden, and Switzerland get access to encrypted NATO networks and can therefore interoperate seamlessly with NATO forces, but they're always free to opt-out. Sweden for instance has fall-backs to national data links and communications networks to which only it has the encryption keys.
STOL capabilities https://www.saab.com/newsroom/stories/2020/august/gripen-des...
Radar, note that's I'd said it's an estimate, based on the fact that it's the first GaN radar and has a wider FOV https://www.saab.com/markets/india/gripen-for-india/technolo...
More mature here means has been around longer in one from or another, since the Viggen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_37_Viggen
Supercruise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercruise
RCS is an overall estimate, certainly not from the front as the F35 is designed as a strike fighter, but with a smaller plane, the RCS may well be similar elsewhere https://www.globaldefensecorp.com/2021/01/07/gripen/
Fast software updates https://www.saab.com/newsroom/stories/2021/january/gripen-so...
Anyway, this is missing the point, which that it's difficult to trust a platform that you don't have the source code to, have to use a parts management system that phones home, and a system that uploads flight data back home. Ownership in this case means having the ability to independently run the aircraft without reliance on other countries' benevolence. In that capacity, whether your adversary is Russia, or some other country is irrelevant.
>STOL capabilities https://www.saab.com/newsroom/stories/2020/august/gripen-des...
Who really cares about STOL capabilities of the Gripen? Unless you're on a small island, you can build longer runways.
>Radar, note that's I'd said it's an estimate, based on the fact that it's the first GaN radar and has a wider FOV https://www.saab.com/markets/india/gripen-for-india/technolo...
Gripen E's radar being better than that of the F-35 is certainly an unique take. The AN/APG-81 has a 71.4% bigger aperture than the ES-05. While the ES-05 does benefit from reduced power consumption due to the GaN transistors, it still has significantly lower peak output power than the AN/APG-81.
Wider FOV is nice, but the AN/APG-81 can see further. AN/APG-81 is the better radar out of the two, and also offers better EW capabilities than the ES-05.
>More mature here means has been around longer in one from or another, since the Viggen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_37_Viggen
I believe the word you're looking for is "older", even though "more mature" sounds nicer.
>Supercruise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercruise
The Gripen E can only supercruise according to SAABs very own original definition of "supercruise", and so far there's been no indication that it can do so while carrying weapons.
>RCS is an overall estimate, certainly not from the front as the F35 is designed as a strike fighter, but with a smaller plane, the RCS may well be similar elsewhere https://www.globaldefensecorp.com/2021/01/07/gripen/
If Gripen was as stealthy as you like to suggest, SAAB would be shouting it from the rooftops. Yet, they aren't.
>Fast software updates https://www.saab.com/newsroom/stories/2021/january/gripen-so...
Meaningless marketing speak.
Anyway,
> Ownership in this case means having the ability to independently run the aircraft without reliance on other countries' benevolence.
Good luck operating Gripens without relying on the benevolence of the US, UK and Sweden.
As for the ownership question, why does it matter to Finland that have complete control over their aircraft? Why do they need to prevent flight data from being set back to the US? Most importantly, why do they need to be able to independently operate the aircraft? It's only purpose is to fight Russians, and now that they're joining NATO they would be fighting Russians alongside the US.
The article has: The principle is simple: Finland is to be able to keep the aircraft up in the air even if the borders are shut. To ensure that Finland will have an indigenous maintenance and repair capability for over 100 components (including parts of the fuselage and engine), which is based on the items covered by the industrial cooperation agreement. There will also be significant stockpiles of components that aren’t on the list of items which Finland can repair and overhaul organically (often parts with very long mean time between failures, and for which it aren’t economical to build up an independent repair capability). Notable is also that the Finnish organic repair capability is not just for domestic use, but is also part of the GSS (the global support solution) meaning that they will be used to maintain parts for the global spares pool.
Two major problems arise :
- the "aircraft carrier" or "tessarakonteres" problem : at some point your system (ship or aircraft) is too complex and costly to risk losing it in battle, even if it is supposedly very hard to defeat. And the slightest damage is very costly in terms of down time. This is amplified by the single-type problem.
- the F-35 kills your local industry and makes supply and maintenance chains complex and dependent upon US and Lockheed-Martin goodwill, including on the software side. This is one of the major points from critics, among them Boeing.
The Finland deal seems to address the last point, and seems much better than other F-35 deals with European countries.
That said, the F-35 is a revolution for US allies, even those who didn't buy it. The information flow in central to the aircraft like to no previous US fighter. A few years ago the French Rafale notably defeated every aircraft in air superiority games (draw against the theoretically much better F-22) because its information systems could be updated quickly to the local conditions.
Every US-allied Air force around the world acknowledges today that compatibility with the F-35 information systems will be the only way to carry out allied operations in the near future, like Link-16 today. If you can't do it, you'll have a very hard time showing up as a blue dot on the screen, let alone be efficient in combat. The easy solution is to buy Lockheed-Martin. However, I really think it's a bad thing in the long-term.
Even if there weren't a law still on the books banning the F-22's export, we don't have production and no one would buy one when they could have a still-in-production F-35.
People have also learned that a lot of the "experts" that criticized it were extremely noncredible (eg. Pierre Sprey) and are spouting nonsense that hasn't been true since before the Vietnam war (eg. Relevance of dogfighting and guns in air combat).
The only "American thing" that really exists in modern military history is a tendency to do more things than everyone else. The US has NIH-ed their way into pretty much every military technology that's been hypothesized by someone not wearing a tinfoil hat and raving about Nikola Tesla or Leonardo Da Vinci. The public hears about questions like dogfighting and firepower in US aircraft because the US is one of the only countries in the world whose military actively seeks out (or at least sought out, there's some argument that the F-35 is the beginning of the end) multiple home-grown variants of military equipment, especially aircraft, that are expected to compete both on economic and doctrinal value as actual service craft for continuing contracts, rather then just proving ground test beds. More chances to change preference, more chances for contracts, more argument, more buzz filtering into newspapers. In contrast, we're probably not going to talk much about if stealth is a Finnish thing or whatever else for quite some time after this. Perhaps the American thing is spending lots of money, but a full assessment doesn't really allow for more specifics than that.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/03/23/the-new-york-ti...
Sentiment has definitely shifted towards the positive viewpoint though.
However, the negative viewpoint is not unrealistic. The US can strong arm other countries into buying their crap with bribes and other under the cover dealings. Heck why do you think TSMC is opening a fab in Arizona? Because it's a profitable move? No way.
In exercises such as Red Flag, it dominates anything 4th gen.
"Stealth" is not only about being hard to detect. It's just as much about making it difficult for enemy missiles to get a lock and keep it until they score a hit.
Also, the softer (or software) elements of the F-35 is a huge part of it. Sensor Fusion makes it a lot easier to know what to do next.
Both of these are groups which exist to oppose any kind of military spending, neither of them have any relevant expertise.
F-35 is quite cheap now.
"Quite cheap now." After we already wasted trillions on it.
* Manufacturers of competing fighter jets. If enough people think the F-35 is terrible, they might vote for politicians who will nix F-35 procurement and maybe buy their plane instead. These often take the form of slick PR hits where e.g. the CBC will cite Boeing as an "expert source" about why Boeing's Super Hornet is a better choice than the F-35 for the Canadian air force.
* Russian state media, which wants to further their own propaganda narrative.
* Pierre Sprey, who has notoriously overstated the extent of his expertise and his involvement with US aircraft development in the past, and has convinced unwitting journalists (including the aforementioned Russian state media) to cite him.
A lot of things have changed over the past ten years: Pierre Sprey passed away, Boeing's credibility has taken a massive hit in recent years for a number of reasons, and the Russians are invading Ukraine which makes them pretty unpopular and Westerners much less willing to take RT and the like at face value. Meanwhile, the F-35 is in service and seems to be relatively successful so far.
Like I said, that Sprey person seems like a blowhard who got attention in the USA, I never heard of him before some YouTube videos in the past few months. The critics I remember were war reporters such as David Axe and IT specialists such as Marcus Ranum.
And by what standard did you find them credible when it comes to evaluating fighter jets? It seems like you aren’t applying a consistent standard to ”confident strangers on the Internet”, which is all those guys seem to be.
The truth is, anyone with the qualifications and information necessary to make a proper evaluation already works for a military and isn’t allowed to say much.
I live in a democracy, so its my duty to form an opinion about large controversial purchases my government proposes to make. Of course my opinion on most of them can't be an expert opinion, but it can be at least as good as my representatives'.
Neither of them have the qualifications to evaluate fighter jets. In any case….
Here’s a pretty comprehensive compilation of well-cited information from 2014 you can pore through: https://comprehensiveinformation.wordpress.com/
And here’s a copy of a story originally published by Air & Space Magazine in 2019 with quotes from F-35 pilots: https://www.jsfsim.nl/f-35/f-35-what-the-pilots-say/
I think there's historical evidence that the US used bribery to get aircraft sold in the distant past and no doubt other countries have too so it would be odd to think that political and other pressures are now suddenly non-existent because we're better human beings than before.
You cannot really even trust pilots because they will want Raybans and iPhones even when the cheaper generic sunglasses and phones do the job. They are only the top of the pyramid of people that have to look after the system.
I completely agree.
I agree with you that in a democracy it's a citizen duty to be informed of what is happening. Though in the case of fighter jets, or other high-end military systems, they are very complex and the exact capabilities (and how the military intends to make the most of those capabilities, which can vary greatly for different offerings in a tender) are highly classified. And to be fair, I'm quite sure our representatives don't know much if anything of the classified stuff either.
At least in the Finnish case, there was a procurement organization setup including, obviously, Air Force personnel but also lots of other expertise. They did a very expensive and thorough evaluation of the various offerings, including access to classified material I'm sure, before ending up at recommending the F-35. The politicians then more or less rubber-stamped the recommendation. That is not to say that politicians couldn't go against that recommendation, ultimately it's their decision. Things like industrial policy (aka jobs programs) related to major military acquisitions matter, and particularly during the cold war Finland tried to stay neutral and one way this was done was that major military acquisitions were divided between Soviet and Western gear (e.g. how Finland ended up with both Mig-21 and Saab Draken fighters). Though today if the politicians would decide to go against the recommendation of the procurement organization I'm sure that would cause quite an uproar and need some pretty hefty justifications.
How much of this was down to practicality, though? Being able to pick and choose the best gear from each side?
I'm not an expert on cold war Finland, but my understanding is that Finland was threading a very fine needle between not provoking the USSR (see Prague 1968) while still maintaining relations with the West in order to not be seen as being part of the Soviet sphere of influence (which, again, can be seen as form of insurance against a Soviet annexation). Foreign trade, and in particular major arms deals, were VERY politicised, and I'd imagine there would be a need for very strong differences in military/technical capabilities to override the political considerations in any particular deal.
Here's a great Australian-based analysis of the F-35's particular attractions for current foreign buyers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQgNwrtVoZ4
Scathing criticism of the early F-35 development process has always been entirely warranted, and the Pentagon continues to pay the price in rebuilding costs for early "production" airframes. Its also notable that the Navy is being quite, ah, deliberate about F-35C deployment; I think only one carrier is currently rated to operate them. The Marines are more gung-ho about their F-35Bs, but only the F-35A is an export success story so far.
IIRC, the most serious criticism of the F-35 was mostly not that the fighter was terrible, but that the decision to pursue the project in the way it was was terrible, that the misguided attempt to try to save money by commonality among the radically different missions of the main versions instead made each variant more expensive to develop than it would be independently, compromised capability, and didn’t solve logistical problems better than separate projects would have.
(There was also criticism based on the cost arc of manned fighter development vs. alternative technologies and countermeasures against them that in terms of funding mix, the US should have been spending more on alternatives/countermeasures and less on manned fighters including the F-35, which was an even higher-level meta-criticism.)
As for manned vs. unmanned, while unmanned technologies are clearly developing rapidly, I suspect they're not ready yet for all the manned missions. Hence the JSF project is still warranted. Maybe the next gen JSF follow-up will be an entirely unmanned platform, who knows..
Sixth generation tactical aircraft will probably be optionally manned. So they can operate as drones when flying high-risk strike missions against known targets but can also carry pilots when greater flexibility is needed.
The F-35B may have started as a Marines ask, but it seems to have become an export success with countries that aren't really up to footing the costs for catobar-capable flat-tops for modern fighter aircraft during peacetime, e.g. the UK, Japan, Italy, Korea, potentially Spain.
The Marines have also been exploring the F-35B in austere basing, EABO conops, airborne amphibious ops, etc., so it's not just carrier ops.
It has been a lead weight on the JSF development project, for sure, but the F-35B does seem to provide an intriguing capability now that it's a thing. I'm also not convinced that a dedicated STOVL project would've given a more suitable plane -- it really seems like you would want the whole stealth + advanced sensor/avionics package on your jump jet to meet needs like naval LHD-borne fixed-wing AEW/air interceptor/task group anti-air range extender, airborne amphibious ops CAS, etc. Owing to the difficulties encountered by the JSF in supporting the F-35B, I doubt it's going to be succeeded by another platform for a very long time.
Just saying that in a hypothetical world in the early 90'ies (a quick wikipedia look says that the STOVL JSF can be traced back at least to a 1992 USMC/USAF project that eventually morphed into the JSF), if it would have been decided back then that, nope, we're not gonna do a follow-up to the Harrier, then navies that are currently looking at the F-35B would have decided to either upgrade existing small carriers with catobar and/or ordering new carriers with them. And I think in that case the total cost could have been cheaper. Yes, somewhat more expensive carriers, but cheaper planes and much less R&D cost.
I don't think that adding catobar support for modern fighter platforms is viable for all of these small carriers that are incorporating the F-35B. Admittedly my understanding of the situation is very shaky, but by all accounts I've heard, the catapults and arrestor gear place very significant strain on even the US supercarriers. More countries used to operate catobar carriers in the past (such as my home country of Australia, up until the retirement of the Melbourne and a decision to discontinue fixed-wing carrier ops), which I suspect has to do with the operation of lighter aircraft from the carriers at the time. (~7t max takeoff weight for a Sea Venom, ~11t for a Skyhawk; compare to ~30t for a Super Hornet or an F-35C.) Maybe the situation has gotten better with EMALS cats, but we're yet to see this technology used to make baby catobar carriers a thing, so who knows?
The countries in question would likely need to upgrade from their ~25000t LHDs to something with at least the displacement of the 40000t Charles de Gaulle. (Not to mention that most such carriers use nuclear power for both propulsion and to power the cats and traps.) Such vessels would come at great expense, and likely also have significantly larger crewing requirements, which tends to be a pain point for middle-power navies. I also don't think a lot of these vessels would've been built bigger in anticipation of catobar requirements, as they were largely originally specced for helicopter deck and amphibious roles. The F-35B really seems like an opportunity which all of these countries have siezed upon after seeing it come to fruition.
Again, it seems like you have a case with the Queen Elizabeths, though it seems like the UK balked at the cost of fitting catobar, if that's any indication.
As to whether the costs would've been offset by savings in the development of the F-35B, I don't even think we're talking about costs on the same magnitude here. For reference, total R&D costs for the F-35 as of 2019 were $71.9billion in 2012 dollars. Building and sustaining big boy carriers for middle-power countries would've cost the JSF partners hundreds of billions of dollars, easily.
Fair enough.
As for the size of a carrier needed for F-35, the Royal Navy was apparently operating the Phantom from ~30kt carriers. They did some tests with a smaller ~25kt carrier and found that it worked in principle but required lowered fuel load etc. I had assumed the Phantom to be a really massive plane, but it turns out the max weight is around 30t, similar to a F-35, so the comparison is actually pretty close. (I would guess it would in principle be possible with a smaller ship if you'd do a WWII style straight deck and utilize the entire deck for launching and landing, though I guess that would limit operations rate too much so nobody wants to do that?)
For cost, I think I saw somewhere some estimates that the RN had calculated that equipping the Queen Elizabeths with catobar would have added IIRC ~$200M per boat. However one also needs to take into account the cost difference between the F-35 B and C variants. Searching around I found a figures from 2019 that said a B variant then went for $115.5M and a C for $107.7M (for comparison, the A model at $89M but I found newer figures from 2022 saying $80M). But if, hypothetically, the B model wouldn't exist production numbers for the C model would be higher and thus lower per unit costs. Lemme just spitball it and say $100M in 2019 for a C model in the hypothetical world without the B model. Per wikipedia the complement of a Queen Elizabeth is 36 F-35's. So (115.5-100)x36 = $558M, which is more than twice the cost of the catobar installation. Even if we assume no cost difference for the C model due to the disappearance of the B model, it's still (115.5-107.7)x36=$281M, still much higher than the price of the catobar installation. Not to mention that over the service life of the carrier probably many generations of planes would be used (or newer versions of F-35's, considering F-35 is expected to be a very long-lived platform).
I guess the crux of the argument is really what about those navies that want to operate baby carriers. If we assume a ~40kt Charles de Gaulle is about the minimum you wanna have for a 'proper' catobar carrier (maybe ~30kt if you really stretch it?), that leaves out all those 25kt helicopter carriers and whatnot.
There are no competing stealth aircraft capable of naval deployment. China is developing what appears to be a stealth fighter for their aircraft carriers, but I don't know how soon they will be deployed.
NATO.
This is a way to pony up money in a way that would be appreciated if Finland joined NATO.
It's the killer feature of F-35 and F-22 and heck modernized F-16s.
I suppose it's hinted at. Finland can't find and maintain an air force alone...
Stealth simply isn't as important as one would think so long as you're not running missions into enemy territory.
If they climb to power, they will still need to compel to hardcore nationalist population, in case of Sweden even more than Erdoğan, since they will need their social credit for topic they find important to them and won't burn it because of Sweden.
And if the opposition candidate wins, he will be busy repairing all the mess Erdogan did to Turkey's foreign relations - even if the nationalists in the coalition will whine, they can't afford wasting more political good-will for a couple hundred Kurds.
Eventually turkey will concede, but not before squeezing every drop of advantage they can obtain. It doesn't really matter who's at the top in turkey - the incentive dictates the behaviour.
Turkey feels safe already with respect to Russia. But increasingly slighted by Western attitudes.
Even with Sweden within NATO, Sweden would be a small industrial-military partner and the US a big one.
This is worth way less than it sounds like. Building runways is cheap.
> The Gripen is basically designed for Finland by virtue of being designed for Sweden
Sweden wanting to prop up their domestic industry does not mean that Gripen is the best fighter jet for Sweden.
I don't think you understand. Sweden always planned to fight a contracting, losing war, eventually devolving into partisan warfare.
If I recall the Cold War plans correctly, one of the more realistic plans prepared for 3-4 weeks of war before being overrun and partisan warfare starting. The road-as-runway plan was critical for this, there would be no time to build anything, just keep everything flying and attacking from surprise locations for as long as possible. The submarine force tied into to this also, with its ability to stay submerged for 3 weeks.
The whole idea was never for Sweden to really win, just to make the Soviet win so momentally Pyrrhic they would think twice about an actual ground invasion. From a military standpoint, we never hoped for our major cities to be spared nukes. We counted on them being bombed to oblivion day one.
Try building runways when all major infrastructure and the country is in total chaos. That's why there were arms and fuel depots everywhere, with everything from missiles down to submachine guns.
Edit: and you say propping up defence industry as if insinuating it's just a boondoggle. When it comes to geopolitics, it's not. It's the only way to have total control of supply chains and constant upgrade of arms.
Gripen may have become something of a boondoggle over time, but it was born from the Cold War and still traces most of its design goals from that situation.
The idea of Sweden being overrun in 3-4 weeks is a bit absurd anyway, perhaps it's just not a reasonable assumption to start building upon.
>Edit: and you say propping up defence industry as if insinuating it's just a boondoggle. When it comes to geopolitics, it's not. It's the only way to have total control of supply chains and constant upgrade of arms.
Well, that's not what I was insinuating. But since you bring it up, the Gripen isn't exactly a great example of "total control of supply chains". That's a big part of why nobody wants to buy it, if you're going to deal with ITAR you might as well buy the F-35.
Regarding ITAR and such, I can only agree, except "might as well". F35 is more expensive and complicated to operate, Gripen is surprisingly expensive per airframe. But I think they still are very different systems good for different things. And as the Cold War wound down, Gripen became more of a pure industrial project. Still, for Sweden and Finland, it looks like hand-in-glove.
Are they operating to great effect? The HARMs are nice, but surface-launched anti-radiation missiles would be both far cheaper and more resilient than Gripens.
Presumably in a "partisan warfare" scenario, you wouldn't be worrying about stuff like Shahed drones destroying your infrastructure either.
> F35 is more expensive and complicated to operate
It does provide advantages for that money, and certainly has a brighter future than the Gripen E which nobody will buy.
Destroying runways is cheap and easy, look at Ukraine
> look at Ukraine
Go on, give me some actual examples. What sort of cheap missiles are used to cause more than a few thousand dollars worth of damage to runways in Ukraine?
Make a hole in tarmac, until it's fixed it can't be used, by the time it's fixed it can be targeted again.
It's all nice and easy when you attack third world countries with no real army from aircraft carrier but when a high intensity conflict with a real military power begins you can be sure most of your airports will be targets, which is exactly what happened to Ukraine, not even 2 weeks in the conflict: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/russia-ukraine-war/russian-forces-h...
Uh, how do you plan to use dumb bombs like that in a conflict like Ukraine?
That would require you to be able to fly right over the enemy airfield, they'd need to have no air defenses whatsoever.
You'll damage a runway at the cost of a pilot (probably $5M+), aircraft (at least $10M), and dumb bombs ($30k each). Putting your total price paid for thousands of dollars worth of runway damage in the tens of millions.
> when a high intensity conflict with a real military power begins you can be sure most of your airports will be targets, which is exactly what happened to Ukraine, not even 2 weeks in the conflict
That kind of damage is fixed within hours at a cost of low thousands of dollars at most. Russia can do only it using incredibly expensive standoff-range missiles, spending at the very least hundreds of thousands if not millions to punch a hole on a runway that takes a few hours to repair.
Eeeeh that's exactly what happened in the beginning of the conflict... they (Russia) had paratroopers in Kiev day 1
You wouldn't have any luck dropping bombs like those out of helicopters.
Finland pretty much knew who would win the testing when they selected their definition of success, ignoring the unexpected (which to be fair did eliminate two competitors); either you want the traditional fighter model with inherent low cost and you go with Gripen, or you want in on the F-35's technology platform and true multirole capability (higher payload) and you politically bully LM into delivering you a reasonable price cut (probably on the basis of US jobs in the short term, I'd guess), like the article seems to describe. And frankly, good on the Finns for doing it.
That would be a silly assumption, to buy a jet fighter and assume you'd never run missions into enemy territory. More than that, if <<your own country>> gets invaded, guess what, they put SAMs onto your territory and suddenly it becomes <<enemy territory>> :-)
That's not quite how it works. It's not like a game of Civilization II where stealth beats SAM.
The problem modern stealth aims to defeat is that radar capabilities are networked with high speed processing.
Rolling a single S-400 into enemy territory doesn't suddenly make even mig-29s obselete.
Similarly an F-117 couldn't fly over even a S-125 with absolute safety.
They'd bring in the whole shebang.
So my rhetorical question to you would be: why would you not buy a system with a reduced radar footprint, advanced avionics, advanced weapons control systems and advanced networking? Even if it's only for defensive purposes.
Heck, even if it's for flying strictly over territory you control. Advanced radars cover hundreds of kilometers as do modern anti-air missiles. They can shoot you down without even going near their direct airspace. That's what Russia is doing right now, they're taking down Ukrainian aircraft at no risk to themselves launching a bunch of R37s from deep in their territory (50-100km) from Migs Ukraine can't reach or even see.
It's just that being in with NATO is more important than equipment case in point Ukraine.
F-35 is designed for ingress into densely covered enemy territory.
The stealth allows more flexibility in approach it stops jets being scrambled along the route, it stops assets being moved in to hangars and otherwise hidden.
It means you're less likely to be flying through a valley of manpads. Who were all warned of impending jets coming in.
Flying into an enemy carrier group with airborne radar being pinged from every direction.
These are the missions Israel runs against Iran and Syria (not the carrier group) or the US may theoretically run against Russia in a world war situation (during conflict it's likely the US would be protected by heavy ECW from growlers not just stealth).
This is not within Finland's likely missions unless it's acting with NATO.
If you don't need that then there are many cheaper, easier to run alternatives.
So does Finland want an F-35 or a bunch of gripen and hundreds of manpads and ATGMs?
Ukraine has repelled Russia very effectively with just manpads, ATGMs and NATO intelligence.
All things being equal that would be preferable. If buying US weapons NATO becomes more protective then the calculus changes.
It's a lot less likely now, but Russia could have very well tried the exact same thing against Finland, in which case Finland for sure would have been running the exact same missions against Russia. Suppress Russian threats in Russia itself to protect Finnish territory.
And Finland isn't in NATO, yet. Though their luck will probably be that Russia won't be able to do anything else major for at least a decade.
Ukraine has effectively repelled Russia because it's the second biggest military in Europe after Russia, and second strongest air defence in Europe after Russia.
This is the sole biggest factor without saying which, everything else is meaningless.
It's mainly because the attrition rate should have entirely depleted the S-300 system in the first 6 months (2-3 per week during the main phase).
Ukraine is a big country and there were loads of missile attacks to defend. It's very unlikely it was able to move S-300s continuously into needed areas compared with manpads.
Yet it would have been a PR disaster if NATO admitted to supplying weapons to Ukraine before the invasion started. So MANPADs are implied to have sprouted like mushrooms in Ukraine...
Enough to shoot down each other's airforce a few times over.
> Yet it would have been a PR disaster if NATO admitted to supplying weapons to Ukraine before the invasion started. So MANPADs are implied to have sprouted like mushrooms in Ukraine..
You can’t be serious, NATO openly delivered MANPADs and vast amounts of other munitions before the war started https://www.armyrecognition.com/defense_news_february_2022_g...
https://www.dw.com/en/russia-ukraine-crisis-who-supplies-wea...
Maybe try to learn some basic facts about the subject before commenting?
MANPADs are nice to have, but it's Ukraine's own Soviet air defense equipment which is keeping Russian aviation at bay.
The focus on MANPADs really makes it hard to take anything else you say seriously. It's the 100+ active S300 batteries Ukraine had that made all the difference, not MANPADs.
It's also rumoured that some large portion of Russian losses are due to their own anti air. So coordination is difficult.
The F-117 was central to SEAD operations during Desert Storm, and the F-35 is regarded as the most credible SEAD platform in the USAF inventory today.
> NATO.
Because that's not the main reason or even a primary reason. There are a bunch of NATO countries that don't use US aircraft. Similarly there are non-NATO countries that buy the F-35 and many non-NATO countries that would want to buy it if they were able to.
For a much better breakdown on why countries would buy the F-35. This portion of this presentation by Perun is a great intro: https://youtu.be/7Z_gTGJc7nQ?t=2219
In short, because of massive scale, the F-35 is cheap despite being highly advanced.
It's about avoiding a go pound sand stance no matter the US leadership.
If you're in NATO, or have applied you're relatively cozy. What if you don't want to do those things?
Except France and Spain, they all use US aircraft or are in the acquisition phase.
BTW Spain is also considering buying the F-35.
??? Stealth has myriad applications in defensive engagements. Dont like being killed by radar-guided missiles? Stealth helps.
But the kind of all aspect high quality stealth of the F-35 only matters when you're surrounded by advanced radar capabilities.
That's high power radar and high coverage to capture scatter at different angles..along with the bandwidth (processing) needed to detect coincident events.
Most of the time you want to destroy those assets and you have cheaper jets like the F-16/18 respond to every ping with an anti radiation missile.
Like maybe when you are defending a border against waves of incoming fighters?
>> cheaper jets like the F-16/18 respond to every ping with an anti radiation missile.
If those pings are in range of air-launched anti-radiation missiles, then those launch platforms are well within the range of the much larger ground-launched sams beside those pings. SEAD with non-stealthy aircraft is a much more complex mission than simply throwing harms at pings.
Then, to launch missiles, you need to network with a distributed group sharing sensor data. This mode of operation is possible in all modern fighter jets, and capabilities are being added continually with avionics/software upgrades. This is true for F-35, but also for Rafale, Eurofighter, and Gripen.
Dodging missiles depends on kinetics, but it's possible existing Russian radar homing missiles can't lock on to an F-35. In this respect, it is has an advantage.
I expect that most or all radar guided missiles (modern and historical) can be used to engage an F-35 (or any other stealth-y aircraft). The effective engagement range will be lower than against a less-stealthy aircraft though.
Dodging missiles does not rely exclusively on kinetics. There are several ways to try to break a lock or at least temporarily confuse a missile. (eg. notching, chaff, ECM) . Having improved sensor fusion and reduced RCS can obviously make these tools and tactics a bit easier and more effective too.
It should depend on its operation. If the missile is receiving guidance updates in the beginning phase from a sensor network, and only relying on its own sensors in the final phase (if at all), then spectral stealth will make less of a difference. But older missiles and platforms can not do this.
This is the gamble of the F-35; compromise the non-updatable specs in order to achieve safety from present day known threats.
If the opponent has less accurate data when compared to the less-stealthy situation; then the opponent will have a harder time guiding their weapons compared to the less-stealthy situation. It may also be easier to spoof, dodge, and/or hide.
Modern missile systems are getting smarter and smarter no matter what, you may need to stack several advantages in order to defeat them.
The US does not export the F-22, even to NATO allies.
Did the Ancient Greeks tell anyone how to make their flamethrowers?
Since most of the cost is in the software, engine and systems, why make the airframe commonality such a big point? There could be an F-35D that would be a totally new airframe but would use everything else from the other models. There will be lots of F-35:s manufactured, maintained and upgraded over the lifespan so it would make sense to "tap into" that ecosystem. Composite manufacturing has been advancing a lot. If the structure can be uncoupled from the rest, then it would allow for better performance. The current shape of the F-35 variants is limiting their supersonic performance. One could also optimize the airframe for cost or speed of manufacture.
It might be deemed now that the airframe performance is adequate. This might change in the future as adversaries improve.
YF-23 had a narrow and deep weapons bay that was considered problematic since if a weapon jammed to the rail, it would prevent release of other weapons above it. Maybe it's also bad if you want to shoot a lot of missiles in a very short time span. The production design had a wider bay, worsening the aerodynamics a bit: https://yf-23.webs.com/F-23A.html
It would have probably been cheaper and better to design two planes, one conventional (F-35A, F-35C) and one vertical take-off. Then save money by using common parts and the same avionics.
The “selection process” in Denmark was a total sham, most of the competitors didn’t even bother submitting a bid, because it was obvious from the start that the F-35 would win.
There are no alternatives to F35.
Buying the _eurofighter_ wouldn't let them share the same platform as the _rest of Europe_? I realize that the F-35 has racked up a number of sales recently, but there's quite a few eurofighters around still, and more on the way IIRC
In the fickle Brazilian political environment, not aligning with the US might end up being a rather pragmatic move. As a politician, who knows how badly your successor will fuck up those ties?
The real reason is because the F-35 is in fact very cheap for what it does.
Please don't jump on bandwagons.
Here's a good video covering this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z_gTGJc7nQ&t=2219s
How would you know? Are you privy to all conversations between the Finnish and the U.S. government?
> there are no incentives from the U.S. to buy it
Right from the article itself:
>> However, in what is a major win for the team behind HX, Lockheed Martin provided a unique tailored solution to Finland – one described in their BAFO-press statement to “includes many opportunities for the Finnish defense industry related to the direct manufacture and maintenance of the F-35 that have not been offered before.”
Pretty much all buyers of the F-35 have been offered different sorts of kick-back deals, where they get to produce parts of the plane or handle maintenance, so the deal props up the national arms industry in some way or another. A nice boon for the politicians who can then brag about how they’re securing Finnish/Danish/Italian/whatever jobs.
Are you? How do you know they've happened?
Like how Denmark have joined pretty much every U.S. war of aggression in recent history, despite having no interests at all in Afghanistan or the middle east.
Denmark joined because the US invoked Article 5 after 9/11. It was more about making sure they're protected if they ever need it in the future, so I'd say it was absolutely in their interest. This was the first time Article 5 was invoked, not going would've killed NATO and their own security. The invasion of Ukraine has solidified their reasoning.
As for article 5, that might explain the second gulf war and/or Afghanistan, but certainly not the first gulf war, Libya or Syria.
Whenever Uncle Sam says “jump”, you’ll see all the small NATO states lining up to ask “How high?”.
No it wouldn't.
The Article 5 invocation resulted in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Assist and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Active_Endeavour, that's all.
>Whenever Uncle Sam says “jump”, you’ll see all the small NATO states lining up to ask “How high?”.
Consider that small NATO states want to partake in this stuff because it offers their forces an opportunity to gain experience.
Article 5 has only been invoked once, and did not involve any actual conflict.
"Open secret" is the news version of "Trust me bro"
What? This is pretty much standard practice across the board in military procurements. For example, as part of SAAB's Gripen bid for Canada, they would arrange for the aircraft to be produced, assembled, and maintained in Canada if the Gripen were selected. Countries do this for a variety of reasons -- yes, to bolster local industry, but also to give them a leg-up on sovereign sustainment of the platform, and so that they can ramp up manufacture to meet their own needs in the event of a war.
It's usually on the person proposing the existence of something to prove that it exists rather than on the person saying it doesn't exist to prove that it doesn't. I can't prove the lack of existence of bigfoot nor can I prove the lack of existence of aliens having visited earth.
> Right from the article itself:
> <snip>
> Pretty much all buyers of the F-35 have been offered different sorts of kick-back deals, where they get to produce parts of the plane or handle maintenance, so the deal props up the national arms industry in some way or another. A nice boon for the politicians who can then brag about how they’re securing Finnish/Danish/Italian/whatever jobs.
That's not an incentive from the US though. That's an incentive from Lockheed Martin. Which is something businesses do when they're trying to close sales with a skeptical customer and can afford to do so.
And augmented by the fact that a large chunk of Europe is going to be operating the same plane, driving down maintenance costs, sharing maintenance knowledge, reducing interoperability issues and ensuring that spare parts will be available.
In hindsight nobody cares anymore, but it was a lot of public debate and very clear the decision was political and not merit based
Hey, that has value, there is definitely a good case to be made for that. But just be open and honest about it instead of doing weird procurement steps
I think this is what you meant, but it could be misread: the former is a sign, not the cause, of the latter. They’ve had aligned security policy for a long time, which is reflected in their joint decision to choose to apply to NATO.
Last year by the time Finnish leadership and people were pretty much decided on NATO, Sweden was just starting their discourse so they had to catch up not be left behind. Now somewhat ironically because of Sweden, Turkey has been delaying and objecting the membership.
Finland has also kept with updating equipment and keeping the conscription military service these past 100 years, Sweden ended their conscription and mostly been downsizing their military.
I don't think anyone thinks an attack on Gotland was ever likely, and it certainly isn't now, but if Russia's goal was to bring back all the former states of the Soviet Union, the Baltic states are on that list. And that gets pretty difficult for those two countries to stay neutral. Finland was once part of Russia too and they have a contentious history.
Anyway, both Sweden and Finland have much to offer NATO.
However, the Gripen is certainly a very interesting aircraft, like you say, designed to be operated from makeshift airstrips and maintained by conscripts. It's also amazing how a small country like Sweden with a fairly limited budget has managed to create a competitive fighter. Though the engine and many of the weapons systems are US or European, but still. I'd like to think that if F-35 weren't available, Gripen would have been a very strong, if not the strongest, contender.
This is largely an irrelevant capability, it's easy and cheap to build lots of runways.
The Finnish as a culture are pretty pragmatic in my experience.
We now know that the Russian air force is much less capable than some believed it was.
That dozens of countries are buying fleets of F-35s also makes the practical logistics, operations, interoperability, and maintenance of the aircraft attractive. It is quickly becoming the new F-16 in terms of ubiquity in a modern Air Force.
> We now know that the Russian air force is much less capable than some believed it was.
Now the B-21 Raider (bomber, not a fighter) is probably without peer currently. That thing looks like a UFO.
It seems like the Russian air force can't carry out large operations with sophisticated aircraft, whereas NATO air forces have lots of practice at that.
There’s a reason Ukraine is asking for Patriots and other air defense systems (their air defense is degraded).
Everyone knows russia doesn't fear to lose people.
They haven't been flying to Ukraine because their pilots and "advanced" planes can be easily shot down with a regular Stinger system that costs like $40k.
It doesn't matter at all what they think, average citizen has absolutely no influence on how the government is run in Russia. Russia is a colonial power: security apparatus chiefs, billionaires and their servants in Moscow and St Petersburg form the elite, and together they plunder rest of the country.
Typical things that a person from a free country would think of don't work: elections are rigged, no point in participating. Civil society and non-governmental organizations (eg NRA, ACLU) barely exist and have no influence. Media is under full government control, no way to publish anything to wide auditorium. Courts are utterly corrupt. If you stage a protest, then the loudest ones will be dragged into a police van and beaten and raped on the spot, with screams heard by others outside on the street[1].They'll go home and do nothing, or they'll get the same treatment.
So many people in the west see Russia as "just another country", while it differs fundamentally: it never developed much beyond slavery. It never developed a free multipolar society where everyone's voice mattered through elections and all sorts of public organizations from book clubs to church groups. It never had freedom and its elite never had to listen to the people. There is simply no tradition of everyone participating in how the country is run.
Putin has sent a hundred thousand to death, and nobody will do anything if he sends a million more. He can mow down those mothers with a machine gun, and the default reaction from brainwashed population will be "I suppose they had it coming".
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CrazyFuckingVideos/comments/xmza9r/...
This is nothing new, BTW. During WWII the UK forbade the new Gloster Meteor jet fighter from flying over Nazi occupied territory, for fear that the Germans might learn something valuable from a crashed jet. It was only in the last few months of the war that the Meteors were allowed to fly over enemy territory, as by then the outcome was abundantly clear and even if a jet was shot down the Germans wouldn't have time to do anything with the information.
1) They only exist in VERY limited numbers. 2) They're only stealthy from the front. If fired at from the rear or flank, they're vulnerable. 3) Russia has very limited access to good SEAD/DEAD type munitions (like the AGM-88 that USA is using)
What the T-50 is really designed for, I believe, is to defend friendly SAMs against enemy F35/F22. When such an aircraft is detected, T-50s can come in from deep within friendly airspaces and fly directly towards the incoming F35/F22 without being detected, and then hopefully shoot them down before being seen itself.
This article and the talk by Perun don't explain why opinions changed (or why to trust the claims about low costs and great capabilities this time, when early in the program they were just puffery)
Eg. https://historyandwar.org/2015/09/11/dassault-rafale-vs-f-35...
Only a few countries can afford to have multiple types of aircraft to serve multiple roles. For everyone else the F-35 is a bargain and a technological marvel. Just buy a bunch of them and you're pretty set.
But for anytone (who is friendly with the US) that need a multi perpose fighter sooner than that, the F35 is the obvious choice today. And it may stay useful even when 6th gen arrives, just like F16's are still relevant today.
I do agree that AI fighters the future. Simply because once you engineer without human limits, flight envelopes / performance will shift in attacker favour. Anti-air missiles work by arbituaging gap unmanned and manned limits. I can see performant UAVs being magnitude more capable in dodging anti air to the point where it becomes not feasible in terms of cost and magazine depth to try to even shoot them down, especially from naval platforms, i.e. 500 VLS cells in carrier group with 30% dedicated to AA might successfully interdict 50 manned fighters and need 200 to overwhelm, but with manned fighters that might only be effective against 5 unmanned, or 20 unmanned to overwhelm. Realistically less because ships become significantly less useful if they have disproportionately focus on anti air. Basically skip job of stealth of being difficult to detect to being nearly impossible to hit in the first place. Hence airforce betting/pouring 1000 F35s worth of $$$ on B21s that's difficult to detect and fly in altitudes that's difficult to hit, straight from CONUS.
As aircraft (and particularily unmanned ones) improve, air defense systems will be likely to change to meet the new challenges.
I find it really difficult to conclude what the balance will be in that arms race (apart from the prediction that humans are not likely to be needed in every plante anymore).
For instance, it may be that lasers mounted in ships (or even large planes) may become really good at countering many of the threats that appear. Then again, that could lead to mirror coating as a counter, but that may reduce stealth, and so on.
Furthermore, the distinction between missile and aircraft can go away. We may get hybrids that have the range of aircraft, but the power an manouverability of missiles, but with very short range guns replacing the warhead, making them reusable.
Launch platforms may also change. The B21 may very well be just as important for anti-air duty as the F-35, if the right kind of missiles/air launched drones are available. The F-35 on the other hand, can act as drone control platforms, privding more advanced sensors and compute than each drone would have.
Over oceans, maybe surface ships become obsolete, but in addition to options such as lasers, rail guns and more advanced missiles, one needs to keep in mind that they can be hard to detect (if satellites are knocked out).
Subs are likely to stay relevant, though, even though they too may become unmanned relatively soon.
> ike I don't see existing fleets being overhulled for enough power generation for sustained DE use.
Ford class carriers have two A1B reactors, each capable of delivering 125MW of electricity. I believe that should be enough to power quite capable DE weapons (or railguns) when/if such reach maturity. A task force of 4 carriers would have 1GW+ between them.
> Only realistic answer to saturation missile strikes is advanced interceptors...
Any place where you can cut the kill chain will do:- Prevent them from seeing you
- Stay out of reach
- Shoot down incoming missiles
- Cause them to miss
- Survive being hit.
> IMO fighter design ...
I agree with most of what you write about fighters/aircraft.
> Space infra is heading starlink
Satellites are relatively easy to shoot down, though. In a war where carriers are sunk, I think satellites would be fair game too. And with eyes in space, spotting ships can be hard, especially if the ships are stealthy (vs radar).
> long range bombers like B21/H20 and prompt global strike
Even these rely on in-flight refueling. While better missiles may make them capable of self defence over oceans, they are vulnerable over land, where adversaries may hide using the terrain.
> going strait for strategic targets on adversaries home front
Here I'm pretty sure you're wrong. Chaina and the US will not be able to knock out each other's infra with conventional weapons with any kind of speed, especially across continents. Air defences are too effective for that, and the targets too many and too resilient.
Only after a very prolonged campaign of SEAD/DEAD followed by large scale systematic bombing could that be done. History shows that this is extremely difficult, though. (Before WW2, a lot of people were saying exactly what you say here, that strategic bombing would be MAD, but that was far from the case.)
I simply don't see such a war go on for that long without nukes.
As it looks now, the next great war may be over Taiwan. The first stage of such a war would be the invasion itself (possibly after some period of SEAD). During the invasion, the US (+UK/Australia) would use carriers, subs and land based air (Japanese islands) to try to help Taiwan. Most combat would occur over the oceans. I'm sure the US navy is quite busy wargaming this already, including how close to Taiwan they could risk placing their carriers.
If the invasion fails, naval warfare would be less relevant. Taiwan would turn into a long term unsinkable US carrier.
If Taiwan falls, and the war doesn't end, there would be a period of naval warfare. The US would seek to force China to it's knees by blocking all trade. China would have to break such a blockade to defend their superpower status (they're highly dependent on ocean-going trade for almost everything). The US might still have access to bases in Japan, the Philipines and/or some other friendly nations in the area.
In this case, it would be China (and Japan) that would depend on being able to have their surface ships survive. Eventually, i believe China would be able to retain Taiwan, but if there is a multi year blockade followed by multi decade sanctions, China might well go back to being a 3rd world country. And if China should be able to break US control over the open oceans, maybe they would become the new hegemon. Or, given their recent aggressive tendencies, maybe it would unite a large coalition against them.
Carrier escorts do the defense. Escorts won't be nuclear, they'll have power plants for DE, but again that's replacing current DDGs with DDGX, which is decades a way. You can plop some DE on carriers themselves, but the issue is fires generation, the virtue of interceptors / missiles is you can engage multiple targets, i.e counter salvo with salvo. I'm doubtful entire CSG will have enough DE to engage 100s of incomings. A task force of 4 carriers operating together is... very risky/unlikely. I don't think DE is dead end, I just don't think it's a panacea in a naval environment.
>cut the kill chain will do
Context dependent, I can only evaluate with respect to PRC scenario within 1st/2nd island chain.
- Prevent from seeing, unlikely. Prior point about space infra is constellations trending towards 1,000s with persistent coverage, impossible to shoot them all down. The answer to ASAT vulnerability going forward is to spam them until it becomes infeasible / not economical to shoot down entire network before they can be used to counter strike.
- Stay out of reach unlikely, projected future naval air operation ranges are more or less locked in (inclusive of tanking), IRBMs will out range them, i.e. they can either stay away and maybe be safe but useless, or engage and be in danger.
- Shoot down, yes but matter of magazine depth/saturation, PRC will have more firepower bandwidth than multiple carrier groups can intercept. EW/missing is a big unknown though.
- Survive, IMO redundant, I think mostly assumed modern naval hulls will survive / keep floating due to advances in damage control, but being hit will likely end in mission kill.
There’s also considerations like PRC systems destruction warfare that targets US weak points like replenishment fleets that supply carrier groups, or tankers or AWACs. Just taking out a handful of fast combat support ships basically turns entire navy into single deployment assets - carrier groups have just days of endurance operating at high tempo, carriers can still sail on nuke power, but unlikely without escorts.
> long range bombers
They're also not panacea, but in lieu of regional basing, i.e. PRC doesn't have access near the US, and US basing near PRC is not survivable, they're decent platforms to penetrate and systematically take out enemy defense networks from more survivable homelands. Especially with a fleet of 100+. Mainly "cheap" global strike options, and probably largely something the US can exploit with a good pacific tanking network... assuming survivable. PRC H20 is mainly good for up to Hawaii, but there’s a lot of US mil infra in that range (i.e. all the shit in AU) that will substantially cripple US presence. For CONUS there’s ICBM/hypersonic for….
> home front strikes
Both sides are currently pursuing prompt/precise global strikes with ICBMs for a reason - 30 minutes to take out any global strategic infra that can be hit with 100M CEP. Which includes basically all power generation infra, refineries etc that are resilient, nor are ABM/defense currently feasible, especially at scale. No one has resources to ABM thousands of strategic nodes. WW2 strategic bombing failed at forcing capitulation but succeeded in breaking the war machine. No one thought it would be MAD, which was conceived post WW2 for nuclear brinkmanship. Besides DE/JP never had a chance to strategically bomb the US - it wasn't mutual. Modern global strikes are MAD, because it's mutual, and basically the escalation rung before going nuclear. It's good not to "see" such war as possible, because that's the point, mutual vulnerability = mutual deterrence. Question who is deterred more. In TW scenario, I would argue favours PRC, since they're willing to escalate further for TW.
On TW: island would never turn into an unsinkable US carrier because US assets are not survivable that close to PRC, or JP, or SKR in shooting war. PH and west AU are increasingly vulnerable as well. That’s both a PRC perk and curse of geography, anyone close enough to try to contain the PRC during peacetime is close enough to be turned into glass during war by foremost industrial power. Regardless, whatever happens in Taiwan theatre, I think a US blockade is also increasingly unlikely, due to aforementioned homeland vulnerability. Blockading (act of war) PRC energy/calories is going to be met with PRC running blockade, or countering with hitting US energy/calorie infra - US sustains 130 refineries for fossil + derivatives like fertilizer. The blockade only works when the US can unilaterally enforce with impunity, which is true for all adversaries for the last 100+ years due to geography, hence why I think global strike that opens CONUS vulnerability is the MOST tectonic and LIKELY strategic development. PRC doesn't need to build military to match US like for like, which would take decades, it needs to credibly threaten US homeland to deter fight in first place. When the US can't unilaterally threaten PRC existentially without being threatened existentially back, they lose a lot of leverage and deterrence. Large factor in the US being able to intervene abroad is homeland impunity. Conventional global strike removes that. Something the US didn't have to contend with for any of her adversaries since the revolutionary war, and even then the threat wasn't existential.
As for the PRC reverting to 3rd world country or coalition uniting against them. Not really possible, PRC export to the west bloc likely to sanction is like 10%... it's not nothing, but survivable. The fundamental reality is that PRC is not that trade dependent on the west anymore. Sanctioning PRC will hurt most sanctioners as much, it’s not nothing, but survivable. And as the RU/UKR war demonstrated, energy producers aren't siding with the west, they'll continue flowing oil and gas into the PRC, and PRC has enough domestic merchant shipping to be sanction proof. Meanwhile PRC calorie secure (including fertilizer that can be made by domestic coal gasification) with lots of other neutral ag producers for PRC to shift to - part of reason PRC imports stupid amounts of US is trade deal after all - while western ag will end up getting transhipped with a premium.
Modern carriers are overprovisioned for electricity generation PRECISLY to keep the option open to mount DE and similar weapons directly on them. Just because destroyers were used for AA defence during WW2 doesn't mean they will have that role in WW3.
> impossible to shoot them all down
Almost nothing is impossible. And I don't even think the cost of shooting down a lot of satellites need to be very high. And keep in mind that you only have to shoot down those that are on top of the TOO. It's probably rather simple to have ground or even air launched missiles that can shoot down satellites at will.
> IRBMs will out range them
Most hypersonic missiles today have a relatively limited range (less than the range of most aircraft, especially if they're refueled in-air) Ballistic missiles are easier to shoot down and less accurate. This comes down to a cost analysis, not black/white.
> PRC will have more firepower bandwidth than multiple carrier groups can intercept.
This is correlated with range. The longer range, the higher the cost to have this kind of arsenal. Combine with improvements in both ABM's energy weapons, etc, the outcome is not given, I would say.
> US basing near PRC is not survivable,
Just because an airfield can be reached by some cruise missile, doesn't mean the attacker can destroy anything at that air field at will. What we're seing in Ukraine, is that air defences can stop a large percentage of missiles. If you have missiles of your own, you can shoot back at enemy missile launcers. If you have good bunkers, missles may not do much damage, and if you store aircraft underground or within mountains (like Taiwan is rumored to), the aircraft are even harder to kill.
Also, F35B do not rely on airfields at all. You can hide them anywhere, and they can take of from a short stretch of road.
It is NOT easy to make an area unsurvivable. The number of missiles will always be limited.
> but being hit will likely end in mission kill.
That depends what is hitting them, and where they're hit. Some hits have little effect, some sink the carrier, some put it out of action for hours, days or weeks.
> WW2 strategic bombing failed at forcing capitulation but succeeded in breaking the war machine.
Germany had a higher industrial output just a few months before the end of the war than they had in 1940/41.
The bombing certainly had an effect. It diverted resources into building AA, repairing damage, defensive fighters and so on, but it was the ground forces, in particular the Red Army that crushed Germany.
Against Japan, the submarine blockade was probably more important for the industrial output than the bombing. The nukes did make a convincing argument psychologically, though.
> for the PRC reverting to 3rd world country or coalition uniting against them. Not really possible, PRC export to the west bloc likely to sanction
I'm not talking sanctions, but a full naval blockade lasting years, probably combined with cutting rail links to Russia. China is much more dependent on trade than the USA. (Japan would suffer a lot though, if China could return the favor.)
> energy producers aren't siding with the west
In an actual war, blockade means you stop all shipping going in/out. With torpedos if neccesary. There are no oil producers that can break a USN blockade if China cannot (except for a small number of Russian rail lines).
A full convential war between NATO and China would look nothing like the Ukraine war. The economy of almost every country in the world would be wrecked due to collapsing supply chains. Living standards would fall to a fraction of what they are today. In many places, famines would erupt. And even where there'd be enough food, a lot of essential goods (such as medicines) would become unavailable in most countries not producing them themselves.
Imagine the worst stage of Covid, multiply by 5.
The worst part is that this scenario is very likely to happen within 10 years.
As someone who spent quite a long time working in the Danish public sector, often on the higher levels of public procurement, I think it's sort of fun but ultimately fruitless to talk about these processes in the public. Denmark also went with the F-35A, and we too had a lot of discussion about whether or not that was a good idea (especially when Trump then won the election and started alienating Europe). Anyway, in our procurement processens there is thousand upon thousand worth of pages detailing all the different things that goes into these decade long procurement processes, spanning the length of different governments, and it's really hard to sum things up as "this is why we chose how we chose" because it's always a bunch of different things.
Part of it is the technology, which is well described in this article. The F35 is better than it's competition. Part of it is cost. You could willingly buy the "deprecated" F18 Super Hornet which I believe was the most serious competition here in Denmark and hope that was "good enough". Or you could go with the more geo-political route of betting on more local industry to hopefully build up an European (or Swedish/Finnish) alternative in time while getting an inferior product until that succeeded. And a range of other things, but at the end of the day, in many Scandinavian countries the F-35 is going to replace the F-16, and with decades worth of co-operating with the American Airforce for training on top of the F-35 being the better project, and our countries tending to look more to American than to Europe (we speak English as our first second language, not French/German/Spanish/Itallian after all) it was likely always going to be the F-35. Even so, the process was very serious and produced a lot of documentation, and so far, it seems like one of the most successful and least corrupt public procurement processes at that scale in Denmarks history. So while it's easy to think this and that on the choice, I think it's also good to keep in mind the kind of serious work that seem to have gone into these processes in every Scandinavian country.
I guess you can now even say that it was a good choice, and it probably was. Maybe the competition, like the Eurofighter would also have seen huge improvements if it had been given the same amount of money the F-35 project did, maybe it wouldn't have.
My personal take-away from it, was how huge of a public discussion we hade about it here in Denmark when it was 18 Billion Danish Kroner. Yes, it's become a much more expensive process, but while 18 billion dkr is a lot of money. You can run a city with 60.000 citizens 6 full years for those money here in Denmark, we ended up paying the mink-farmers 19 billion dkr in "sorry we killed your mink sort of illegally because they might mutate covid". With that perspective in mind, I feel sort of silly about the public second guessing, my own included, about whether pouring 18, or even 35, billion dkr into the F-35 was better than going with it's cheaper alternatives because, well, I'd frankly rather have a bunch of F-35 than a bunch of dead mink. This last part is obviously a bit of a jest, but I think you can follow my meaning.
I guess people will tell themselves whatever they have to in order to believe in western military supremacy. How quickly we forget that the USA can't win a war and is really only good at bombing civilians from altitude.
Proper use of bribes can make any plane look fantastic to the buyer.