Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

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> without mentioning a single reason why Finland selected the F35A

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. )

Are there any jet fighters available to buy that Finland would be the only operator of? I'd assume all other options would be operated in their country of origin at the very least (eg Gripen in Sweden, Rafale in France...)

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.

> any jet fighters available to buy that Finland would be the only operator of?

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].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_JAS_39_Gripen

I'm such a fan of the Gripen. It's significantly cheaper to operate than the F-35, with around 4 to 5 Gripen flight hours for the same cost as one F-35 flight hour. While it doesn't have stealth capabilities, it does have over the horizon radar, can carry the Meteor air-to-air missile which has a 100km range and was specifically designed to operate in a "distributed and de-centralised" manner; that is from rough, but still paved, runways and highways.

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.

Yep, and especially for smaller countries with smaller air forces and budgets, having more Gripens makes more sense than having fewer but more expensive F-35s. The risk of not being able to properly maintain them down the line and ending up with 3-4 operable planes is too high for the advantages of stealth (which IMO comes more into play when on the offence, which Finland probably won't be anytime soon).

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.

> maybe Mirage 2000s

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.

> The Ukraine war will be won through stocks and new production.

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.

> 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.

The thing is, Russian economy is in shambles. The only major trading partners they have left is China and India... and the West won't ever open up unless Russia at the very least leaves the occupied territories, which leaves the Ukrainians free to focus on regaining Crimea.

Some countries can be hellbent on self-destruction if they feel their "national pride" is being offended.

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.

Don't be so sure. Trump wants to "end the war" by cutting off help to Ukraine and force them to "negotiate" with Russia, i.e. surrender their territory. Orban is making things harder than necessary for EU to show a united front against Russia. Who knows what the political reality will be in a few years if the war continues then, too many wants things to go back to normal even if that means appeasing Putin.

> only… China and India

For Russia at least, wouldn’t that be plenty enough to get by on?

It is not a given that, if Putin is ousted, his replacement will stop the war. While there are factions that are not keen on the war (many of the oligarchs that have interest in trading with the west) , there are some others (the warlords) that are even more hawkish than Putin, and seeing as he is very careful to please them, they have a lot of power.

> Stopped being produced 15 years ago.

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.

> The risk of not being able to properly maintain them down the line and ending up with 3-4 operable planes is too high for the advantages of stealth (which IMO comes more into play when on the offence, which Finland probably won't be anytime soon).

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.

Small, high-GDP countries like the nordics are also likely to rear a small amount of the high-quality pilots required for operating fighter jets. Maximizing those pilots by putting them in exquisite, high-end aircraft, with strong interoperability with aircraft operated by close allies (in this case most of the rest of NATO), makes a lot of sense.

It's crazy that Finland is OK with only being able to fly their planes 20 minutes a day. I get they are so fast that intercept from takeoff isn't much longer than intercept from up in the air but still...

> 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.

With or without pilots?

I think with pilots would amount to, in practice, a declaration of war from Sweden to Russia. So that's not going to happen. And since Sweden applied for NATO membership, it's not even a theoretical possibility at this point I'd say.

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.

Are those numbers still accurate? F-35 was a lot more expensive early on and a lot of number comparisons are stuck on those early production numbers rather than later ones.

I took the estimate from the Wikipedia page where the 2021 cost comparison numbers show a x4.5 difference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_JAS_39_Gripen#Operational...

> While it doesn't have stealth capabilities

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.

You make it sound as stealth is a boolean value. Stealth is not that easy. It depends on many factors. Stealth from whom, when, systems, where, and how much.

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.

Yes, but whatever improvements in radar will happen in the future, if they can see a stealthy jet twice as far, they can see a non-stealthy jet twice as far too. If the window of vulnerability of a stealthy jet goes from 2 minutes to 4 minutes, the one for non-stealthy could go from 20 minutes to 40 minutes. You still want the stealthy jet.

Its trickle down economics effect is certainly not stealth! Its not stealth from satellites either.

Ironically, you're the one treating stealthiness as a boolean value here:

> 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!

Exactly, sorry if I did not use the right word (not native english speaker). I did not know that "keep" was so binary. With keep stealth ability I meant that it may not keep all it's properties to the same degree as today and some of them can decay. For example as you mention about the distance for detection from a single radar in normal flight.

Note that Czechia, Hungary and South Africa have much older Gripens which are not relevant to this conversation. Czechia is moving to the F-35 instead of ordering the Gripen E.

Only Sweden and Brazil ordered the new Gripens.

I think it's a little bit relevant because it still gives a hint of how SAAB performs as a partner, which is very important for such an advanced weapons system, but I'll upvote you.

FWIW Czechia asked Gripen to keep its plane until 2030.

Yes. But those are the old Gripens, not at all relevant in this conversation.

Tangent: Why is Brazil buying a modern fighter. Don’t they have the capacity to produce something of their own?

> Don’t they have the capacity to produce something of their own?

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.

Yeah, this. Smaller countries can easily wind up holding the bag with less-widely adopted defence procurements, and without a wider community of users investing in the platform and its parts ecosystem it can become a sustainment nightmare.

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.

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