4 ms·

There are other NATO jets outside of the US manufactured ones - Rafales, Typhoons, soon Gripens.

by sofixa 4y ago

psychphysic 4y ago
This is a side note, but are you absolutely convinced Sweden will join NATO?
- sofixa 4y ago
  I'm an optimist and hope that Erdogan will finally lose the next election, and thus there will be no more political blocking of Sweden joining.
  - miroljub 4y ago
    Why do you expect the next government will somehow be better for Sweden than Erdoğan? 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.
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      In the end, Erdogan's opposition to Sweden is mostly related to Sweden granting asylum to Kurds, and Sweden can't (and won't) extradite them because Swedish law forbids them to. 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.
      - chii 4y ago
        turkey knows they are in a position to extract more concessions out of sweden (and the US). Sweden wants to be in NATO more than NATO truly need sweden, and turkey knows it. 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.
    - psychphysic 4y ago
      Similarly I suspect any Turkish leadship would place a high value on it's relationship with Russia. Turkey feels safe already with respect to Russia. But increasingly slighted by Western attitudes.
  - rswskg 4y ago
    Erdogan is going nowhere sadly.
actionfromafar 4y ago
If it wasn't for the need to do your part in the alliance, of which the US is the most powerful member, then Finland would probably choose Gripen, hands down. The Gripen is basically designed for Finland by virtue of being designed for Sweden. Ground crew of 3, can land and depart with regular roads, reload-refuel in 15 minutes, low fuel consumption etc etc. Even with Sweden within NATO, Sweden would be a small industrial-military partner and the US a big one.
- gggggg5 4y ago
  > can land and depart with regular roads 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.
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    > Building runways is cheap? 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.
Phiwise_ 4y ago
The Rafale, Typhoon, Gripen, etc. are not comparable to the F-35. The F-35, beyond being a purpose-built stealth jet, is almost as much an electronic warfare platform as it is traditional multirole fighter. The tech is as much on sale as the ability to fly is; 35's software, sensor suite, etc. is famously advanced. Neither can really be substituted for the other; the US' own A-10 and F-15/16 modernization projects failing to really keep pace demonstrate this. This is why SaaB had to throw in two GlobalEye AWACS platforms with their offer of 64 Gripens to match LM's 64 F-35s (and Boeing's 14 EA-18Gs with their 50 FA-18Fs). 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.

There are other NATO jets outside of the US manufactured ones - Rafales, Typhoons, soon Gripens.

by sofixa 4y ago

There are other NATO jets outside of the US manufactured ones - Rafales, Typhoons, soon Gripens.

psychphysic 4y ago

This is a side note, but are you absolutely convinced Sweden will join NATO?

sofixa 4y ago
I'm an optimist and hope that Erdogan will finally lose the next election, and thus there will be no more political blocking of Sweden joining.
- miroljub 4y ago
  Why do you expect the next government will somehow be better for Sweden than Erdoğan? 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.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    In the end, Erdogan's opposition to Sweden is mostly related to Sweden granting asylum to Kurds, and Sweden can't (and won't) extradite them because Swedish law forbids them to. 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.
    - chii 4y ago
      turkey knows they are in a position to extract more concessions out of sweden (and the US). Sweden wants to be in NATO more than NATO truly need sweden, and turkey knows it. 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.
  - psychphysic 4y ago
    Similarly I suspect any Turkish leadship would place a high value on it's relationship with Russia. Turkey feels safe already with respect to Russia. But increasingly slighted by Western attitudes.
- rswskg 4y ago
  Erdogan is going nowhere sadly.

actionfromafar 4y ago

If it wasn't for the need to do your part in the alliance, of which the US is the most powerful member, then Finland would probably choose Gripen, hands down. The Gripen is basically designed for Finland by virtue of being designed for Sweden. Ground crew of 3, can land and depart with regular roads, reload-refuel in 15 minutes, low fuel consumption etc etc. Even with Sweden within NATO, Sweden would be a small industrial-military partner and the US a big one.

gggggg5 4y ago
> can land and depart with regular roads 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.
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  > Building runways is cheap? 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.

Phiwise_ 4y ago

The Rafale, Typhoon, Gripen, etc. are not comparable to the F-35. The F-35, beyond being a purpose-built stealth jet, is almost as much an electronic warfare platform as it is traditional multirole fighter. The tech is as much on sale as the ability to fly is; 35's software, sensor suite, etc. is famously advanced. Neither can really be substituted for the other; the US' own A-10 and F-15/16 modernization projects failing to really keep pace demonstrate this. This is why SaaB had to throw in two GlobalEye AWACS platforms with their offer of 64 Gripens to match LM's 64 F-35s (and Boeing's 14 EA-18Gs with their 50 FA-18Fs). 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.