Micael Johansson, the CEO of Swedish company Saab, confirmed to Swedish media that Portugal and Canada are studying whether to buy the JAS 39 Gripen E/F fighter jet.
The answer? Yes. The solution, though? No.
The F35 is the overall more advanced platform. That’s simply a fact. But given the current state of the world, it is definitively the correct answer to the US’ new attitude.
The solution for the future however is pushing the two big fighter programs currently in development in the EU.
Depends. You want 20 Gripen E/F flying or 2 F-35 ? Because that’s the difference in running costs.
Running costs are the least of your concerns when shit hits the fan. The F-35 is simply more capable, there’s really no way around it. This isn’t an issue vs Russia but against China it could be.
I fail to see a scenario where Europeans and China come into direct conflict. Even if/when China invades Taiwan I don’t see the Europeans committing to the Pacific, given the Russian threat directly at home. Therefore the only real war scenario seems to be a direct war with Russia. For this the Gripen should be solid, especially with uncertainty about the availability of some capabilities of the F-35 likely depending on US support.
You’re right, but these aircraft will have a service life of at least 20 years, and who knows what the world will look like then? Russia could be a Chinese vassal by that point. Mind you, I’m not suggesting that anybody buys more F-35s, I’m just saying they are not comparable. What needs to happen is Gripen/Rafale short term and a serious fast-tracking of the FCAS.
The last sentence is the one important one. Any Plattform bought at the moment has it’s downsides. Grippen/Raffaele/Typhoon all have massive downsides in terms of capabilities, survivability, integration. They can be overcome by now, but the difference to the F35,F22, Su57, and similar aircraft will only become bigger - and that doesn’t even consider the sixth generation fighters that will enter the market during their lifetime.
So any European jet can only be a bridge for Europe finally get their fucking act together and get the whole FCAS Plattform up and make that shit competitive. Which is absolutely possible, necessary and mit be achieved at all costs.
My instincts say 20 Gripens (Sherman v Tiger comes to mind)
This is a question of capability, not economics.
They’re the same thing. War has casualties; in the long run the important thing is who runs out of stuff first.
That said, I’m not sure the cost difference is actually 10x, and the survivability difference could be quite large, especially if you’re running it out of a fixed airbase.
I’m no specialist but the f35 seems to cost somewhere around 25-44.000 dollars per flight hour depending on type, the JAS somewhere around four to six thousand.
Yep, that actually checks out. Which is interesting, because just the purchase costs are much closer together (40-50 vs. 90-110 million).
Off topic, but the f35 is still doing a lot better than older stealth planes, from everything I’ve heard. The wonders of a few trillion dollars of engineering work.
If EU does not start investing into its own fighter they will never have one as capable as the american ones.
We need to stop thinking in short-term solutions.
PS: this comment is not directly against yours. Just an addition
Yeah but wasnt f35 a joint project between EU and america
Fingers crossed for Flygsystem 2020
Gripen is actually very capable fighter jet with very modular design. It’s not as cool looking as F-35, but makes up for it with capabilities, reliability and ease of maintenance.
The F35 is so much more advanced as an operations platform that the two are barely comparable and I say this as a staunch European.
Could you explain why, please?
This was already covered in great detail all over the internet, but the main two factors are:
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Stealth. The F-35 is much harder to detect, and you can’t attack what you don’t know is there.
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Less talked about is “sensor fusion” which aggregates sensor data from the aircraft and others to give a much fuller view of the situation.
Sensor fusion is something that any 4.5 gen fighter is capable of. Cool HUDs and XR is just marketing bling. It doesn’t really matter. Scale, sensors, ew, range, load and cost benefit matter.
F-35 is good if you need first strike tactical nuke capabilities today. Or small carrier capabilities. However, modern sensors can probably catch your F-35s quite early on anyway. The extra stealth might be good if you’re fighting goat herders with Soviet AA and radars from the 50s. But hey, then you can just go for an upgraded F-16 with some fancy EW.
Any rational state actor should skip 5th gen, push their 4.5s to the limit and go for unmanned gen 6+.
I don’t necessarily disagree with your take here, but this is all conjecture until we see a 5th-gen in real combat. There was that story about an Israeli F-35 sneaking right up to a… I forget what, Syrian AF probably, but even if that anecdote really happened we haven’t really seen them used in anger. As I said elsewhere here, China is really the only one who’d offer a near-peer opponent (unless god forbid the US go so far off the rails that they turn on NATO).
Thanks. This leaves me with follow up questions:
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If the plane is used for defence, is visibility that important?
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Sensor fusion is a software feature. Why can’t it be replicated in other aircrafts easily?
I dont know the second thing but even defensively, stealth fighters are much more difficult to accurately aim at with sensors and guidance systems and such, and it also helps a ton if the enemy doesn’t know how many planes you have and where they are from a strategic point of view. Stealth is simply a modern requirement to not be at a severe disadvantage.
If the plane is used for defence, is visibility that important?
Sure, it reduces losses and gives much more tactical advantage.
Sensor fusion is a software feature. Why can’t it be replicated in other aircrafts easily?
It isn’t just software. Even the pilot’s helmet in the F-35 is highly specialized and has integrated HUD:
Why can’t the helmet be used in the Gripen?
The Gripen doesn’t have the systems (hardware or software) to run it. The F-35 was designed from the ground up to use this.
SAAB have a basic version but there’s less info about it and it’s certainly less advanced. https://www.saab.com/newsroom/press-releases/2016/saab-receives-order-from-fmv-for-a-new-helmet-mounted-display-system
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I’m not an expert so you should look into this yourself but the way I understand it is that the F35 has leading EFW capabilities, the ability to be fully integrated into a digital battle management system (which is crucial in the NATO combined arms doctrine), can coordinate with autonomous drones and also has the best stealth factor.
The F35 looks like a fat boat, Gripen looks like a fighter plane.
I wish my country, Germany, would cancel its F35 orders
That would be very expensive
Why? What’s the expensive part?
They have contracts. I don’t know the specifics. But that can sometimes amount to 1/3 of the price if they cut the deal after agreeing to the contract.
Looking at the Ukraine and Armenia war I am getting curious about “cheap” drones or drone version of light aircraft. For the price of a Grippen, you can get 100 VL3 (even counting the modification for a drone version). Sure a cool ultra light plane isn’t barely as cool as fighter jet.
However, With a swarm of 100, I doubt air defence will intercept all of them even in modern countries. Let alone operations in countries with no air defences
Drones have without a doubt changed warfare a ton, but there’s still no fighter jet equivalent on speed and impact power. Situation in Ukraine is a bit different as Ukraine doesn’t have much hardware to spare and Russians seem to be afraid of modern defences and neither of them have real infrastructure in place for fighter jet maintenance close enough to the front lines.
FCAS is the answer, not Gripen or for that matter Eurofighter or Rafale.
Not for 15 years or more…
Any order of new fighter jets takes about a decade as well. If you do not have them on order already, then why order new ones, when you could buy FCAS, which is a much better system instead.
I cannot comment on this because I’m just a mere civilian
