Finnish DefMin interested in F-35s, not Gripens

[magitsu]

Request for Best and Final Offer will be sent momentarily.

Some tidbits from the last major communications event before they return back in Q4 with the selection:


* (Logistics command [owns the project] chief) Renko: "The competition is very even. All manufacturers have challenges in some area."
*According to (defmin) Kaikkonen, the exact number of fighters has not been determined. "You can't look at quantity alone, but quality and overall performance." However, according to Kaikkonen, the number cannot differ very much of the number of current Hornets (62).

*fighters participating in the tender will be scored on the basis of performance. "This is a performance project," says (HX project leader on the Ministry of Defence's side) Puranen.
*According to Puranen, multi-purpose fighters are "flying computers". However, the air war is not fought with a single plane, but with a flight of four planes and a battle leader on the ground.

*Of the 10 billion euros allocated by Parliament, about 9 billion euros will go to machinery, weapons, sensors, support, training and maintenance systems, training required for deployment and industrial cooperation. The remaining billion will go to national construction of performance.
*Renko: There is no calculation formula, because no one knows what the increase in the cost level - or in theory also the decrease - will be in the future. No one knows what it could be in the worst case scenario, Renko says. 1-1.5 billion euros is right in the order of magnitude if the worst possible one materializes, Renko says. [so inflation/currency risk of 1-1.5 extra max will be handled by the buyer state, not from the BAFO price]
* The basic principles of the HX fighter project are fairness, non-discrimination and transparency.

*The cost of the acquisition may not exceed 10% of the defense budget, ie approximately EUR 250 million per year. This is the framework within which the acquisition is made.
"We are not going to buy a fighter that we cannot afford to use," Kaikkonen says.

https://www.iltalehti.fi/politiikka/a/0 ... 960a2c9830

[magitsu]

Corporal Frisk blog details the last press conference for now:
https://corporalfrisk.com/2021/01/23/hx-home-stretch/

This is still a bit vague, but at worst it's going to be very tight lipped from now on:

To understand the messaging, there will be no talks between the Finnish authorities and the manufacturers following the return of the BAFOs. Another more interesting detail is that Finnish authorities won’t comment on the bids until the papers are signed. I’m not quite sure how this will be handled in practice, whether the winning bidder will be announced when the recommendations are being made to the parliament, or whether the general public won’t know who has won until the doors to the signing ceremony are flung open and the journalists sees who sits at the opposite side of the table?

Another interesting aspect is to what extent the manufacturers can keep discussing their bids with media and the public? In theory, once the BAFOs have been returned the bidders can no longer influence the process directly, and as such could potentially be given freer hands to lobby the benefits of their bid. However, this would on the other hand seem to run contrary to the decision to keep a lid on the details until the signing. Earlier interviews have made clear that the BAFO will include details on what the manufacturers can say and when, so I guess we will get our first idea of the new playing field within a week or so.

Little something about the performance requirements becoming more demanding during the process:

For the platform itself, some new details could be seen. One is that the language has indeed changed significantly from the early briefings when it comes to the joint air-sea domain. While the early briefings usually talked about “supporting the maritime domain” with those involved explicitly refusing to say whether that included kinetic anti-ship missions, Puranen now split up the naval support mission to include not only ISR and providing targeting information, but also maritime strike.

And another problem which could prove disastrous for the French and should clearly favor the US offers:

One comment that went largely unnoticed as far as I can tell but which will have a significant impact on the outcome was made by Puranen. While running through all the things looked at as part of the evaluation, he mentioned that they are evaluating:

If they [the armament] start to run out, from where do one get more?

I'm not convinced about the Saab affordable talk in the end of the blog. There's nothing to indicate that the amount of Gripen frames would be the highest with 2 GlobalEyes, just that they can offer a competitive package of them + arms.

[hythelday]

France is de jure more interwined with Finland through EU defence agreements, and one could also argue that in case of a major war it's US manufacturerds who are going to struggle with demand because they have that much more customers. IMO it's the naval Mk41 and NASAMS purchases by Finland that skew logistic favor towards US.

Let's wait until April BAFO deadline - if somebody starts a big mess in the press about the unfairness of the competition, then we'll know who is most likely out.

[XanderCrews]

Corporal Frisk blog details the last press conference for now:
https://corporalfrisk.com/2021/01/23/hx-home-stretch/

This is still a bit vague, but at worst it's going to be very tight lipped from now on:

To understand the messaging, there will be no talks between the Finnish authorities and the manufacturers following the return of the BAFOs. Another more interesting detail is that Finnish authorities won’t comment on the bids until the papers are signed. I’m not quite sure how this will be handled in practice, whether the winning bidder will be announced when the recommendations are being made to the parliament, or whether the general public won’t know who has won until the doors to the signing ceremony are flung open and the journalists sees who sits at the opposite side of the table?

Another interesting aspect is to what extent the manufacturers can keep discussing their bids with media and the public? In theory, once the BAFOs have been returned the bidders can no longer influence the process directly, and as such could potentially be given freer hands to lobby the benefits of their bid. However, this would on the other hand seem to run contrary to the decision to keep a lid on the details until the signing. Earlier interviews have made clear that the BAFO will include details on what the manufacturers can say and when, so I guess we will get our first idea of the new playing field within a week or so.

Little something about the performance requirements becoming more demanding during the process:

For the platform itself, some new details could be seen. One is that the language has indeed changed significantly from the early briefings when it comes to the joint air-sea domain. While the early briefings usually talked about “supporting the maritime domain” with those involved explicitly refusing to say whether that included kinetic anti-ship missions, Puranen now split up the naval support mission to include not only ISR and providing targeting information, but also maritime strike.

And another problem which could prove disastrous for the French and should clearly favor the US offers:

One comment that went largely unnoticed as far as I can tell but which will have a significant impact on the outcome was made by Puranen. While running through all the things looked at as part of the evaluation, he mentioned that they are evaluating:

If they [the armament] start to run out, from where do one get more?

I'm not convinced about the Saab affordable talk in the end of the blog. There's nothing to indicate that the amount of Gripen frames would be the highest with 2 GlobalEyes, just that they can offer a competitive package of them + arms.

I enjoy Frisk's blog but Gripen has always been his favotite and he is biased towards it (though to be fair I think he tries to rein it in and not be too influenced)

[magitsu]

Little more about the wargame:

Puranen said that they are going to form 4 fighter flights from whatever the initial amount of airframes. That will be continued until they run out either through maintenance related availability or losses calculated from Aircraft Combat Survivability metrics against the threat.

I don't how the amount of initial weapons figures into this. Certainly having an airframe left even without employable weapons is worth something, but it's hard to gauge whether it makes sense to optimize the armament stockpile much beyond what the expected degrading rate of the fleet is. Since if you'd run out of frames and still had tons of armament left that would be kind of silly (i.e. should've budgeted for more frames instead of that extra ammo). But it's almost impossible to estimate accurately before the wargaming its done. Performance is clearly very PGM derived ultimately. Only the F-35 might in some cases be able do more with less expensive ammo.

[hythelday]

I don't how the amount of initial weapons figures into this. Certainly having an airframe left even without employable weapons is worth something, but it's hard to gauge whether it makes sense to optimize the armament stockpile much beyond what the expected degrading rate of the fleet is.

Some missions are very much weapon related, ie DCA, DEAD or deep/maritime strike. If your package only includes JDAMs then you probably waste a lot of missions (thus suffering attrition) trying to disable enemy airfields and long range SAM C&C. On the other hand you have X amount of ARM, long range IIR land attack missiles and good AAM one can expect to neutralize threat to own air force sooner rather than later thus enabling it to survive/fight/support ground troops.

[magitsu]

Wow, Super Hornet's Conformal tanks are in jeopardy for Block III? They've featured heavily in HX, with mockups presented on both SH and G in Finland.
https://twitter.com/TheDEWLine/status/1 ... 8306026500

[hornetfinn]

Little more about the wargame:

Puranen said that they are going to form 4 fighter flights from whatever the initial amount of airframes. That will be continued until they run out either through maintenance related availability or losses calculated from Aircraft Combat Survivability metrics against the threat.

I don't how the amount of initial weapons figures into this. Certainly having an airframe left even without employable weapons is worth something, but it's hard to gauge whether it makes sense to optimize the armament stockpile much beyond what the expected degrading rate of the fleet is. Since if you'd run out of frames and still had tons of armament left that would be kind of silly (i.e. should've budgeted for more frames instead of that extra ammo). But it's almost impossible to estimate accurately before the wargaming its done. Performance is clearly very PGM derived ultimately. Only the F-35 might in some cases be able do more with less expensive ammo.

I see the possibilities as:
1. Use only the armament stockpile provided under the proposal
2. Assume unlimited armament stockpile using the weapon types in proposals
3. Assume some rate of armament shipments during the conflict

I think all of these have some problems but I think number 3 is the most likely one. Of course it also has the biggest uncertainties as the conditions could be vastly different in different conflicts. In very isolated and local conflict the shipments could be massive. In something closer to WW3, then there might be only very small shipments of weapons and spare parts. Anyway, availability of weapons might become the most limiting factor in many cases. Especially when it comes to most potent and most expensive weapons like JASSM or Storm Shadow/Scalp.

[magitsu]

Yeah, availability is a key issue. Not just frames but weapons. If you could use less fancy weapons with F-35, or it would be somehow more economical with them (better info, better accuracy?) it could extract better efficiency even if there was no difference in the survival of the airframes themselves in a scenario.

I think it's going to be close to the 1) option, but 3) would appear through the choice of the more common options in the types of weapons if possible. So if Rafale could somehow use a more common type than some of it's niche choices then that would be favored. But that could only happen in the A2G, cruise or naval missiles. My favorite concept is that France loans the most niche product (Exocet?) so that doesn't need to be bought. That could lessen the pressure of otherwise costly Rafale weaponry (that doesn't have any synergy with NASAMS, which will continue to be used). The main air to air missiles need to be heavily stockpiled by the FiAF.

[magitsu]

The Request for Best and Final Offer has been sent!

deci.JPG (38.19 KiB) Viewed 4842 times

https://twitter.com/FinnishAirForce/sta ... 2166308864

Another official overview letter in English:
https://www.defmin.fi/en/topical/press_ ... 11779.news

Also Puranen's blog if you want to google translate for more talk about the big day:
https://www.defmin.fi/etusivu/puolustus ... g#2314b736

[sprstdlyscottsmn]

Wow, Super Hornet's Conformal tanks are in jeopardy for Block III? They've featured heavily in HX, with mockups presented on both SH and G in Finland.
https://twitter.com/TheDEWLine/status/1 ... 8306026500

Well, the CFTs and IRST Conterline tank make the Block III a Subsonic airframe.

[mixelflick]

Wow, Super Hornet's Conformal tanks are in jeopardy for Block III? They've featured heavily in HX, with mockups presented on both SH and G in Finland.
https://twitter.com/TheDEWLine/status/1 ... 8306026500

Well, the CFTs and IRST Conterline tank make the Block III a Subsonic airframe.

Boeing made them sound like they were tried,tested and true.

I guess not.

So other than a zero hour airframe, why bother with Block III? I'd be buying more F-35C's with that money, or otherwise accelerate funding for NGAD...

[magitsu]

So other than a zero hour airframe, why bother with Block III? I'd be buying more F-35C's with that money, or otherwise accelerate funding for NGAD...

That's the main worry when considering hopping on the Super Hornet bandwagon. Unfortunately the CFTs are if possible even more important for Growlers. Finland doesn't care about the extra range but would be heavily affected if the main user would begin an earlier phaseout. Too bad that they didn't went for less hungry engine instead for Block III.

Apparently also Typhoon failed with its CFT experiment a decade ago. It was explained with no customer interest and "other, cheaper ways of extending range". https://twitter.com/RAeSTimR/status/403032397635420160 https://twitter.com/Swordsmen021/status ... 3677058051 (hideously ugly)

They should go for F-35C. NGAD already took some of Super Hornet money (no money for new USN buys after 2021, deliveries end 2033). But NGAD is still vaporware, so they really should accelerate F-35C.

Two related links:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davedeptul ... -aircraft/
https://twitter.com/DavidLarter/status/ ... 1791663104

[jessmo112]

I want to add, that boeing really needs a fresh start.

1. They haven't changed their strategy in combating the F-35 for nearly 20 years!

2. No new clean sheet fighter designs in 20 years.

3. The tanker fiasco.

4. Nearly blew the Canadian sales.

5. I almost forgot the commercial airline disaster!

5. Various Super Hornet mistakes which now includes promising big on Block III SH and it possibly failing.
Lets not forget, Silent eagle, stealthy Block IIII Super Hornet pods. Im sure there is something im missing but the list goes on and on.

Is there a government mandate that says that they cant build a fighter to compete with the F-35? Are they so devoid of talent that they can't? They even missed a window with the Arab market. The state department and Israel would have been ok with Toned down F-32 for allied countries that CANNOT buy the F-35.

Sorry for my rant, but Boeing is dumb!

[magitsu]

Boeing (Saab) got T-X to ensure competition. So they should stick with that trainer and try to sell its lightly armed version.