Finnish DefMin interested in F-35s, not Gripens

[ricnunes]

All the HX competitors could've included combat drones or loyal wingmen if they were deemed to increase combat capability. None have done so and it definitely seems like it will take a long time before they operational in larger scale for roles where HX program is aimed for. I'm sure they will have an important role in the future but they will not be operating alone (at least not in initial couple of decades). Of course F-35 is currently the most suitable for operating alongside such capabilities of all HX candidates.

DITTO!

Unfortunately the recipient of your post didn't understand squat of what you said (or pretend to do it so).

[ricnunes]

However I hope the US (and other Western countries) will have something ready sooner rather than later. Unmanned will be the only way the US can realistically compete with China.

Really??

Last time I checked the US alone (excluding any allies) plans to acquire 2456 F-35s (all variants) and so far and as we speak more than 620 F-35s were delivered from which around 144 were delivered to partner/foreign nations which means that the US forces combined (USAF, USN and USMC) currently operate at least (but likely more than) 476 F-35 from all variants. On top of this there's 195 F-22s delivered to the USAF from which 187 are operational. Or putting into another perspective: the US Forces currently have at least 663 5th gen fighter aircraft.
As opposed around 50 J-20s were apparently delivered to China so far and this is the number of 5th gen fighter aircraft that China currently has.
As such we're talking about a numerical advantage of more than 13 to 1 is favor of the US forces. So me thinks that it's China that need those 'magical drone wingmen' the most...


Oh, and I acho Xander's words:
If those 'drone wingmen' are to be or to become really important than it's time to cancel obsolescent and redundant aircraft like the Gripen E (that you defend so much) can 'channel' all the money that would be wasted on the Gripen E to develop and build those same 'drone wingmen' (that you are bragging so much about).

[XanderCrews]

However I hope the US (and other Western countries) will have something ready sooner rather than later. Unmanned will be the only way the US can realistically compete with China.

Really??

Last time I checked the US alone (excluding any allies) plans to acquire 2456 F-35s (all variants) and so far and as we speak more than 620 F-35s were delivered from which around 144 were delivered to partner/foreign nations which means that the US forces combined (USAF, USN and USMC) currently operate at least (but likely more than) 476 F-35 from all variants. On top of this there's 195 F-22s delivered to the USAF from which 187 are operational. Or putting into another perspective: the US Forces currently have at least 663 5th gen fighter aircraft.
As opposed around 50 J-20s were apparently delivered to China so far and this is the number of 5th gen fighter aircraft that China currently has.
As such we're talking about a numerical advantage of more than 13 to 1 is favor of the US forces. So me thinks that it's China that need those 'magical drone wingmen' the most...

no no, the US needs to do more. spend more. sacrifice more. I've been studying the Soviet Union lately, and I think the smartest thing we can do it really really just pile on with the military spending even more. I can't think of a single that could go wrong with this. now of course our "NATO and regional allies" could really help us out, but only if it doesn't cost them too much money or you know, inconvenience them.

Its about time the US do its part I think.

I think as Americans we should all step back and ask "are we spending enough? or is only 750 billion annually shirking our commitments to our allies? I mean we couldn't get Canada to spend even 9 billion to replace their CF-18s, and that was with 9 billion in industrial benefits to neutralize cost of the entire procurement

Where did America go wrong?

[element1loop]

Where did America go wrong?

1 hr blitz on central Ottawa would permanently resolve all of Canada's air power vacillation issues inside of 24 hours.

[XanderCrews]

Where did America go wrong?

1 hr blitz on central Ottawa would permanently resolve all of Canada's air power vacillation issues inside of 24 hours.

I know but we would have to deal with the Radioactive fallout.

[element1loop]

lol ... I was thinking of something a little more modest ... dummies for dummies ...

[magitsu]

Some very good info translated and retrieved from behind the paywall:

The Defense Forces will recommend one winner, politicians will choose

The fighter that is the most successful in the war games against a modern and strong enemy is the Air Force's and Defense Administration's proposal for a new fighter to Finland.

During 2021, the government will select the successor of the Hornet from among five fighter bidders. The final choice of Finnish political decision-makers may also be other than the proposal of the Defense Forces.

- We will only present the winner, emphasizes [Brigadier Juha-Pekka] Keränen, the Air Force's HX project manager.

If the government asks, the Defense Forces can also state, for example, the second and third placed and present the reasons for its ranking.

Keränen admits he would be astonished if the politicians chose something other than the winner of the performance comparison presented by the Air Force.

If the politicians don’t choose the Defense Forces favorite, it won't be due to the costs being too high.

All fighters up to the performance appraisal have had to pass strict limits on purchase price and life cycle costs, as well as industrial cooperation and self-sufficiency.

They will be analyzed at the same time as the war games for the manufacturers ’final bids to be submitted by the end of April. A rejected result in some area drops the candidate out of the performance appraisal.

According to Keränen, the process is carefully documented so that it treats the manufacturers participating in the tender equally and is fully traceable. If the politicians would choose other than the number one in the selection process, they would be left with the burden of proof to the direction of the manufacturers.

The Finnish Parliament has already approved an acquisition of 10 billion €, of which 9.4 billion will go to fighters and weapons and 0.6 billion to system transition and infrastructure building for the Defense Forces. The use of a fighter jet must not cost more than ten percent of the approximately € 2.5 billion defense budget each year.

Pirkkala's HX Challenge winter tests fortunately happened before the corona spread

The spread of the corona pandemic in 2020 started fortunately for the HX fighter project only after all fighters had time to fly at the Satakunta Air Command in Pirkkala, Tampere during January – February.

From that event [HX Challenge], the Air Force received invaluable information about the performance of the fighters in the difficult winter conditions of Finland.

These actual documented performance values are also the basis for simulations and war games based on them. If no value was obtained for any of the performance metrics, to be on the safe side, the Air Force assesses that capability as lower than promised. Only verified results matter, not manufacturers promotional speeches.

I wonder how Gripen E with its late development schedule could've fared well here... I'd expect several cases of manufacturer promised values downgraded to lower bound of reasonable range.

Finland has ways to mitigate a surprise missile strike

In Ilkka Remes' thriller book, the Kremlin's Fist, a surprise Russian missile strike manages to paralyze the Finnish fighters by destroying the entrances to their rock cave hangars. Fighters can't get into battle, and the power of the strategic weapon system is nullified, leading to the loss of the control of the airspace.

According to Brigadier General Juha-Pekka Keränen, this example gives a wrong picture of the defense capability. The attack couldn't be carried out without prior preparations, which would sooner or later be figured out by military intelligence.

- In a crisis situation, we would increase preparedness and decentralize equipment to different bases. We have a high readiness to start a battle with some equipment at any time, says Keränen.

Missile attacks can also be protected against by constantly changing locations in the area of ​​the air bases.

- Accurate weapon also misses accurately. However, there are not countless missiles in the style of the book of Remes. All of them won't be used to destroy bedrock, reminds Keränen.

The Air Force calculates that some ground stationary radars would inevitably be lost if a battle began. However, the fighters' own radars and other Defense Forces surveillance systems can create situational awareness during combat.

Efforts have been made to protect fighter and combat management, for example, from cyber attacks with separate networks and secure information systems that do not insert additional memory sticks.

- A fighter flight is able to communicate with each other in the air via data links, even if the connections to the ground are broken.

A cyber attack can also affect the country's electricity grid and obscure Finland. The Air Force has its own independent reserve power systems.

The goal is for the Air Force, with more than 60 fighters, to be able to keep some equipment constantly in the air around the clock. The number would vary from a flight to more than ten, depending on the fighting situation.

Bigger fighter force can be concentrated to a certain area at a certain time, if the situation requires it.

The most important part:

Resting on the shoulders of roughly 10 men

In the war game, a period of three weeks is reserved for each fighter system.

Only about ten people gather in security-classified premises, and their work will lead to a proposal of the best fighter for Finland.

Among them are officers, engineers and doctors of technology. In addition to the Air Force, the Army, the Navy and the General Staff are represented, as the fighters, as a strategic weapon system, support the entire Defense Forces battle by forming an accurate situational awareness and directing for example missiles fired by others to their targets.

From computer-based simulations of different battle situations, we move on to multi-day war games in which each entire fighter system fights an enemy in different scenarios.

The systems offered are intended to be tested against a number of different attacks.

- We do several what-if scenarios that try to anticipate how the enemy could attack, says Keränen.

The aim is for experts to find as vicious ways as possible to attack Finland and try to fight them.

It's about playing chess. The opponent tries to find the weakness of each defense system and the defender in turn strikes the attacker's weaknesses.

The activities of fighters are limited, for example, by the fact that there are weapon systems in Finland's neighboring areas, the impact of which reaches Finnish airspace.

Assistance is not assumed from others, ie war games do not take into account, for example, defense cooperation with Sweden.

- Each fighter system has weaknesses and strengths, Keränen refers to the combat value of the F-35, Super Hornet and Growler, Eurofighter, Gripen and Rafale.

Success in the war game consists of many factors.

The fighter must first be able to make it in time into the fight to use its weapons, i.e. it must have the ability to observe and maneuver when combat loaded.

Such a fighter that is survivable, but not able not get into battle in time to inflict losses on the opponent is useless.

On the other hand, a fighter must also survive battle intact and not get destroyed itself.

Upon returning to base, a fighter must be quickly refueled, rearmed, and back in the air.

Otherwise, it won't cope with waves of attacks swarming quickly into the airspace and it won't have time to fight. A fighter on the ground for too long is also in danger of being destroyed at an air base.

There are also differences in armaments. According to public data, the European fighter missile Meteor is even more effective than the American fighter missile.

However, there's lack of comparable data from real air combat. The exact verified weapon parameters are secret and known only to the representatives of the fighter project. According to Keränen, American and European missile types have their strengths and weaknesses.

Defense cooperation is not included

Keränen doesn't want to speculate about the possibility that Finnish fighters could also be based in Sweden, for example. In February, Swedish Minister of Defense Peter Hultqvist pointed out that Sweden was preparing a host country agreement with Finland that would allow the transfer of equipment between the countries.

The war game scenarios are played with the assumption that this is Finland's independent defense system operating in Finland.

It may not even make sense to protect Finnish fighters by landing in Sweden, as they may not have time to fight there. A better combat effect could be achieved by bringing Swedish fighters to Finnish bases.

Keränen doesn't take a position on the security policy issues, such as creating a deterrent to an attacker by means of defense cooperation.

However, the fighters themselves are meant to form a deterrent to those considering the attack. Trade will then be a successful part of defense, foreign and security policy if Finland does not go to war.

Fighter mix would be expensive, Fighter assembly needs to be carefully considered

In theory, Finland could have the opportunity to purchase several fighter types in the HX project.

Among other things, Finland deals directly with the US Defense Administration, in which case the order could be a combination of Super Hornet, master of electronic warfare Growler and F-35 fighter in a suitable ratio. This would result in a combination of performances that aren't present in one system.

- If I could choose for myself, there would be two different types of fighters that would be changed, even every 15 years. It's just expensive. As a small country, we cannot afford to operate it, says Keränen.

Finland is therefore not seeking such a solution for cost reasons.

Another open issue is the assembly of fighters in Finland. Many fighter manufacturers offer assembly capability as part of an industrial collaboration.

However, assembly costs Finland more than manufacturing fighters elsewhere. Thus, it may make more sense to acquire similar critical know-how for engineers other than with their own production line.

As I assumed, the lavish public offers of even the assembly of all fighters in Finland isn't being treated as a gift. It's just a covenient way to fulfill a large share of the industrial partnership requirement, but it may be a non-economical way to acquire the ultimate goal of achieving sufficient maintenance know-how.

F-35 critique balances out its future prospects

The assessment of future development prospects adds to the evaluation of fighter candidates. The fighter system should serve for up to 40 years.

Until last year, it seemed that the F-35 fighter was clearly ahead of the rest in this field with its large American order volume and convincing sales figures.

Since then, the scales can be said to have leveled off as there's growing criticism in the U.S. Air Force of the expensive F-35.

The system is surely described as a Ferrari, but the U.S. Air Force doesn’t want to drive to work with a Ferrari every day, but only use it on Sundays. A cheaper and lighter fighter would suffice for everyday needs.

In terms of features, such a fighter could be an American version of the Swedish Gripen, designed to be easy to upgrade and inexpensive to use.

The U.S. Air Force’s F-35 was originally designed to replace the aging warhorse F-16 and other obsolete aircraft types in the various branches of defense, but because the new project scope included little bit of everything and the best performance, the price and size of the fighter swelled.

Proponents of the F-35, on the other hand, point out that there would once again be a danger of a new development project that would swallow hundreds of billions of dollars, with the end result being a "new F-35" with its problems.

Among the demands of future development potential, Keränen mentions, for example, cyber-resilience and the ability to jam the opponent.

- One development path in the future is how to steer or work with unmanned vessels. It is still in the vision and development stage. This will be assessed in future development potential.

According to Keränen, these weapons are also affected by international treaties. In combat, unmanned air vehicles can be useful flying right by the side of a fighter, as they can have firepower and can take a hit on behalf of the fighter.

As the forward-looking assessment based on public data can be considered to have leveled off in advance as the uncertainty of the strongest candidate F-35 increases, the current, actual performance of the fighters is likely to be more clearly emphasized in the Air Force selection proposal.

This part probably suffers from reporter's recentism and includes a bit of wishful thinking. But it's quite clear that the competition will stay tough until the end.

https://www.kaleva.fi/suurten-panosten- ... -m/3433284

[herciv]

Rafale papers for Finland HX CHALENGE with very nice pictures ;
https://www.ilmailuliitto.fi/wp-content ... pap_v7.pdf

[spazsinbad]

From above: https://www.ilmailuliitto.fi/wp-content ... pap_v7.pdf (5.2Mb)

[XanderCrews]

Since then, the scales can be said to have leveled off as there's growing criticism in the U.S. Air Force of the expensive F-35.

The system is surely described as a Ferrari, but the U.S. Air Force doesn’t want to drive to work with a Ferrari every day, but only use it on Sundays. A cheaper and lighter fighter would suffice for everyday needs.

CSAF Brown really is the gift that keeps on giving.

In terms of features, such a fighter could be an American version of the Swedish Gripen, designed to be easy to upgrade and inexpensive to use.

Because the only example of a cheap and adaptable fighter is that one from Sweden yes, America should take notes.

[magitsu]

CSAF Brown really is the gift that keeps on giving.

Here's his latest. Now trying to redefine readiness with the CMC.
https://warontherocks.com/2021/03/redef ... s-or-lose/

Somehow it manages to contradict his previous statement:

To be clear, this is a two-step process. We cannot simply cut resources for near-term readiness or legacy capacity in the name of savings. Rather, we must put those savings into transformative modernization as part of our larger future force design model.

F-15EX is legacy, "American Gripen" would be legacy.

[ricnunes]

In terms of features, such a fighter could be an American version of the Swedish Gripen, designed to be easy to upgrade and inexpensive to use.

LoL, the aircraft (Swedish Gripen) which is neither easy to upgrade (the aircraft is suffering delays after delays) and neither inexpensive (estimated to cost $100 Million USD or more per unit)

[ricnunes]

CSAF Brown really is the gift that keeps on giving.

Here's his latest. Now trying to redefine readiness with the CMC.
https://warontherocks.com/2021/03/redef ... s-or-lose/

For some reason he seems to forget/ignore that readiness decreases (and quite drastically) when an Air Force has several fleets and different models of the same type of aircraft! For instance instead of only having F-22s and F-35s, having F-22s, F-35s, F-15EXs, F-16Vs, NGADs, you name it! That's the absolutely worse way to maintain high levels of readiness. That's why many (most?) US allies have a single fighter aircraft in their Air Forces inventory instead of several.

[XanderCrews]

CSAF Brown really is the gift that keeps on giving.

Here's his latest. Now trying to redefine readiness with the CMC.
https://warontherocks.com/2021/03/redef ... s-or-lose/

i don't know if I was ready for that level of "buzzword bingo" this early.



Double speak, and double think, and paradoxes are nothing new to the military, but wow isn't this the same guy who threw his most advanced, least expensive future platform strike fighter under the bus not even a month ago in favor of some dream sheet vapor-ware legacy platform? who is this idiot? Watching this guy blunder into the F-35/Gen plus debacle, gave me zero confidence in his abilities. Real deep strategic thinking there, bud. You can definitely manage this giant force during this "critical time"



Not really happy with the service chiefs. We've spent 15 years screwing around in the sandbox, the military refuses to let go of the middle east, while screaming they don't have enough resources and are behind in everything (geewhiz you boys havn't been distracted by anything have you?) and how we need to prioritize and make tough choices, before once again making that "tough choice" of "D. All of the above". the inability to put Europe over Afghanistan, Japan over Kurdistan, and South Korea over Syria is absolutely spellbinding.



I'm not going to derail this thread anymore, this is about Finland. But boy oh boy am I not impressed with these people.

[loke]

Some very good info translated and retrieved from behind the paywall:

The Defense Forces will recommend one winner, politicians will choose

The fighter that is the most successful in the war games against a modern and strong enemy is the Air Force's and Defense Administration's proposal for a new fighter to Finland.

During 2021, the government will select the successor of the Hornet from among five fighter bidders. The final choice of Finnish political decision-makers may also be other than the proposal of the Defense Forces.

- We will only present the winner, emphasizes [Brigadier Juha-Pekka] Keränen, the Air Force's HX project manager.

If the government asks, the Defense Forces can also state, for example, the second and third placed and present the reasons for its ranking.

Keränen admits he would be astonished if the politicians chose something other than the winner of the performance comparison presented by the Air Force.

If the politicians don’t choose the Defense Forces favorite, it won't be due to the costs being too high.

All fighters up to the performance appraisal have had to pass strict limits on purchase price and life cycle costs, as well as industrial cooperation and self-sufficiency.

They will be analyzed at the same time as the war games for the manufacturers ’final bids to be submitted by the end of April. A rejected result in some area drops the candidate out of the performance appraisal.

According to Keränen, the process is carefully documented so that it treats the manufacturers participating in the tender equally and is fully traceable. If the politicians would choose other than the number one in the selection process, they would be left with the burden of proof to the direction of the manufacturers.

The Finnish Parliament has already approved an acquisition of 10 billion €, of which 9.4 billion will go to fighters and weapons and 0.6 billion to system transition and infrastructure building for the Defense Forces. The use of a fighter jet must not cost more than ten percent of the approximately € 2.5 billion defense budget each year.

Pirkkala's HX Challenge winter tests fortunately happened before the corona spread

The spread of the corona pandemic in 2020 started fortunately for the HX fighter project only after all fighters had time to fly at the Satakunta Air Command in Pirkkala, Tampere during January – February.

From that event [HX Challenge], the Air Force received invaluable information about the performance of the fighters in the difficult winter conditions of Finland.

These actual documented performance values are also the basis for simulations and war games based on them. If no value was obtained for any of the performance metrics, to be on the safe side, the Air Force assesses that capability as lower than promised. Only verified results matter, not manufacturers promotional speeches.

I wonder how Gripen E with its late development schedule could've fared well here... I'd expect several cases of manufacturer promised values downgraded to lower bound of reasonable range.

Finland has ways to mitigate a surprise missile strike

In Ilkka Remes' thriller book, the Kremlin's Fist, a surprise Russian missile strike manages to paralyze the Finnish fighters by destroying the entrances to their rock cave hangars. Fighters can't get into battle, and the power of the strategic weapon system is nullified, leading to the loss of the control of the airspace.

According to Brigadier General Juha-Pekka Keränen, this example gives a wrong picture of the defense capability. The attack couldn't be carried out without prior preparations, which would sooner or later be figured out by military intelligence.

- In a crisis situation, we would increase preparedness and decentralize equipment to different bases. We have a high readiness to start a battle with some equipment at any time, says Keränen.

Missile attacks can also be protected against by constantly changing locations in the area of ​​the air bases.

- Accurate weapon also misses accurately. However, there are not countless missiles in the style of the book of Remes. All of them won't be used to destroy bedrock, reminds Keränen.

The Air Force calculates that some ground stationary radars would inevitably be lost if a battle began. However, the fighters' own radars and other Defense Forces surveillance systems can create situational awareness during combat.

Efforts have been made to protect fighter and combat management, for example, from cyber attacks with separate networks and secure information systems that do not insert additional memory sticks.

- A fighter flight is able to communicate with each other in the air via data links, even if the connections to the ground are broken.

A cyber attack can also affect the country's electricity grid and obscure Finland. The Air Force has its own independent reserve power systems.

The goal is for the Air Force, with more than 60 fighters, to be able to keep some equipment constantly in the air around the clock. The number would vary from a flight to more than ten, depending on the fighting situation.

Bigger fighter force can be concentrated to a certain area at a certain time, if the situation requires it.

The most important part:

Resting on the shoulders of roughly 10 men

In the war game, a period of three weeks is reserved for each fighter system.

Only about ten people gather in security-classified premises, and their work will lead to a proposal of the best fighter for Finland.

Among them are officers, engineers and doctors of technology. In addition to the Air Force, the Army, the Navy and the General Staff are represented, as the fighters, as a strategic weapon system, support the entire Defense Forces battle by forming an accurate situational awareness and directing for example missiles fired by others to their targets.

From computer-based simulations of different battle situations, we move on to multi-day war games in which each entire fighter system fights an enemy in different scenarios.

The systems offered are intended to be tested against a number of different attacks.

- We do several what-if scenarios that try to anticipate how the enemy could attack, says Keränen.

The aim is for experts to find as vicious ways as possible to attack Finland and try to fight them.

It's about playing chess. The opponent tries to find the weakness of each defense system and the defender in turn strikes the attacker's weaknesses.

The activities of fighters are limited, for example, by the fact that there are weapon systems in Finland's neighboring areas, the impact of which reaches Finnish airspace.

Assistance is not assumed from others, ie war games do not take into account, for example, defense cooperation with Sweden.

- Each fighter system has weaknesses and strengths, Keränen refers to the combat value of the F-35, Super Hornet and Growler, Eurofighter, Gripen and Rafale.

Success in the war game consists of many factors.

The fighter must first be able to make it in time into the fight to use its weapons, i.e. it must have the ability to observe and maneuver when combat loaded.

Such a fighter that is survivable, but not able not get into battle in time to inflict losses on the opponent is useless.

On the other hand, a fighter must also survive battle intact and not get destroyed itself.

Upon returning to base, a fighter must be quickly refueled, rearmed, and back in the air.

Otherwise, it won't cope with waves of attacks swarming quickly into the airspace and it won't have time to fight. A fighter on the ground for too long is also in danger of being destroyed at an air base.

There are also differences in armaments. According to public data, the European fighter missile Meteor is even more effective than the American fighter missile.

However, there's lack of comparable data from real air combat. The exact verified weapon parameters are secret and known only to the representatives of the fighter project. According to Keränen, American and European missile types have their strengths and weaknesses.

Defense cooperation is not included

Keränen doesn't want to speculate about the possibility that Finnish fighters could also be based in Sweden, for example. In February, Swedish Minister of Defense Peter Hultqvist pointed out that Sweden was preparing a host country agreement with Finland that would allow the transfer of equipment between the countries.

The war game scenarios are played with the assumption that this is Finland's independent defense system operating in Finland.

It may not even make sense to protect Finnish fighters by landing in Sweden, as they may not have time to fight there. A better combat effect could be achieved by bringing Swedish fighters to Finnish bases.

Keränen doesn't take a position on the security policy issues, such as creating a deterrent to an attacker by means of defense cooperation.

However, the fighters themselves are meant to form a deterrent to those considering the attack. Trade will then be a successful part of defense, foreign and security policy if Finland does not go to war.

Fighter mix would be expensive, Fighter assembly needs to be carefully considered

In theory, Finland could have the opportunity to purchase several fighter types in the HX project.

Among other things, Finland deals directly with the US Defense Administration, in which case the order could be a combination of Super Hornet, master of electronic warfare Growler and F-35 fighter in a suitable ratio. This would result in a combination of performances that aren't present in one system.

- If I could choose for myself, there would be two different types of fighters that would be changed, even every 15 years. It's just expensive. As a small country, we cannot afford to operate it, says Keränen.

Finland is therefore not seeking such a solution for cost reasons.

Another open issue is the assembly of fighters in Finland. Many fighter manufacturers offer assembly capability as part of an industrial collaboration.

However, assembly costs Finland more than manufacturing fighters elsewhere. Thus, it may make more sense to acquire similar critical know-how for engineers other than with their own production line.

As I assumed, the lavish public offers of even the assembly of all fighters in Finland isn't being treated as a gift. It's just a covenient way to fulfill a large share of the industrial partnership requirement, but it may be a non-economical way to acquire the ultimate goal of achieving sufficient maintenance know-how.

F-35 critique balances out its future prospects

The assessment of future development prospects adds to the evaluation of fighter candidates. The fighter system should serve for up to 40 years.

Until last year, it seemed that the F-35 fighter was clearly ahead of the rest in this field with its large American order volume and convincing sales figures.

Since then, the scales can be said to have leveled off as there's growing criticism in the U.S. Air Force of the expensive F-35.

The system is surely described as a Ferrari, but the U.S. Air Force doesn’t want to drive to work with a Ferrari every day, but only use it on Sundays. A cheaper and lighter fighter would suffice for everyday needs.

In terms of features, such a fighter could be an American version of the Swedish Gripen, designed to be easy to upgrade and inexpensive to use.

The U.S. Air Force’s F-35 was originally designed to replace the aging warhorse F-16 and other obsolete aircraft types in the various branches of defense, but because the new project scope included little bit of everything and the best performance, the price and size of the fighter swelled.

Proponents of the F-35, on the other hand, point out that there would once again be a danger of a new development project that would swallow hundreds of billions of dollars, with the end result being a "new F-35" with its problems.

Among the demands of future development potential, Keränen mentions, for example, cyber-resilience and the ability to jam the opponent.

- One development path in the future is how to steer or work with unmanned vessels. It is still in the vision and development stage. This will be assessed in future development potential.

According to Keränen, these weapons are also affected by international treaties. In combat, unmanned air vehicles can be useful flying right by the side of a fighter, as they can have firepower and can take a hit on behalf of the fighter.

As the forward-looking assessment based on public data can be considered to have leveled off in advance as the uncertainty of the strongest candidate F-35 increases, the current, actual performance of the fighters is likely to be more clearly emphasized in the Air Force selection proposal.

This part probably suffers from reporter's recentism and includes a bit of wishful thinking. But it's quite clear that the competition will stay tough until the end.

https://www.kaleva.fi/suurten-panosten- ... -m/3433284

1. I don't agree that the "competitions will stay tough until the end". The Finnish Air Force will clearly recommend F-35. As I have stated previously, an air force that is given a free choice between F-35 and a 4.5 gen fighter will choose the F-35.

2. The Air Force is quite clever in making it clear that they are putting the "burden of proof" on the politicians if they do not choose the Air Force winner -- politicians hate accountability and ending up in a situation where they might be blamed for something. So this gives them a strong incentive to pick the winner the Air Force selected (on a side note, the political climate in Finland seems extremely different from e.g. Germany, where an air force official was fired for "thinking loud" about the F-35)

3. Interesting comments about "15 years" -- this is in line with what I have said in previous postings...

4. Interesting comments about "Loyal wingman" -- this is in line with what I have said in previous postings...

5. Not surprisingly, they "down-weight" the capabilities of not-yet-finished Gripen, just like Switzerland did. I wonder if they did a similar "down-weighting" of LM's claim of (2012) 25,000 USD CPFH in 2025... I would not be surprised if they "forgot" to do that....