Non-Credible Defence Expert here: Sure on paper, the F-35 is superior head-to-head in every technical manner. But the Gripen’s real power is also on paper, to wave a filled out order form for Gripens in front of the White House, inflicting untold psychological damage to the American MIC. /ncd
In case you were wondering why Canada needs so many fighter jets, so far in the 21st century their notable uses have included:
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Provide a show of force at G8 meetings, Olympic games, and other such events
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Drop bombs on Libya
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Drop bombs on Iraq
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Drop bombs on Syria
Canada does need them to bounce other nations aircraft, especially over the north West passage. But yeah, they’re tools of war and are made to be lethal regardless of the cause. I agree we shouldn’t have been in those areas to begin with.
The Gripen isn’t exactly a great jet for dropping bombs. It’s mission is to be a quick to launch, easy to fly jet to intercept Russian fighters. Imo, the Gripen is an awesome aircraft, but an odd choice as a F35 alternative. I would think the Rafale or Typhoon would be closer in mission capabilities to the F35.
The problem is that there really isn’t anything out there that does what the F35 does. Any replacement will be inferior.
The common accusation thrown at the F35 is that it’s too expensive and too much of a generalist. This is an accusation made by people who don’t understand a) how much of warfare is logistics and b) how expensive pilots are.
The key limitation on our air force is not the cost of aircraft, its the cost of training pilots and maintaining the logistics to support our aircraft. Two different types of plane means two different logistics chains, two different sets of parts, and two different sets of pilots. Flying more, cheaper planes means more very expensive pilots.
The F-35 was a superb solution. The only readily available fifth gen fighter in the world, and one that could serve in ground attack, interception and air superiority roles, and which fundamentally outclassed anything a potential adversary could likely field for the next few decades. Even with the programs notable cost overruns, there simply isn’t another option that can meet all those needs.
Now, unfortunately, all of that is imperilled by the fact that the US has become a potential adversary. As far as good options for our airforce goes, that leaves us completely up shit creek.
Given that so much of warfare is logistics, I’d think having a plane that costs half as much to buy and one third as much per hour of flight factors pretty heavily - including on that cost of training pilots. And I cannot imagine U.S. maintenance supply would come close to cost competitiveness vs having domestic manufacturing support that also spends defense money into our own economy.
Sure that probably wouldn’t have tipped the balance a couple years ago - I mean, it didn’t.
But here we are. At least we aren’t already 40 planes into production.
Again, the problem with looking at those costs is that we only have the infrastructure and the ability to maintain pilots for a certain number of air craft. This isn’t a scenario where we can easily go the zerg rush route of having many more aircraft at a lower cost per unit. If we want to have an effective air force, that air force needs to focus on quality over quantity.
And the math leans even harder in favour of quality when you factor in how heavily stealth and sensors affect air warfare today. A fifth gen fighter like the F-35 can destroy many times its own number of older generation aircraft - even heavily upgraded ones - because stealth is basically an “I win” button. If your enemy cannot detect you before you detect them, everything else is irrelevant. A Canadian air force armed with F-35s would have stood up to many, many times our number of outdated Russian aircraft. Even their Su-57 isn’t a true fifth gen aircraft and its stealth capabilities are pathetic.
This is the problem with moving away from it. What other options do we have for a fifth gen stealth fighter? There aren’t any because everyone who would have put money into developing one decided to put money into the F-35 program instead. It was supposed to be the 5.56 of air combat, the standard solution for all of NATO. Solutions like the Grippen, Eurofighter or Rafale simply do not work against a peer adversary. Remember that we have to keep this thing in service for decades. We can’t just buy a new fighter in a few years.
Going into mid 21st century warfare without a stealth fighter would be like going into WW2 without machine guns and tanks.
Yeah, I agree with all that. Obviously, there isn’t a truly 1:1 alternative go the F35. I’m just saying that the Gripen is a strange choice for Canada when looking for an F35 alternative. The Gripen makes a lot of sense for a small county, strapped for cash that needs an interceptor more than anything, like Ukraine.
It’s described in the article; the suggestion is to keep a small fleet of F35 fighter/bombers and a bulk fleet of Gripen fighters. That complements their respective capabilities
May need interceptors going forward now…
As cool as the Gripen is, the Typhoon probably still does that job better.
Not why we need them, but how we’ve used them. I’m embarrassed, too.
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