Aren’t they both made redundant by drones? Why do we need a human inside the box when they can be in front of a screen far away?
The Gripen flies, the F35 is parked in a maintenance shack. Or parked forever if the US decides they don’t like you anymore and to turn off all the software defined shit.
My country (Germany) planning to buy F35 instead of Gripens boggles my mind, it’s just dumb in the current political climate.
We can see that Ukraine fucking F16s make a huge difference - all the buzzwords buy you nothing, what you need is airplanes that actually are in the air.
Why would Germany buy Gripen? They are part of Eurofighter, which is about as good as Gripen. Especially if you are worried about the US not delivering parts. After all the Gripens engine and a lot of other parts are from the US. Eurofighter can be build without US parts.
So by buying F-35 Germany gets a nuclear capable stealth fighter. We have seen how they were able to operate over Russian made air defence system without too much of a problem in Venezuela and Iran.
It’s not about US made parts, its about depending on servers running in the US running all the software, ready to be turned off at any time.
And for nuclear sharing we should go French or British. The US are notoriouly unreliable and have proven not to be a partner anymore.
Yeah, we all saw the amazing US victory in Iran. One more reason not to partner up with the US.
In the end the F35 is a tool for bullying other nations with the tools of yesteryear, not something for modern conflict. “Put all your eggs into one overpowered basket” ist not the way to fight wars anymore, as the US is learning in Iran. Numerous and cheap is what counts.
I give you the thing about Eurofighter. I just believe the F35 is completely the wrong tool for the future. Maintenance heavy, ongoing support dependent, expensive, hard to replace. All it’s cool features can’t make up for its shortcomings.
It’s a classical Wunderwaffe.
What we need is something simple, defense oriented and not attack oriented.
I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m in the market for some fighter jets.
The Gripen definitely will not have an American kill-switch on it.
I was expecting a punch line. Like the Gripen is cheaper because you have to assemble it yourself. Or the active stealth features on the F-35 require a subscription.
I mean, there’s some truth to that. Gripen would be assembled in Canada, and the F-35 subscription price would be bending the knee to the bad guys.
Denmark has lego and Sweden has gripen.
I have to assemble all my ikea furniture.
Our representatives must follow the peoples’ voice when buying defense equipment.
