June 21, 2004 at 9:25 pm
I am really starting to question the Gripen. Yes it’s a great bird, a very good multirole fighter with decent performance. Although it’s expensive to buy, it’s extremely cheap to maintain and run.
I know we’ve all compared LCA/J-10 and the Gripen to death, but would you really take it over something like maybe the J-10 or the LCA? I mean the Gripen costs anywhere around 60-65mn to purchase, yet a plane like LCA and J-10 come at a cost less than 30mn yet they are pretty cheap to run especially the LCA?
I know the Gripen holds a decisive advantage over them in A2G weapons due to weapons like Taurus and Meteor(which who knows if they will ever be exported to 3rd World nations) in the future which India nor China have anything close to but why not just integrate Russian weapons into them like KH-59M, Yakhnot-M and all kinds of others? Another problem with the Gripen is that it has alot of American and I think European parts which would come with some political strings and as soon as those nations do not like what you do with them they will put an embargo on those parts.
I mean just the cost of the J-10 and LCA makes it very attractive over the Gripen.
I would take an J-10/LCA with Russian radar and wide array of Russian weapons like R-77, R-73, Yakhnot-M, Kh-59M, Kh-31PD, Kh-29T/TE/L, and other PGMs and LGBs. You could buy them seperatly.