Considering the neighbours of Switzerland I would suggest they would need a 5. gen VLO fighter after 2025.

They should go for NG, pray that Brazil does the same, and develop a 5. gen VLO fighter with Sweden and Brazil.

Consider the following scenarios:

The Euro zone collapses; the European Union collapses, some of the Swiss neighbours return to old and dark sins.

Scenario 1: It’s 2025 and Sarko the 2nd decides to strengthen his French Franc by emptying the Swiss banks. The Kill switch in the Swiss Rafale makes the invasion somewhat easier…

Scenario 2: It’s 2025 and Silvio the 2nd needs to strengthen his Lira. The kill switch in the Swiss Typhoons makes the invasion somewhat easier…

Scenario 3: It’s 2025 and Silvio the 2nd needs to strengthen his Lira. The Italian F-35 has an easy match against a handful of Swiss Rafale…

In other words: Switzerland needs to develop her own 5. gen VLO with countries that will not be in a position to invade her 😉

Brazil seems to favour cooperation with France and India rather than with Sweden and Switzerland…

The F-35 IR’s signature are detected not only by the handful of Swiss Rafale paroling at the time but also by the IR satellites of France to which Switzerland had been given access, the info is fed to the Rafales via satellite link and the F-35s are shot down before they even reach the border, since we still don’t know if they will be able to carry the Meteor (and if they do, they won’t be able to carry AtG load at the same time). And according to the Swiss evaluation EW and situational awareness are the strength of the Rafale !
Then the Swiss go to the offensive and with two Rafales destroy in one single strike the 12 F-35 on the ground that Italy would not have been able to afford… and pays the fuel for !

So only after receiving media and political heat, does Mauer actually demand “a really practical offer” from Dassault, how very clever indeed…

Ueli Maurer in very critical stance
le Temps, feb 13

The head of the Department of Defense could not ignore the negative report on the assessment of Gripen. The senators summoned him to explain himself

Is the Defence Minister Ueli Maurer saying the truth about not being aware of the very negative report of his Air Force chief about the capabilities of the Gripen fighter aircraft?
He did not know, one says in his department. However Maurer is contradicted by the Director General of Armasuisse, the boss of armaments, Ulrich Appenzeller. “The Minister of Defense and the Federal Council as a whole were informed of the notes and costs of the three candidates vying to replace the F-5 Tiger,” he says in a letter to the Security Council Committee States, which met Monday at Bure.
[…]
The fact that he repeatedly rejected , at press conferences, questions about the poor performance of the Gripen tend to confirm the thesis that Maurer had based his proposal essentially on financial and economic criteria.[…]
Maurer has made his choice several months before the Federal Council’s decision. That explains why, during the summer of 2010, Markus Gygax, forgetting his previous negative evaluations, has praised the Gripen in an interview, “a phenomenal device, small, compact and yet capable of performance.” Was he asked by his superiors to turn back the previous reports?

Therefore, was the Federal Council in possession of all elements, both military and economic? This is precisely the issue that the subcommittee of the National Council shall review, says Thomas Hurter (UDC / HS), its president. “If the Federal Council has not heard of this evaluation report, it’s serious, he warns, because the air performance alone accounted for 60% of the final mark awarded to the aircrafts tested.”

The two committees of security policy only seem to discover this Monday the existence of evaluation reports in 2008 and 2009, despite the public controversy in the press in November. “It is true, admits Thomas Hutter, that we did not attach any importance at the time because our mission was to verify the proper conduct of the evaluation process, not to comment on the technical notes.”

“I do not see how we can meet the timetable for a decision at the end of the year, admits Yvan Perrin, In any case a new choice may well be necessary. “

Google translated from here

Switzerland: Fernand Carrel, “appalled”, fears that the procedure collapse
Romandie News, Feb 13

The former commander of the Swiss Air Force, Fernand Carrel, is “absolutely appalled” by the turn of the evaluation of new combat aircraft and the acquisition process. “It makes me fear the worst,” he said.
[…]
“I’m absolutely speechless” ​​he says after learning that the defense minister Ueli Maurer had no knowledge of the evaluation reports released by the Sunday press. That Mr. Maurer does not know everything, Fernand Carrel can admit it, especially since these documents are not easy to understand. “But he is surrounded by advisers, which hopefully are competent and that he should listen,” says the former senior officer.

Procedure may derail

“This whole thing is not looking good. it slipped and did not finish slipping” said Fernand Carrel. Under the crossfire of leftist politicians who are against the purchase of new aircraft and those on the right who will be divided between loyal partisans of Maurer and supporters of the Rafale, the risk is that nothing happens at all . “The whole process could collapse,” Mr. Carrel fears.

But the most important, according to the retired commander, is that the Air Force must be equipped with new combat aircraft “to replace the tired old Tiger in time”.[…] As already stated several times, Fernand Carrel believes that the Rafale is clearly the best of the three aircraft in contention.

The French device has the added advantage of being a finished product. The other two models are still under development, says the specialist. As said in the evaluation report of the Air Force, Fernand Carrel does not exclude that the Gripen is insufficient to police missions in the sky and could be even be less performant than the F/A-18.

Google translated from here.

I am also surprised that people don’t put more emphasis on what Gygax is saying. In most western countries an Air Force Chief of course needs to work with whatever politician happens to be in place and be cooperative, but there are limits and normally an Air Force Chief would not tolerate instructions to tell lies, not for something that is so important.

Lol that would be a first. Air Force Chief usually speak their mind freely only when they retire.

So during two years they were capable to follow Gripen development and determine that its capabilities would be suitable (apparently by the same people for didn’t know those same capabilities were not originally suitable), but they could not negotiate with Dassault/Eurofighter on price (which should be very much in Mauer skill set !)?

So why not simply say that from the very beginning they had selected the Gripen but wanted Saab to drop their prices. That would make everybody feel less stupid.

They were suppose to evaluate existing platform and choose from a mature platform to reduce risk of over cost IIRC. If they’re going with a aircraft that’s barely existing, then why ask to evaluate the other ?
How did/do they know for sure that the E/F will be cheaper on life cycle cost ? Did they fly one ? By that same logic Dassault could claim that by 2015 Rafale will come free with beers, and shoot with plasma canon !

They seem to have had a pretty close relationship with Saab over the past year and know everything about the Gripen risk reduction effort, yet they failed to have ant kind of discussion with the other two about price reduction effort ! Now Mauer is asking Dassault for an official concrete offer to study !??:confused:

Oh and if they had serious talk with all the competitors about price and capabilities, why would Saab suddenly offer to further reduce its price to counter Dassault counter offer ?:rolleyes:

So there is a legitimate reason for people in Switzerland (military and politicians alike) to question the choice and ask (and get one) for a enquiry.

Somebody said “you don’t need a BMW to go to shopping…. but air policing is not much about intercepting static thingies like hot air balloons (similar to a shop) but rather airliners that would look more like vehicles going at full speed on a highway, a BMW will be preferable than a twingo

First I don’t believe any respectable national police force would buy a twingo to patrol their streets (well ok maybe the French will:dev2:…).

Comparing air patrol to going shopping shows how some here have no idea what they’re talking about.

The Swiss have no AWACs as far as I know and they have a geography that makes it very hard for ground radars to be very effective. Small country with much bigger neighbour having a lot of air traffic, their reaction time is very short. Intercepting aircraft in distress does take a lot of time, and so you may need something with good range that can remain airborne as long as possible. If they went with the F18 back then they had their reasons.

As far as I know they favoured Rafale because it allows them to ID better, sooner, while been offered with a lot of goodies like maintenance in France, free support during International exercises etc. Modern electronic suites like the one present on the Rafale also allow a country to perform SIGINT/ELINT during their patrols, making an aircraft useful in more ways than just burn expansive fuel and make big noises.

Intelligence missions are usually long (which is why drone are becoming so popular due to their very long endurances), the Rafale is probably best of the three in this area, and apparently the Swiss Air Force favoured it.

To say things like it’s Swiss they don’t go to war anyway, or it’s Swiss they won’t use it etc. Is simplistic. They might not need an expansive overkill in fire-power which is why the Typhoon might not be favoured, but they certainly need to use they aircraft in as versatile a way as possible, starting with surveillance, patrol interception, reco, early ID etc.

Even the Swiss like BMW when going shopping !:D

IIRC the Rafale M availability rate was slightly lower than for the C/B.

I thought Swiss would get the C/D that they would later on upgrade with the help of local industries ?

Anyway now that Dassault understood that it was about price first and not performances, they have lowered they offer. So even if the Rafale doesn’t win, that will force Saab to lower their bid in order for the Gripen to be bought. So that should be good news for the buyer.

Plus the Swiss are the one making the biggest noise, so I hardly see how the French are the one complaining… Well unless the Swiss air force is in fact secretly French :diablo:…