LokeNorwegian DoD responds to the critisism of potentially reduced requirements:
Google translate never fails in delivering the funny stuff!
LokeBluewings, please… although I appreciate that some of your nonsense postings have triggered some very informative and sensible postings from knowledgeable people like Mercurius and others, I have a feeling most people are becoming fed up.
If you could please ensure to have all your claims backed up (e.g., with links to reputable sources) before posting them then that would be extremely helpful.
LokeIMO the main potential issue with F-35 is not it’s technical capabilities but the costs, in particular the operational costs.
Reports like this is a bit worrisome:
Clingendael says the JSF will only be needed if the Netherlands wants to take part in the opening phase of military interventions. This would allow the Netherlands to exercise influence on the international community and deliver an ‘important contribution’ to Nato in terms of European military capacity.
But the high cost of the JSF will lead to ‘serious limitations’ to the country’s maritime operations – such as the role the Netherlands currently plays in protecting commercial shipping against pirates. The Netherlands would also have less capacity to take part in human rights and humanitarian missions, the institute says.
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2013/02/jsf_jet_does_not_fit_in_revise.php
If the F-35 becomes too expensive, countries may have to choose:
1. purchase the number of F-35 they require, and sacrifice other parts (like navy, army)
2. purchase a very limited number of F-35 and not reach the capabilities they need
3. purchase another a/c altogether…
Holland, Italy (and I think also the UK and Canada?) have signalled a reduction in the number of a/c they are going to buy. This is of course not just because the price has gone up but also because of the crisis in Europe.
Still, it is troubling.
Officially the US has not reduced the number of F-35 but I have a strong feeling they will do that… unless the US economy goes through a remarkable recovery in the near future.
LokeThey already operated F-16s, and in some cases bought more F-16s… if they were holding a competition for more fighters it was because they wanted something else.
Singapore and Korea both bought Strike Eagles, substantially larger and heavier aircraft than their F-16 fleets. They weren’t looking for more F-16s.
That was the point I was trying to make. F-16 did not participate in those competitions against the F-15, however the Rafale did. And it did quite well in the technical evals. As stated repeatedly it’s not really in the F-16 class although it’s small physical size often trick people into believing that it is.
Anyway, IMO the only a/c that can hope to “compete” against the F-35 is a further development of the Rafale (e.g. “Silent Rafale”); and the “Silent Eagle”.
However the “Silent Rafale” exists hardly on the drawing board and the “Silent Eagle” was definitely on the drawing board, however it’s been very quiet for a long time now.
Thus I am not very optimistic that we will see anything able to compete against the F-35.
Loke“For the time being, the armed forces is evaluating four MRCA to cater for RMAF needs, namely Gripen from of Sweden, F/A-18E Super Hornet from the United States, Rafale from Syarikat Daesu, and Eurofighter Typhoon from Britain,” he said, adding that the analysis would be presented to the government once it is concluded.
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2013/2/3/nation/20130203174445&sec=nation
“Syarikat Daesu” ??
LokeUm, both Singapore and South Korea operate large fleets of very modern F-16s… so I am not sure what point you are trying to make there.
That was my point; both those countries had competitions where planes like Rafale, Typhoon, F-15 were competing — they did not invite the F-16, not even the fantastic block 60. Had the Rafale been so crappy perhaps they would not have invited it. Had the F-16 been so much better than Rafale perhaps they should have invited that one instead. Clearly they did not. Rafale did not win but scored well on the technical eval, in spite of being “underdeveloped” at that time.
Seems like people around here like to pretend the India contract is the only one that matters.
Seems like you like to pretend that the UAE purchase of F-16 bl. 60 is the only one that matters.
Lockheed Martin has put its F-35 forward for the Canadian, Norwegian, Danish and Dutch orders and is favored in all of them.
Indeed; they did not offer the F-16 as a “cheap” alternative, knowing that if any of those countries should go for something else than the F-35 then most likely it will not be the F-16.
Malaysia will likely come down to SH or EF. Brazil eliminated the EF, so it will come down to the SH, Rafale or Gripen.
Funny that none of these countries even considered the F-16 in their recent competitions.
Don’t get me wrong, all of the above are excellent aircraft and they all have some advantages over the F-16, particularly in future growth, and to varying extents kinematics, but that doesn’t automatically mean they are more advanced.
That’s the point; they have future growth potential, they have (with the exception of SH) some kinematic advances, and they are also in a slightly higher range/payload class.
No doubt the current F-16 bl. 60 probably scores higher in some technical parameters than e.g. the Rafal, but at the same time Rafale will score higher on others. What’s important is that Rafale has the growth potential, F-16 don’t have much growth left. Furthermore, as shown in the Swiss eval even the 2008 version of the Rafale scored consistently high in all the missions profiles examined. Since then it has improved a lot of course.
LokeIf the F-16 bl. 60 is so great how come nobody has bought it except UAE?
Did F-16 beat Rafale in India? In Switzerland? In Singapore? In South Korea?
Brazil, Canada, Malaysia, Norway, Denmark, Holland all have had or will have competitions. The F-16 is absent from all those competitions. Typhoon, SH and/or Rafale are present however.
I find it strange you have a hard time accepting that the Rafale, Typhoon, and SH are more advanced and have more growth potential than F-16. Furthermore they are, as already noted, in a different class, being twin-engined and somewhat bigger. They will all be able to do a decent job for still some more decades; the USN, one of the biggest and most professional air forces on this planet, keeps buying the SH.
Loke😀
Right, so when bluewings says you can’t compare an F-16 to a Rafale because the Rafale is a “half generation” ahead… you say nothing. When I point out that the two are of the same generation by any reasonable standard suddenly it is a “marketing term.”
As for what happened in Morocco, you are right it is no secret. The F-16 won by offering a better plane at a better price to the actual operators while the French tried to push an over-priced political deal with the leadership.
The Moroccan Air Force got their plane.
The same thing happened in the UAE. After a long and careful evaluation the UAE Air Force selected the F-16 OVER the Rafale.
Rafale and F-16 are not really comparable, in the sense that they belong in different classes. If you want to compare Rafale to other planes I think F-15, Typhoon and SH are more relevant, however the F-15 is of an older generation, thus really Typhoon and SH compare to the Rafale, in terms of similar capabilities and growth potential.
The point is simply this; most countries don’t need the capabilities of an F-15, Rafale or Typhoon. Thus they go for the cheaper F-16 instead.
How many SH has the US exported? And compare the sales of F-15 to F-16 over the years — using your logic F-16 is superior to F-15 since it has won many more competitions… whereas in reality it is simply cheaper, and “good enough”.
Few countries are willing to pay the premium for the Rafale, even if the capabilities are superior to the F-16.
Also; do you think the F-16 bl. 50/52 is superior to the F-16 block 60? By your logic it is, since it has sold much more; AFAIK only one country is operating the block 60. It must be crap then!
Rafale is clearly a more modern plane than the F-16, and much more capable however the high price, high operating costs and other “non-technical” parameters has limited the sales. Look at the results from the Swiss eval. F-16 did not even participate in Switzerland, in spite of being much cheaper than Rafale. Also consider that Rafale has a lot of growth potential. F-16 does not.
Of course Rafale is being surpassed by PAK FA and F-35, but that does not change the capabilities of the Rafale itself. Had the US not developed the F-35 we would have seen much more interest in Rafale (a purely hypothetical scenario, and I dont’ really expect you to imagine it…).
LokeHe declined to comment on U.S. and Japanese investigations into two separate lithium-ion battery incidents, including a fire, on two Boeing (BA.N) Dreamliners, all of which were grounded by regulators earlier this month.
Searle said he was confident regulators would not change their minds about the benefits of lithium-ion technology or seek to ban it from commercial jets.
Saft, which says it is the world leader in lithium-ion batteries for the space and defense sectors, is developing them for the Airbus A350, which is due to make its maiden flight later this year.
It also provides lithium-ion batteries for the Lockheed Martin (LM.N) F-35, the world’s largest military project.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/31/us-saft-idUSBRE90U14X20130131
Interesting. I don’t think I have (so far) heard any issues with the F-35 batteries?
LokeWhich is all fine, but LMA built a weapon system that the “DOD” demanded … Clearly the Cost-capabilitiy trade off was done before the RFP was issued and because affordability was added in addition to versatility (3 versions with high commonality) certain capabilities which would have been “nice” or extremely beneficial went out (trade off).
It seems F-35 will:
1. meet “stealth” requirements
2. meet “sensor/sensor fusion” requirements
3. meet “range/loadout” requirements (but somewhat relaxed?)
4. not meet certain kinematic requirements. Even professional pilots seem to be split on the importance of this, with some pilots raising concerns: http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2013/01/whats-the-operational-impact-o.html
One of the big questions that still remains however is whether the “affordability” requirement can be met. It would be a pity to get a plane that fares much worse on some requirements because of the imposed “affordability” requirements, if those cannot be met… The F-22 is horribly expensive but it is at least extremely capable.
It will be interesting to see how PAK FA and J-20 will stack up in particular when it comes to costs.
LokeGlosson conveniently ignored F-117, which flew every mission at medium altitude. And F-22 was not in his inventory. F-22 flies its missions between 40-65K feet.
If all you possess is 80s tech jets, then you are forced to use 80s tactics and suffer the losses.
I may be wrong but I suspect there might be a difference between the F-16/F-18 on the one hand and e.g., SH/Rafale on the other.
There are some indications that the more modern platforms like SH, Rafale are more survivable than what some people refer to as “4. gen”. A combination of lower RCS (not to hide from radar but to make specific EWD techniques more effective); improved sensors, improved MMI, sensor fusion etc. may make these more modern “4.5” gen fighters more survivable than the older machines.
Stealth is great — if you can afford it. Interestingly most navies have so far not invested much money in stealthy surface ships. One notable exception is Sweden and their Visby class. In most other cases, the navies have to rely on “80s tech ships” and are forced to suffer the losses by not having stealthy platforms. Fighter pilots in many countries seem to be more “lucky” in this respect, in that they will have stealthy toys to play with. Hopefully it will not be too expensive!
Anyway since China and Russia are working on stealthy platforms I am happy that the US has a lead in this field.
I am quite convinced that eg. Rafale can survive most scenarios much better than e.g. F-16, but… F-35 will be more survivable in particular long-term (20-40 years from now).
LokeKongsberg studies JSM for submarine launch
1/24/2013
Norway’s Kongsberg Defence Systems has revealed plans to develop an encapsulated submarine-launched variant of its Joint Strike Missile (JSM), with development expected to be considered as an option for Norway’s submarine fleet beyond 2020.A derivative of the Nytt Sjomalsmissile/Naval Strike Missile (NSM) surface-to-surface guided missile, which entered service with the Royal Norwegian Navy (RNoN) in October 2012, JSM was initially conceived as an air-launched multimission precision-guided weapon designed for internal carriage on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). While retaining the imaging infrared seeker and GPS-aided navigation and guidance package of NSM, the JSM air vehicle has been substantially re-engineered to meet requirements for air launch and internal integration in the JSF weapons bay.
Changes include a slimmer, reprofiled airframe, a new turbojet engine, a revised intake arrangement, and new shoulder-mounted wing surfaces. Additional internal volume for fuel pushes range out to over 275 km; a two-way Link 16-compatible datalink is also incorporated.
Kongsberg is now looking to grow JSM into a wider family of precision-guided missiles, with the submarine-launch variant one option under study.
176 of 403 words
Full story: http://www.janes.com/products/janes/defence-security-report.aspx?ID=1065975498
LokeWARSAW — Poland’s push to protect energy resource deliveries and counter possible threats in the Baltic Sea has spurred the planned purchase of a second ground-launched anti-ship Naval Strike Missile (NSM) system to boost littoral capabilities.
Poland signed its first contract in 2008 for an NSM system along with command and control, radars and launchers from Norway’s Kongsberg Defence Systems for about 1.46 billion kroner ($263 million). The deal was expanded in late 2010 with the purchase of additional missiles and related equipment. Deliveries for this first order are scheduled to be completed by 2015.
“We are currently evaluating the possible acquisition of another system, which would enable us to secure our entire coastline,” Polish Chief of Staff Gen. Mieczyslaw Cieniuch told local news agency PAP.
LokeSeems they’ve lowered the performance again. http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/pentagon-lowers-f-35-performance-bar-381031/
What are the similar performance figures for F16 and F18 ?
LokeThe Norwegain process was so biased that it lost all credability in my eyes. The cost calculations (JSF Much cheaper than Gripen) and then positive outcome of joint simulations in Sweden combined with disasterous outcomes in their own secrete simulations in Norway, at last add the leaks from the US diplomatic messages about political pressure. “Well done Kim-il Stoltenberg”.
Apart from a claim by Snufflebug in this thread, I have not seen any indications that the Saab simulations and the Norwegian simulation were in any way similar. The Saab sims were NG vs Su-35; the Norwegian sims were NG vs PAK FA.
Furthermore, the Swedes never accepted the cost calculations of Norway however they did accept that, given the scenarios that were assessed, JSF won and NG lost.
(in pharanteses I would like to add that I have heard rumors that (some of) the Swedes actually think that with different tactics the NG would have been able to handle the scenarios, including the one with S-300 and the one with PAK FA — some hints were given at how this would be achieved. I will not say more.)
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