Spitfire9Its not “obsolete” This is all based on the idea on that the EOTS won’t be able to do exactly everything that the latest pods can. However it can still do many other things that even the latest and greatest pods can’t do.
this is right up there with saying that if you are not driving a 2015 model car, its obsolete. EOTS will still do what a vast majority of the latest pods will do, and in many cases do it better. This is just another “its different so it sucks” story.
Mmmm…
More damningly, the F-35 won’t be able to send even its already lower-quality live video down to those soldiers on the ground because its specifications were set before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan started. Back then, no one ever imagined needing to beam live video to ground troops from a fighter jet. Nor are there any current plans to add that capability to the F-35.
“At no point is F-35 fragged to have VDL [video down-link] unless it carries a targeting pod and the F-35 EOTS does not have and will not get an IR [infrared] marker,” the first F-35 official said. “It won’t fit in the space available.”
The lack of an infrared pointer is a huge problem, according to multiple Air Force pilots with experience flying combat missions in support of ground forces. In aircraft like the A-10, F-15E or F/A-18 Hornet, when ground troops pass target coordinates—or if the pilot spots enemy forces shooting—that pilot can turn on the infrared pointer to highlight the target. If the ground controller—known as a Joint Terminal Attack Controller—sees the “sparkle” from the infrared pointer, he can confirm that the pilot is illuminating the correct target.
So the above is all BS, is it? Or is it that F-35 does not match or better everything else? That appears to be what the French would call your “starting point”.
Spitfire9Reading through the last few posts, it seems to me that where the F-35 cannot be rivalled is on strike missions into defended air space with no external stores carried. However if ordnance is limited to 4000lb, how many aircraft would be need to be available to deliver the weight of ordnance required to achieve set objectives?
What about EOTS? If the current system is inadequate, how long to develop an adequate system? If it is going to need replacement, is that going to be an extra cost for buyers of the aircraft with the current EOTS?
Spitfire9f-35 can reach mach 1.6, so what your point? sure EF-2000 and Rafale can reach mach 1.8 so they will be faster at intercepting dodgy airliner but then again if that is the main poin why dont just use F-4 or F-106 instead? alot cheaper and faster, also i dont understand why you would need to intercept an aircraft to investigate what it doing? cant you just saw everything on radar and talk to them on radio?
Not if their comms are switched off/down. Exactly what happened over southern England a month or so ago. Typhoon(s) tasked to intercept went supersonic in order to get to the non-communicating aircraft fast. Why not use F-4? UK retired them many years ago and replaced them with MRCA.
Spitfire9So what you’re saying is that the EF, Rafale and F-35 are all unaffordable to most, but the former score over the latter in that their unaffordability is by design while the F-35s is by circumstance. The problem with that is the Gripen E, which is an evolution of an affordable light fighter but at $3.5bn for 22 units will not be able to prevent budgets cuts in other segments.
Don’t be silly.
F-35 @ $25,000 operational cost per hour x 6000 hours lifetime use = $160 million. Cost to operate a fleet of 50 = $8 billion.
Gripen E @ $10,000 operational cost per hour x 6000 hours lifetime use = $60 million. Cost to operate a fleet of 50 = $3 billion.
I may have underestimated F-35 operational cost and overestimated Gripen E operational cost but that’s not of great relevance. The point is that you have a lot more funds available for other defence commitments if you operate Gripen E.
Spitfire91) you cant catch or fight something you cant see, that why stealth attribute is very important
2) arliner cruising at mach 0.84 and 30000+ ft will be detected by ground radar from 400-500 km, you dont need high speed or climb rate to intercept them when you have so much time warning, and if intercept airliner is the only important mission then they would buy SAM not Fighter, no fighter is going to climb faster than a SM-6, PAC-1/2 or S-300/400
OK, ground radar can detect an airliner cruising at mach 0.84 and 30000+ ft from 400-500 km. However if the aircraft is following normal procedures it is not perceived as a threat. An element of air policing is investigating anomalous behaviour by an aircraft. It may be that behaviour starts inside a country’s air space. To catch up with airliners flying away at mach 0.8+ you need a supersonic interceptor. You do not down an aircraft with a SAM when you are trying to investigate what it is doing. You intercept it.
Spitfire9Belgium, Poland & Spain will all operate the F-35.
Belgium/Poland/Spain will be bankrupt long before. These three countries are entirely depended on Germany and Russia will shaft Germany very hard in coming decades to come.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-22/china-buys-record-russia-crude-as-putin-seeks-to-avoid-recession.html
I’m not sure where you get the idea that Belgium will be bankrupt. Providing The Netherlands goes through with an F-35 purchase as planned, I would expect Belgium to follow suit.
Spitfire9F35 is too expensive for the allocated polish budget. So it is out.
They’ll inevitably revise their budget.
That’s the problem with F-35. It seems to be the view taken by a lot of F-35 proponents that the defence of every country can only be sustained by buying an aircraft whose main virtue lies in its strike capability and which will be far more costly to operate than the aircraft it replaces. Due to the expense goverments will need to
(a) reduce expenditure on non-F-35 defence items
(b) procure F-35 in much smaller numbers than its predecessor
(c) increase the national defence budget by (i) cutting non-defence expenditure (ii) committing to increased taxation or borrowing
or some combination of (a) or (b) or (c)
I have to ask: what is so precious about procuring a predominantly strike aircraft to replace predominantly fighter aircraft?
Spitfire9There’s not a hope in hell of Greece buying F-35 in the near future. No money. Even before the world banking crisis they had to scrap their intended Typhoon purchase due to lack of funds.
Only way I can foresee Greece buying F-35 would be if Turkey had it in service and it proved to give them a big advantage over the non-VLO aircraft in Greece’s fighter fleet.
Spitfire9How would you explain the costs quoted to Switzerland for the Gripen E? $3.5bn for just 22 aircraft. The $6bn that the Dutch are spending on the F-35 would buy what.. 45 Gripen Es? Maybe upto 50 aircraft if Saab offers a reduced price.
While they had to engage in some accounting gymnastics to present the F-35 as cheaper, the RNLAF would still prefer 37 F-35s over a moderately larger order of Gripen Es.
Norway does not really have money problems. IIRC the Norwegian “assessment” that artificially boosted projected life cycle cost of Gripen operation was to demonstrate to decision makers that F-35 was the better aircraft on both performance and cost criteria. End of debate in terms of which of the two to choose, wasn’t it?
Re: 37 F-35’s, that was for Netherlands. Haven’t checked ny facts here so shoot me down if I’ve got anything wrong. I think they are down to about 60 active F-16’s now due to having to cannibalise aircraft for spares because the replacement is… how can I put it?… just a tad late. Their replacement with an aircraft that will be a quantum leap more expensive to operate will require cuts elsewhere in the armed forces. Had they chosen F-18 or Gripen, they would not have to be thinking of how much to cut the size of their navy and how many bases to close to find the funds to operate F-35. I believe that the Netherlands is rethinking its entire defence for the coming years in order to fund a first day strike aircraft which is so expensive that only 4 will be available for first day NATO strike operations where the US can easily make 50 times as many available. In other words the contribution of Netherlands to NATO operations involving F-35 will be almost entirely insignificant at the cost of a radical restructuring of defence of the Dutch realm.
Utter stupidity to me. But there we go: I’m not American and I don’t see Europe’s role as having to follow what America does when the electorate of most European countries is not prepared to follow the American electorate in funding a large defence budget.
Spitfire9Didn’t Norway conclude that the Gripen NG would cost more than the F-35A in 2008?
The figures for Gripen were so seriously twisted in the assessment that the process bordered on false accounting. All in order to find a way to “show” that F-35 was cheaper. If I recall, to get the cost of Gripen up absurd rates of attrition were used etc etc I don’t recall with certainty but I think that hard data from Sweden on Gripen costs was ignored again because the figures did not the scenario required – that F-35 had to appear to be better value. Some of the background arm twisting from the American embassy was also revealed when a certain person called Snowden revealed thousands of embarrassing pieces of confidential data.
In short, the Norwegian assessment of F-35 v Gripen was heavily biased in F-35 favour by design.
Spitfire9UK-Bahrain Base Deal Could Lead to Typhoon Sales
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20141213/DEFREG04/312130021/
Spitfire9I have heard ad nauseum that NATO countries should buy the F-35 so members participating in NATO operations will be flying the same aircraft as the USA. My argument against this view has been (a) if the USA has hundreds of F-35’s available for first strike operations, why must other NATO members buy the same kit if their main interest is defence of their own air space (b) purchasing F-35 will reduce the overall capabilites of many NATO countries(less non-F-35 assets available to the countries’ armed forces in general – whether it be military airlifters/navy warships/army tanks or whatever) ie countries will be less able to undertake their own defence or to contribute to NATO operations.
The Netherlands has opted to procure 37 F-35’s. The number is limited due to cost. Due to the number being curtailed by cost, only 4 will be available for NATO operations. Additionally the Netherlands forsees the cost of operating each its F-35’s to be a maximum of €7.7 million per annum. At 200 hours use per aircraft per annum the cost works out to be a maximum of €38,500 per flying hour (about US$46,000 per flying hour).
This consequences of opting for F-35 over more affordable alternatives will be even more destructive to Netherlands capability than I imagined, I fear. Doubtless the die hard F-35 proponents will think that all that matters is to buy the F-35 and its effect on the effectiveness of your defence forces is not to be considered.
Spitfire9Typhoon tries Brimstone 2 missiles for size
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/typhoon-tries-brimstone-2-missiles-for-size-407154/
Spitfire9Feasibility Study on Gripen for Belgium
So SAAB has bought a ticket for the Belgium F-16 replacement lottery. Hope they didn’t spend too much on it. If I were SAAB I would have sent a photocopy of the sales brochure with an attached note saying that if an F-35 deal fell through due to cost, the sales department would welcome a call.
Spitfire9Suggest this be moved to Gripen thread.
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