I think each of those competitions had a parable that requires greater investigation. In addition, the F16 V is superior to anything offered before. However, if you are correct and FAF have specifically crossed out the F16, there is little more to discuss.

Like Super Hornet, F-16 is unlikely to be in production ten years from now.

Range is not really an issue. FAF doesn’t do long-range strikes, and Finland does not have huge ADI zone, it’s not at all like British Isles or Alaska etc. FAF has plenty of bases, and just from 2-3 bases Hornet can easily cover entire country.

T50? JF17?

Unless their Hornets are falling apart it would be a downgrade, not an upgrade

They are…unfortunately it turned out that F-18 is not anywhere as durable as advertised.

FAF has ruled out F-18 lifetime extension. However, if the economy continues to go down the toilet, my gut feeling is that it will come back…

F-35’s ‘newness’ won’t be an issue as said, it will have entered service in several countries before Finnish evaluation. FAF plans a full-scale flyoff as with Hornets, I don’t think LockMart has a problem with that. If they do, they can forget about the deal, we won’t buy blind.
I don’t think F-35’s acquisition cost is going to be a major deal-breaker in the sense that we couldn’t afford it (we bought 2 times as many Hornets than Switzerland last time around…), however the lifetime costs might be. F-35 will be signifantly more expensive to operate than F-18, and that might prove to be a killer.

Almost immediately after the fighter acquisition program, FAF will have to select new advanced trainer. T-50 might have good shot at that.

Perhaps; I have been to Finland just a couple of times and when talking to some of the locals I had to switch to English since they did not understand my Norwegian whereas I have never spoken English to a Swede, they never had issues with my Norwegian…

Mina Svenska är inte så bra. Most Finns have only very rudimentary knowledge of Swedish, so they prefer English. It’s easier to communicate when both speak English at 70% level, than when one speaks Swedish at 100% and other at 20%. Accents, of course, make it only harder. Finnish Swedish is pretty easy to understand with many phonemes not that different from Finnish, but mainland ‘Riksvenska’ is harder, to say nothing about Skåne, Norwegian etc…

Are they really leaving in large quantities?

No, it’s nonsense. And we’re only all too happy to get rid of dumbasses like Wahlroos. I give it five years before Swedes are sick of him and try to send him back.

And what is this UCAV stuff? There are no UCAVs available for FAF requirements in foreseeable future and they’re not considered, end of story.

Not sure if these ships would be able to have any anti-ship capabilities like from their torpedoes ( 533 mm) or other missiles ?
Some soviet naval SAM supposedly had dual anti-air and anti-ship capabilities

I think the torpedoes could target surface targets – not 100% sure, though. I believe most naval SAMs have surface attack mode, though I have not seen this explicitly confirmed for SA-N-3 (Shtorm).
And of course, there are guns. Though Krestas are weak in this department.

1. There are no MiG-21s available for that, anymore. The production ended three decades ago.
2. Russia is not a politically acceptable vendor for everyone..

In fact, last examples (and non-Russian to boot) rolled off the production lines 2 years ago.
And it’s not like there are no ‘simple no-frills’ fighter planes available today – FC-1, FA-50, Hawk 200 etc.

Much better to downsize the existing F-18 fleet, (which is already a huge overkill) and flog the ‘newest’ ones to 2040, without upgrades.They haven’t had to undergo the stresses of carrier ops (unlike the USMC’s units scheduled for retirement in 2030), so airframe life shouldn’t be an overwhelming concern.

That’s what it was once thought, but it turned out that opposite is true. FAF flight profiles are much more stressful than USN/USMC ones and many Hornet airframes are actually falling well short of targeted 6000 hour service life.

‘Overkill’ is just right amount of kill.

http://www.defenseworld.net/news/13156/Eurofighter__Rafale__Super_Hornet__F_35__Gripen_In_Race_To_Finland___s_New_Fighter_Jet_Program#.VXrnVPmqpHw

Kind of a mismatch there… If they want to go for a “large number” of fighters, their only hope would be the Gripen E, all the others will be too expensive. Even the Gripen E could be too expensive, if the sales efforts of Saab does not pay off and they don’t get more than the current two customers (Brazil and Sweden). However there are number of countries interested so I would say it’s a pretty safe bet that Gripen E will become quite affordable.

However I think the F-35 will beat Gripen E in Finland, and they will go for a lower number. (30-40 a/c would be my guess).

I can’t vouch for what they are thinking, but I think 40 is an absolute minimum number and they’d prefer at least 50. Remember that Finland is not part of any major alliance and has to take care of her own air superiority needs. Can’t just count on buying a nominal number of fighters and expect a Big Brother fly in if there’s trouble. If we can’t afford sufficient number of F-35’s, then it’s probably out of the contest.

Finland also should forget about assembling their own jets — not feasible, probably not even for Gripen.

Why not? Hornets and NH90’s were assembled in Finland too. It is often forgotten that Finland has reasonably capable, if small, aviation industry.