@Ozair Germany’s reluctance appears to be almost completely associated with their desire to foster a healthy domestic military industry and has nothing to do with Russian or US relations. Given the German Chief of Air Force has already advocated in favour of the F-35 I don’t see how you can make that baseless claim.

It has everything to do with US/Germany and greater US/EU politics. Russia has little to do with it. This is the first shot in Germany’s quest for independence. The Tornado happened to be expiring now and it is actually a bold political move for Germany to reject the obligatory client kit.

This is the new world order in the making. Germany and France are rightly going to run Europe.

Given the German Chief of Air Force has already advocated in favour of the F-35 I

yeah just like India. The US buttered up the air forces to vouch for the F 35

The American posters just cant accept the story because its treason on the part of their govt.

Raptors are protecting the guys that did 9/11. And no. I don’t expect any American to be able to stomach this.

The Serbs showed what an open panel does to the stealth of a stealth jet. Minor error you say but in a war zone, that’s a fatal mistake.

The N. Korea section is truly shocking, there was no sabre rattling until fat man started nuke testing and test firing missiles on provocative trajectories near his neighbors. Discounting the war of words between the two egotists, the actions that threaten to upend that region have been prompted by DPRK. Wonder if Bondarev would feel differently if Ukraine was test firing prototype ICBMs in the waters of the Black Sea? S. Korea and Japan have every reason to worry when Jong-Un has shown willingness provoke with attacks on S. Korean islands and ships.

This political commetary is worse than useless in a forum like this. Fat man and US agreed to wait 60 days before opening talks. Fat man did no tests for 60 days. What did Trump do in the meantime ? 3 aircraft carriers and B1 bomber runs.

Not worth commenting

@cherry ripe

Is Russia more of a threat to Finland nowadays than the USSR in the depths of the Cold War?

Its not even close. But the attitude of the western establishment to Russia is worse. And governments that aren’t in DC are weaker than ever. Finland will probably fall into line and buy whatever DC tells them to.

@Spud

Just answer one of the actual realities about the cost and the man hours into the jet.

Code. How much more code does the F-35 have compared to the Hornet ?

Coating. A Hornet just has paint. Every F-35 has special coating. It costs way more by the gallon. Its just a raw cost that no amount of accounting gimmicks can overcome.

Fighter pricing is all politics. The F-35 pricing is all poltics. Somehow, they are getting away with these numbers in the news. But those numbers aren’t meant for hardcore enthusiast consumption. Even volume wise. Its not like there hasn’t been high volumes of these other fighters.

On the development side, since the USG & Partners have already paid for the basic development,

Then you have to add that per jet to get a fair price compared to the Rafale or anything.

The $80 mil number is the URF/REC Flyaway price. Every customer knows this

How could anyone seriously believe this ?

Treaty ally cost and export prices are 2 different animals. Unless the US govt is subsidizing the F-35 by 10’s of millions, there is no way that the cost is under 100 or anywhere near the cost of Rafale or Gripens.

How much more lines of code is there in the F-35 compared to a Rafale or Gripen ? The stealth coating ect. This is just not possible. This is like saying an iPhone X is costing slightly less than a Samsung S6. Its just not reality. And if sub 100 prices are kicking around, its because someone is subsidizing it.