Jokuvaanin taistelu taitaa jatkua korpraali friskin kommenttiosiossa:
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Renko already slipped that one current road base is “red” for F-35A and that they need to check how some runways can handle the weight.
F-35A has to use chute in winter and Gripen doesn’t, that tells a lot, design goals are simply different.
I think Finnish Air Force quite early on wanted USA fighter and from the two, preferably F-35A.
Remember Puranen’s often used phrase on how bad idea is it to walk into car dealer and point the car you want? Not much bargin left anymore if you do that. This was something Air Force needed to avoid at all cost.
Considering the goal and the end-result, Air Force could not be more happier, they made LM and USA feel unsecure and threaten in the HX, thus pushing for jackpot.
Finland bought a dream of hitech and low operating cost.
But low cost will end in 2031 as LM’s fixed cost only covers 2025-2030, but that is not army problem, it will be political problem as army funds need to be raised or land forces will go under the bus.
How did F-35A dominate the HX wargame? Simply answer is Block 4. Current 3F-version is such that USA doesn’t even want to test it in China wargame. But Finland gets Block 4 so everything is happy apart from yearly cost that wil blow-up in the 30’s? Well, not quite.
As everyone can read from GAO and DOT&E, Block 4 is in trouble. 3F was never finished, not only were they forced move items into Block 4, 3F was never on solid ground due to dead-end avionics architecture. But as stated earlier, Finnish Air Force wanted F-35A so these problems and schedule mayhem were ignored. Schedule is important not only for “things you actually get in year x” but specially for the wargame as it was set for spesific year or years. Delay in tech results direct point losses as you have less hitech force in use.
It only takes a few (more) years of delay and first patch of F-35A’s handed over in 2025(for USA training) will have TR2 CPU’s instead of TR3 and final parts of Block 4 will go into 2030’s. Eventually some items will be pushed into Block 5 as time and money runs out, as it already happened in 3F. Due to obvious reasons, USAF has a plan to cut fleet size by 40% and is moving strongly in other aircrafts like NGAD. Realistic schedule for ALIS replacement is a mystery.
If Finnish Air Force had a conservative reputation, it’s out of the window now. This was element I could not predict.
Saab could go court due to several strange things, not all mentioned in this. But they won’t as they are doing a lot of business in Finland and T-7 being the prime candidate for Hawk replacement.
I think this is Saab’s direct response for HX: