The Portuguese Air Force is no longer expected to acquire the 5th generation F-35 fighter from Lockheed Martin, all due to the review of the US position towards NATO.
hey guys, I think that trump guy might just be really awful for America.
Noggles
Yeah. We know. Others are going ro find out.
Love to see it
If we assume that Portugal would have ordered the same number as Czechia (a fellow European country with a pretty close GDP, population, and military budget that already bought F-35s) and take the flyaway cost on wikipedia of $82.500,000 as the price Portugal would have paid per plane, that’s $2 billion in sales that Lockheed Martin doesn’t get
that’s $2 billion in sales that Lockheed Martin doesn’t get
And that’s just the beginning.
I feel like billionaires might resolve the Trump/musk issue for us. Fucking with a defense contractor’s bottom line is pretty dangerous, especially when you have private security (Musk)
Fucking with a defense contractor’s
Good point. Hadn’t really thought of it that way. What an enormous mess…
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The enemy of my enemy
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#ElbowsUp eh
Portugal would probably have bought more, since we have a large area of the Atlantic Ocean that needs to be patrolled not only by sea, but also by air.
You also gotta make sure nobody tries to steal the Azores for their beautiful nature.
Do they get more planes for their buck now?
Disclaimer in that I am not in any way an expert on military procurement: it depends on what they buy.
There are three European planes that can do similar roles: the Typhoon (Anglo-German-Italian), the Rafale (French), and the Gripen (Swedish). According to this RUSI article, it looks like the Typhoon is probably actually more expensive per plane. The Typhoon was also, unlike the other two and the F-35, designed to be a pure air superiority fighter, so it’s more of an F-22 competitor than an F-35 one. Probably not what Portugal is looking for. That RUSI article has the Rafale as being a bit more expensive than the F-35 and the Gripen being a bit cheaper than it. However, the source for the F-35’s number is the flyaway cost for the Americans, who did ordered it in huge numbers and also did most (not all, but most) of the development and I would assume get a better deal than others. Further, it’s in an article headlined “F-35’s price might rise, Lockheed warns”. So I’m just going to hedge my bets and say:
- If they buy the Typhoon, definitely no, but the Typhoon probably isn’t the right fit anyway
- If they buy the Rafale, somewhere around the same, and it’ll still be extremely capable
- If they buy the Gripen, yes, and it’ll still be very good but not quite individually capable as the other options
A last point to consider is that the rafale is cheaper to operate than the F-35
That’s all well and good, but you’re also missing a critical point.
The European Union is very likely to introduce a bill that will massively subsidize purchases of local (EU) military equipment. This will make all EU alternatives much, much more attractive than F-35s.
This is a great move by the EU - it drives a lot of military spending away from the US and into the local economies, while shoring up its own security as well as preventing being at the hands of a fickle fascist for maintenance and upgrades.
Which in turn will probably also help with economies of scale, making the ex-subsidy cost of that equipment go down.
For once, our (Croatian) government lucked into making a good choice when they went with Rafales instead of F-16Vs.
Thank you. This was the answer I was looking for.
It’s migration season, and this is only the first bird - I predict there’s more of them.
I think we have an interesting conflict of interest on the US side of the ocean: “the US military industrial complex” vs. “Trump, driving away their customers”.
US MIC: “I wish the Feds would buy more guns and less butter.”
*monkey paw curls*
For them it is easier, because as I understand they didn’t sign any contract yet, just were planning to.
They went to the fighter store and all the F-35s were turned upside down.
Why would anybody feel they can rely on American hardware anymore? Any country with any sense won’t be beholden to them as an ally now thanks to that idiotic mango.
Portugal was lucky to get quite late aboard the F35 ship, as they decided about it as late as April 2024. Finland, where I’m from, was one of the earliest ones, deciding about the procurement in late 2022. Some other ones, as told by Wikipedia:
Canada: Jan 2023 Czechia: Jan 2024 Germany: 2023 Greece: Delivery 2027, so ordered probably in late 2023 or so? Poland: 2020, apparently some already delivered? Romania: November 2024 Singapore: Early 2024 Switzerland: delivery from 2027, so probably ordered in late 2023?
The further the procurement process, the more money might get wasted if the order has to be cancelled. Would still make sense to cancel, though, because a weapon you are free to use as long as there is no war is just a heap of scrap metal. It does not matter how much money we’ve already spent on the scrap metal, we should not put a cent more.
Yeah I got a sneaking suspicion that LMC’s gonna see a ton of options getting dropped and orders cancelled. Our government is not to be trusted. We’ll use that shit as leverage at some point.
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Mate I dislike JS as much as anyone but there’s no need to bring it in here.
Let’s do this too! 🇨🇦
There has been talk. Apparently will cost about 500 million to cancel the contract.
Got to speed up the European 6th gen fighter development
That’s how we get shitty aircraft. Need to speed up developing homebrew avionics for the F35s.
The F35 is trash anyways
it’s trash, if you ignore literally everything it’s good at, which is basically everything it’s designed for.
Turns out cars aren’t very good at crossing the ocean. Who would’ve thunk a fighter jet not designed for dogfighting wouldn’t be designed to dogfight. Truly a baffling conundrum.
By all metrics available, the F35 is literally the most capable jet in existence, it’s technological capabilities are literally unmatched.
F35 is designed to be a multirole fighter-bomber, it’s a jack of all trades, but has some serious tradeoffs in stealth and maneuverability. And before you go off (rightfully) about how dogfighting is mostly irrelevant in the modern age, manuverability is also how you crank to avoid missiles at long range.
The F22 can take on multiple F35s at the same time and smoke 'em.
if you’re of Russian descent, i can understand the concept of just, forgetting about certain problems, they were notorious for that one.
But i can assure you, the F35 has the ability to make up for those downfalls, it’s like you said, a trade off. You trade stealth and maneuverability for additional hardware and functionality, it’s a fighter positioned for a different role in modern warfare, it’s not meant to solely defend itself, it’s meant to be a functional piece of a military force.
The F22 can take on multiple F35s at the same time and smoke 'em.
The F22 is also an incredibly capable fighter jet, even more so than the extremely capable f15/f16 that’s been around for damn near ever. In fact, the F22 and F35 are probably supposed to work together, rather than separately. The F35 covers roles the F22 cannot, the F22 covers roles the F35 cannot, it’s the basis of most military strategy.
I’m guessing the F22 is beating the F35 specifically in dog fighting, a task it’s literally not meant for. Given that it’s also a recent addition to the fleet, it’s not uncommon for the military to put new tech in all kinds of weird situations to battle test it, ensure that it can do what it should, and to (this is really important) understand it’s weaknesses in the event that it becomes relevant.
Interestingly enough, the fact that the F35 carries weapons at all is pretty impressive, given it’s technical feats.
You’re telling me the purpose built air superiority fighter can out fight the multi-role strike-fighter? That’s wild and who’d of thunk!
In those same tests when they let the F-35 engage at range it won most of the time. It’s literally the close in dogfight part that it doesn’t win at and that’s why the F-22 is supposed to do that for it. The F-35 without an F-22 mission profile is to sneak into radar range, trigger AIM 174s from the super hornets behind it to clear enemy air assets and then get into range for it’s air to ground payload; drop that and light the afterburner to go home. At no point is it envisioned willingly dogfighting.
I never understood why they stopped making the F22. Less profit, probably.
What makes you form that opinion?
It is american?
that was also the logic that lead to russia thinking they could beat ukraine, uh, didn’t work.
Valid
Yea, imagine getting a brand-new fleet of F-35s and then king trump wakes up and has them bricked to blitz-annex the Azores.
Dunno if you’ll find a more European fighter than the Gripen.
Uses a license produced engine from US (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_RM12), which has caused endless problems in exports for SAAB, since the US blocks them frequently when they are about to win a contract.
I would go for Rafale or Eurofighter and I am saying this as a swede. We need to replace the engines ASAP. Perhaps a UK, German or French one. Would probably take years to develop thought and likely a significant overhaul will be necessary.
What about the Eurofighter?
And then there’s the rafale
The Eurofighter’s prettier, estranged cousin
Uses US engine
As they should. I’ll tell you that as an American you shouldn’t trust the US government.
O mundo já mudou. Houve eleições nos EUA, houve uma posição em relação à NATO e ao mundo, afirmada pelo secretário para a Defesa e pelo próprio Presidente dos EUA, que tem que ser tida em conta também na Europa e no que tem a ver com Portugal.
E esse nosso aliado, que ao longo de décadas foi sempre previsível, poderá trazer limitações na utilização, na manutenção, nos componentes, em tudo aquilo que tem a ver com a garantia de que as aeronaves serão operacionais e serão utilizadas em todo o tipo de cenários.
Interview here, in Portuguese.
The world has already changed. There were elections in the USA, there was a position [change] regarding NATO and the world, stated by both the Defense Secretary and the President of the USA, that has to be taken into account in Europe and in Portugal.
Our ally, who through decades has always been predictable [as in steadfast], may bring limitations to using, to maintaining, to components, anything that relates to the assurance that the planes are operational and can be used in all types of scenarios.
For some context, Portugal has an aging fleet of F-16s. The national Air Force wants to replace these with F-35s, but that is no longer likely to happen.
He was asked if Portugal would instead purchase, for example, French aircraft, but he declined to answer.
