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.
Bravo to Portugal!!! Setting a solid example of what the rest of 1st Class Europe should do with US weapon contracts. The current US political situation is playing a dangerous game with the US MIC.
Have to be honest I’m not keen on the UK buying any more either I’d rather see Rafales on the new carriers or a tweaked eurofighter.
Euro fighter with vectoring engines, and better stealth would be doooope
Don’t think that will happen with the Tempest program being the main focus for the raf but if they could make a carrier capable tranche version it could be a good stopgap.
Asking stupid question… Isn’t this kinda shit that got Kennedy killed? Fucking w the military industrial complex? Have those barons diversified enough to not care about this line of business or something? I thought this was kind of a backbone of our economy. So many jobs too.
Killing Donny wouldn’t change much, tho.
America has shown it wants Donald or a Donald substitute.Project 2025 is now Americas playbook.
Other countries changing military suppliers isn’t going to change back to america for 10-15 years (hell, maybe even longer, I dunno what the service life of a jet platform is).
The risk that has surfaced of “America has an off switch” - even just the potential risk of rumors of an off switch - means all those military assets are useless when America elects unhinged leaders that are willing to subvert democratic process in order to run their playbook.
And America has shown it is willing to do that. Even prefers to do that
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
What makes you form that opinion?
It is american?
Valid
Thank fucking god
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
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.
Mmm… Pretty interesting article.
Mate I dislike JS as much as anyone but there’s no need to bring it in here.
They went to the fighter store and all the F-35s were turned upside down.
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.
hey guys, I think that trump guy might just be really awful for America.
Yeah. We know. Others are going ro find out.
Noggles
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.
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
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.
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)
Removed by mod
The enemy of my enemy
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Fucking with a defense contractor’s
Good point. Hadn’t really thought of it that way. What an enormous mess…
#ElbowsUp eh
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
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.
A last point to consider is that the rafale is cheaper to operate than the F-35
Love to see it
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.
