Su-35S: News

is the swedish gripen a threat to flankers?

https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-built-a-russian-fighter-jet-killer-and-stealth-is-irrelevant-2019-2

andalusia wrote:is the swedish gripen a threat to flankers?

https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-built-a-russian-fighter-jet-killer-and-stealth-is-irrelevant-2019-2

It's not

The only threat anything Swedish poses is to themselves.

The problem with EW is that you really don't know whether it will work... that is an important comment...

Second of course this is talk from people in Finland trying to sell some fighter planes... they can't say it is bigger or faster or higher flying or more manouverable or carries more weapons or better weapons or even that it is cheaper... they used to say it was cheaper to operate but now that they have sold a few they stopped saying it was cheaper... hint hint hint...

They can't say it is more stealthy, so they go for the obvious... it has amazing EW.

But hang on... over the last few years with Russian forces in Syria and Ukrainians fighting Kievs forces using some Russian equipment it turns out Russian EW is actually much better than HATO ever gave them credit for, but we are just supposed to accept Swedish EW is better?

However, Sweden benefits from a Russian focus on US fighters. “Sweden is too small really to optimise your counter-electronic warfare capabilities against,” Bronk said.

So Bronk says Sweden is not significant enough for them to care about... doesn't that suggest their performance in that field does not require attention?

Doesn't that suggest that if Finland does buy Gripens that it will become relevant and the Russians will start paying attention rendering the Gripen useless?

“If you couple a very effective radar with excellent EW and a Meteor, the most effective longest range air-to-air missile which is resistant against [Russia’s] jammers … There’s no reason not to assume it wouldn’t be pretty damn effective,” Bronk said. “If you’re a flanker pilot, it’s probably a very scary thing to face.”

Except in context if they can't jam a Meteor then they could at least just shoot it down with an AAM... some model Flankers can carry 14 missiles...

Also the odds of Russian flankers operating over Sweden is not that likely... more likely intermediate range ballistic missiles will take out airfields HQs and comms centres etc etc

In short this is a desperate sales pitch to a country they want to sell aircraft to... 10 years ago they would have said that while expensive to buy it is a light single engined fighter so it is cheap to operate... but their problem is that their customers who believed that like have since found it is bullshit... it is not cheap to maintain. So that has been dropped from the sales brochure... so they have to look at the new customer... Finland.... and decide what they think will be their biggest issue or threat... Flankers and Su-57s of course... so they will downplay stealth and bigger more expensive alternatives and suggest the gripen is exactly what they need...

You don't get a Black Belt without passing tests against a master or an equal... Gripen has had none of that...

The point is that Finland is tiny and right on the border with Russia... their best bet is to have F-5 freedom fighters or LIFTs based on Hawks or Yak-130s... you know... stuff that clearly offers no threat to Russia, but can do some air space policing so that your airfields don't get destroyed the instant your leader says something positive about HATO during a conflict.

GarryB wrote:
The point is that Finland is tiny and right on the border with Russia... their best bet is to have F-5 freedom fighters or LIFTs based on Hawks or Yak-130s... you know... stuff that clearly offers no threat to Russia, but can do some air space policing so that your airfields don't get destroyed the instant your leader says something positive about HATO during a conflict.

The fundamental problem, not confined to Finland, is that no-one and least of all the selling countries, wants to go back to first principles and analyze just what the aircraft are for. If they did that, 'dick swinging' would have to be high on the list As a neutral country you'd think that the Su-35/30 or even Mig-35 would be on the list.

Bit like Germany, why do they need to spend $Bs on nuke delivery aircraft? If the Yanks want to do that let the USAF do it, they already have the aircraft. Let alone the UK spending £10Bs we don't have on carriers and new SLBMs and subs yet nothing on SAMs.

We are in a crazy world that is about to get even crazier.

Very true... I mean look at HATO... America decides to invade Afghanistan... you know... because it is in Europes interests to do so, so an odd ball rag tag group of countries off up all sorts of support... what they normally end up with is about 5 different types of fighter planes, but only the US brings the useful stuff like transports and refuelling planes.

For most HATO countries a modern fighter plane is totally pointless, yet they all have to have some... it is like third world countries in the 60s and 70s buying MiG-21s so they can have some supersonic fighter planes for parades and airshows and scaring the neighbours...

Most of the time an Su-25 would have been vastly more useful... but more often than not a silver mach 2 fighter plane is what they want because they are shiny and the other countries have some too...

A brand new MiG-29M2 would do Finland fine... it would last them 40 years and be cheap to own and operate, but not scare or threaten any of its neighbours... and they could afford healthcare and education programmes instead of pissing money away to Sweden or the US... or Brussels...

Whatever helps them sleep at night...

It is the same here in New Zealand... we had Sky Hawks which are quite potent little planes for what they are but are pretty obsolete now. When it came time to retire them the military wanted F-16s, but all we ever actually used our Skyhawks for was to buzz Aussie ships pretending to be anti ship missiles, and go to various airshows around the place. We really were not getting value for money and it actually made sense to get rid of them and use the money for things we do use.

We are at the bottom of the planet... any air force able to get here would kick the arse of anything we could afford... two dozen Skyhawks or two dozen old model F-16As would not make much difference either way, and most of the time they would have nothing to do. We do help out the UN quite a bit and had troops in Afghanistan building schools and hospitals and trying to convince the locals that not all white men are bad... but we would never be in a situation where any of the other UN partners had no fighter planes much better than any that we could afford to own let alone use.

A UN peace keeping force to Bosnia is not going to say... great... glad you brought the Skyhawks... just park them over by the Typhoons and Rafales and F-35s....

We would be better off buying a dozen Il-476 transport planes... we could use them to transport our LAV IIIs if we needed to move quickly, and most UN operations need more transport planes... when we weren't using them for military purposes they would be handy around the Pacific Islands helping our neighbours and internationally in peacekeeping operations.

Of course we normally move our LAVs by sea which takes quite a lot of time...

Of course we could not buy Russian planes for political reasons and C-17s are just to damn expensive to buy and operate... so it wont happen.

Well, you must be about the only country in the World to have gone back to first principles. At least the Skyhawks found good homes, like the F-5 a really nifty little plane especially with updated avionics and external pods. As the US are exploiting in their aggressor squadrons.

Agree wholeheartedly with the transport planes but now the spend has gone from the budget there is no way its coming back. Just as with the debt loads currently being taken by national budgets on the lockdowns are going to severely impact budgets going forward. Something no-one dare discuss yet it seems.

I was always told to never buy something I can't afford and if I can afford it then save up to buy it.

The main reason we didn't get the F-16s is because the Labour government decided we couldn't afford it... a National government would have said we couldn't afford it but we are buying them anyway...

Ended up being a total pain in the ass... we upgraded out Skyhawks with technology used in the F-16s so when we said we didn't want to buy second hand F-16s to replace the SHs they blocked all the customers we lined up to buy our old planes. We ended up spending millions on upkeep to keep them in mothballs... money better spent on anything else... if I was in power I would have told them to go fuck themselves and taken anything of value off them and taken them out to deep water and sunk them as divers reefs... Sell the parts to the highest bidders... at the time there were a few other operators out there...

They got especially shitty about our anti nuke policy too... bah... who needs them anyway....

GarryB wrote:
They got especially shitty about our anti nuke policy too... bah... who needs them anyway....

Seems a lot of them need you for their bunkers. Hope they attract a very large planning approval levy.

Yeah, the problem is that it is driving up land prices and I don't think their little siege mentalities are healthy or normal.

It is a bit like countries offering special tax rates for big businesses to get them to register as local companies so they pay less tax... when times are good you get some tax payed from companies who would normally never give you the time of day, but when things get bad and you have to increase taxes... especially for the big super rich so they pull their weight... they all bugger off... which is just another hit to your economy.

The rich... people and companies are mostly freeloaders who are not happy just being rich... perhaps I would change my tune if I was rich...

But I am too soft... probably end up giving most of it away...

My wallpaper for desktop number two...

GarryB wrote:

Also the odds of Russian flankers operating over Sweden is not that likely... more likely intermediate range ballistic missiles will take out airfields HQs and comms centres etc etc

In short this is a desperate sales pitch to a country they want to sell aircraft to... 10 years ago they would have said that while expensive to buy it is a light single engined fighter so it is cheap to operate... but their problem is that their customers who believed that like have since found it is bullshit... it is not cheap to maintain. So that has been dropped from the sales brochure... so they have to look at the new customer... Finland.... and decide what they think will be their biggest issue or threat... Flankers and Su-57s of course... so they will downplay stealth and bigger more expensive alternatives and suggest the gripen is exactly what they need...

You don't get a Black Belt without passing tests against a master or an equal... Gripen has had none of that...

And yet Saab stills promote the Gripen as a "perfect balance between excellent operational performance, high-tech solutions, cost-efficiency and industrial partnership into one, smart fighter system."
https://saab.com/gripen/

And Saab hasnt found a "new" customer with Finland, they have been looking at the Gripen for years. They used to fly the Swedish Saab 35 Draken not that long ago.

The Gripen has also participated several times in the Red flag since 2006 and has gotten a really good results during the simulated flights taking down F-16s, F-15s and the Eurofighter.

And yet Saab stills promote the Gripen as a "perfect balance between excellent operational performance, high-tech solutions, cost-efficiency and industrial partnership into one, smart fighter system."

There was a swiss leaked report about the testing of Rafale, Eurofighter and Gripen to choose their new fighter. They find out Saab lied completly avout the prices and tge Gripen is just as expensive as the other two whike being single engibe and lighter.

Btw they concluded that Rafale was the best in almost any field including EW. Both Saab and Eurofighter brag about how they are the best in EW anf it proved they suck compared to Spectra.

Their problem is that new fighter planes are not cheap.... and lets be honest... the only reason Russia would attack Finland is if Finland was part of HATO and something was happening with HATO.

Of course they talk about cost efficiency like the makers of the Typhoon and the Rafale and the F-35 talk about efficiency... the Gripen would be the cheapest of those options I would expect but still rather more aircraft than what Finland would actually need.

An F-20 would be a better idea... it was a neat little low cost jet with modest performance and relatively low operational costs... exactly what they need, but I can understand them thinking it is not what they want... probably not really an option any more these days.

Buying the F-20 would be going backwards for the fins.
I rather think the gripen would be a Good choice for them with the F-16 being to old, the F-35 being to expensive for thier needs. Idk if they shown any intrests in the eurofighter?

I find any analysis of these fighters hard to take. The SU has a very powerful radar, yes this has pros and cons. But I am sure the radar set has many,many modes to suit the tactical situation. Also assuming the F-22 still maintains its dominance after all this time based on preset scenarios is not credible. Eurofighter? Pretty good plane, but the Indians have been wiping the floor with them with quite old spec SU-30s. I think SAAB is a great defence company and I believe they deliver a TON of bang for the buck. One on one is not a good measure. The Gripen was designed to fight and defend Sweden. That means it will receive a vast amount of intelligence from external sources and will fire excellent Meteor missiles from BVR without the use of its own radar. The missiles can be targeted by midcourse update by the plane as it approachs the target. Firing outside the 60 KM no escape zone, Gripens can approach from several directions and fire several Meteors from max range, using ground coordianates, as they approch they go radar active at aroun 80 KM fire the second missiles at 60km and its proably game over.  No one knows if the Russians can detect the F-22 radar and at what range.(the Russian probably don't know either and its a moving target) IRST on SU35 has to be one of the best as Russia has led in this area for a long time. If F-22 uses its radar, even in one of its "special modes" no one knows if this can or cannot be detected/targeted by Russian planes or missiles. No one knows the capabilties of the SU-35 EW suite (a huge area of strength for Russia). In the end we should marvel at these beautiful machines and be VERY glad that our questions remain unanswered and all we can do is speculate.

The thing is that they talk about the Gripen like it will be free to do as the Fins want... a MiG-29 with R-73 missiles and helmet mounted sight is a deadly combination against HATO planes of the 1990s, but HATO used AWACS and rather more fighters than Serbia had so the performance and capabilities of the MiG didn't really matter.

If Finland buy a Gripen and jump into bed with HATO then they become the enemy for Russia and Russian Air Defences... talking about Finish Gripens attacking Su-35s from different directions is amusing because S-400 batteries located in the St Petersberg district will mean Gripens being under missile fire as soon as they take off... Is Finland going to lead the invasion into Russia with their Gripens?

What they should do is buy Chinese JF-17s and try to stay neutral and they might just avoid some of the sht that HATO countries continually try to stir up all the time.

When the cheap western option is the Gripen... which is expensive to buy and not cheap to operate as proven by existing customers, then it makes sense to look outside the box. For border patrol and airspace protection a JF-17 is cheap it is simple and it isn't picking sides... it can do the job without being a threat to anyone and with the hundreds of millions of dollars saved they can boost their healthcare and education spending... or but Pantsir-S1 SAMs...

Buying the F-20 would be going backwards for the fins.

I doubt it is still available, but my point was that going backward is a good thing for Finland as a country... they are small and are never going to make a difference.

Lets pretend that they buy Rafales and they rip through the Russian bombers and fighters send past on their way to Sweden and Norway in a conflict with HATO... because you can't have Rafales if you don't join the club against those scary scary Russians...

What is going to happen?

Russia is of course going to change focus from Norway and Sweden and blow the shit out of Finland... and it wont be the winter war again... no hiding in forests shooting guys carrying bolt action rifles using sub machine guns... it will be tactical nuke eliminate the airfields the Rafales operate from and the HQ that gave the orders...

How does that benefit Finland?

Especially when Rafales wont be cheap and will cost a lot of money from the budget...

I understand Sweden wants to sell planes and make money and dragging Finland in to the anti Russia coalition would be an extra buffer country for them too, and more isolation of Russia will finally break her of course... this time it will... the last fifty times it hasn't but this time it will...

I don't really think Russia would see any RED if the Finns buy Gripens. They already have 55 F-18s. A country like Finland cannot realisticly counter Russia on its own. They buy weapons to form alliances. While Finland is not a member of NATO, they have not joined "officially" out of respect to Russia not wanting a NATO nation on its borders. Finland joined Germany in attacking the USSR in WWII. There were clearly some difficult conditions negotiated that allowed Finland to not be occupied by Russia after WWII, including some significant reparitions. The Finns I would say are an unofficial NATO member and have co-opertion agreements with NATO, but the red line is official membership. Finland cannot purchase any non-nuclear weapons that can actually counter Russia. That is the reality, similar to Canada NZ and Oz. If these relatively advanced nations really wanted independant security, the only option would be nuclear weapons. Kinda the path Israel has chosen. As for Gripen, I still say its very low cost to operate. "Only" $4700 per flight hour according to Janes. Also the Czechs are extending the lease when they are pretty broke. To me its the closest Western successor to the F-5. The KAI T-50 is also pretty close, but SAAB comes up with some impressive stuff. Finland does not have 55 F-18s to counter Russia, they are for the alliance with USA. Maybe they will buy the SAAB-Boeing fighter based on the Tx...of F-18 Superhornets like Germany because alignment with Germany is also desirable.

GarryB wrote:The thing is that they talk about the Gripen like it will be free to do as the Fins want... a MiG-29 with R-73 missiles and helmet mounted sight is a deadly combination against HATO planes of the 1990s, but HATO used AWACS and rather more fighters than Serbia had so the performance and capabilities of the MiG didn't really matter.

If Finland buy a Gripen and jump into bed with HATO then they become the enemy for Russia and Russian Air Defences... talking about Finish Gripens attacking Su-35s from different directions is amusing because S-400 batteries located in the St Petersberg district will mean Gripens being under missile fire as soon as they take off... Is Finland going to lead the invasion into Russia with their Gripens?

What they should do is buy Chinese JF-17s and try to stay neutral and they might just avoid some of the sht that HATO countries continually try to stir up all the time.

When the cheap western option is the Gripen... which is expensive to buy and not cheap to operate as proven by existing customers, then it makes sense to look outside the box. For border patrol and airspace protection a JF-17 is cheap it is simple and it isn't picking sides... it can do the job without being a threat to anyone and with the hundreds of millions of dollars saved they can boost their healthcare and education spending... or but Pantsir-S1 SAMs...

Buying the F-20 would be going backwards for the fins.

I doubt it is still available, but my point was that going backward is a good thing for Finland as a country... they are small and are never going to make a difference.

Lets pretend that they buy Rafales and they rip through the Russian bombers and fighters send past on their way to Sweden and Norway in a conflict with HATO... because you can't have Rafales if you don't join the club against those scary scary Russians...

What is going to happen?

Russia is of course going to change focus from Norway and Sweden and blow the shit out of Finland... and it wont be the winter war again... no hiding in forests shooting guys carrying bolt action rifles using sub machine guns... it will be tactical nuke eliminate the airfields the Rafales operate from and the HQ that gave the orders...

How does that benefit Finland?

Especially when Rafales wont be cheap and will cost a lot of money from the budget...

I understand Sweden wants to sell planes and make money and dragging Finland in to the anti Russia coalition would be an extra buffer country for them too, and more isolation of Russia will finally break her of course... this time it will... the last fifty times it hasn't but this time it will...

With this reasoning no country with a smaller armed forces then Russia should spend any money on its defence. The whole idea with a defence is that a ponential agressor dont want to risk attacking becouse the loses would be to great. The idea of Finland and Swedens defence during the cold war was to have such large defence that it would not be worth attacking them. A modern fighter a large part of that.
And yes why should Russia care about Finland buying Gripens from semi-neutral Sweden when they are flying US made F-18s today.

With this reasoning no country with a smaller armed forces then Russia should spend any money on its defence.

Little countries can and will spend what they like. But which country gets the most value... there is no amount of air defence capacity that Finland could buy that would intimidate or deter Russia. There is no limit to the amount Finland could spend that would be enough for HATO countries. At the end of the day Finland has a fixed and limited budget... it can stretch it and buy Gripens... it can break it and buy F-35s. Neither would make it safe from Russia... in fact the latter might actually seriously get its attention in a bad way for Finland though America would think it was Finland making a sovereign decision to defend itself from outside aggression and all that BS.

How many cuts in other areas would they need to make to be able to afford such purchases... and the result of any purchase is to draw the attention of its massive neighbour and increase local tensions. Is that really value for money?

If they have F-18s in service why do they need Gripens at all?

They used to pretend to be neutral and had Soviet planes and western planes... now just western planes... so effectively they give the US a blow job and now they need to give an EU country a blow job... fine... I come from a small country.... I know the deal... but lets not waste time talking about the best plane because that does not matter... what matters is the foreplay and how her man treats her afterwards... will Sweden put a ring on her finger?

The whole idea with a defence is that a ponential agressor dont want to risk attacking becouse the loses would be to great. The idea of Finland and Swedens defence during the cold war was to have such large defence that it would not be worth attacking them. A modern fighter a large part of that.

So the bullshit about Russia wanting to invade Europe and take it all over is still continuing?

I would say a better defence strategy would be to stop buying weapons and cooperating in sanctions against Russia and just trade with them instead of pushing them into a corner because Russia wont invade, but they will eliminate threats...

And yes why should Russia care about Finland buying Gripens from semi-neutral Sweden when they are flying US made F-18s today.

Finland used to operate two types of aircraft to show neutrality... why do they need two different types of fighters now... except to please their EU neighbours in their aggression towards Russia to justify the existence of HATO?

The Chinese review of the Su-35 material has been moved here as it is clearly propaganda that is not actually relevant to this thread...