I believe the main reasons Gripen was rejected by the 2022 report was lack of any Stealth capability, rarer among allies, and higher cost. Practically, while the Gripen is a pretty good 4th gen aircraft, non-stealth aircraft really arn’t capible of combating any airforce with stealth aircraft, and so Canada would be pretty much limited to only fighting Russia or smaller regional powers, and no small part of Canada’s NATO focus is on deterrence in Asia, where Gripen can’t really do much.
non-stealth aircraft really arn’t capible of combating any airforce with stealth aircraft,
That’s a pretty absolute take. Can you back that up a bit? It lowers survivability, for sure, but even stealth aircraft aren’t invisible, especially versus a technologically sophisticated adversary with cutting-edge sensors and networked warfare like we would be. The Gripen also has the advantage in that it can be operated from dispersed airfields with little supply chain, so it doesn’t even have to spend too much time in the air - it was designed for a defencive war against a superior foe.
I believe the main reasons Gripen was rejected by the 2022 report was lack of any Stealth capability, rarer among allies, and higher cost.
Wait, higher cost? What for? I might actually have to read that. You’d think the minimal supply considerations and it being an older aircraft would make it cheap.
From what I’ve heard it was basically a forgone conclusion. The airforce really wanted the F-35 from the start, and were probably still in denial about if the good times with the US would ever end.
Stealth aircraft arn’t invisible, but if you need to get within 50km to even know there is an enemy aircraft there while they can can shoot at you from 500km away you are not going to achieve much beyond slightly depleting the enemy missile supply.
It also means that the enemy now needs advanced radars to be deployed every 100km to even know you’re there, as compared to deploying 1/10 the radars at every 1000km for the same effect. If you want the coverage to know where the enemy is above your country and not just they entered it, that goes up by the square root.
As for cost, the main driving factor is that there are ~160 Gripens flying for 6 countries, and 1100 F-35s flying for 10 countries, plus another thousand or so on order by the US itself. When it comes to extremely intricate and complex development and tooling heavy devices like aircraft, economies of scale matter a lot.
Getting the Gripen E down to ~121m CAD was a remarkable achievement in economic efficiency, no seriously this was incrediblely impressive, that involved significant compromises for cost, nevertheless it doesn’t change that Lockheed Martin can sell a more capible fighter at ~117m CAD just by being able to have an actual assembly line and tons of spare parts.
Stealth aircraft arn’t invisible, but if you need to get within 50km to even know there is an enemy aircraft there while they can can shoot at you from 500km away you are not going to achieve much beyond slightly depleting the enemy missile supply.
Yeah, but in this scenario you’re not sending continuous radar pulses out from your plane, because that would instantly give away your position. Electronic warfare stuff is still mostly classified, but I have to assume finding the enemy has long been a team effort, and now with networked warfare would be pretty seamlessly so. Which brings us to:
It also means that the enemy now needs advanced radars to be deployed every 100km to even know you’re there, as compared to deploying 1/10 the radars at every 1000km for the same effect. If you want the coverage to know where the enemy is above your country and not just they entered it, that goes up by the square root.
That’s true, but in a defencive war they won’t have much in the way of fixed radars themselves. Meanwhile, the Gripen seems vastly more survivable on the ground than a whole airfield capable of operating the F-35.
Without a bunch of information that’s classified and a bunch that might not even be available I can’t calculate myself how those factors balance. And, of course there’s the elephant in the room of if our F-35s would even be able to fly in this scenario.
As for cost, the main driving factor is that there are ~160 Gripens flying for 6 countries, and 1100 F-35s flying for 10 countries, plus another thousand or so on order by the US itself. When it comes to extremely intricate and complex development and tooling heavy devices like aircraft, economies of scale matter a lot.
Getting the Gripen E down to ~121m CAD was a remarkable achievement in economic efficiency, no seriously this was incrediblely impressive, that involved significant compromises for cost, nevertheless it doesn’t change that Lockheed Martin can sell a more capible fighter at ~117m CAD just by being able to have an actual assembly line and tons of spare parts.
Radar transmitters and receivers don’t have to be one in the same, and indeed often aren’t in a military context. Your stealth plane is not sending out radar pulses except when it’s on its own in an extreme emergency, but rather is listening to the radar echos from your AWACS and ground air defense trucks. By contrast if the enemy has a stealth plane, those active radars have to get much, much closer to the front lines and often will be in easy range of anti-radar missiles before their accompanying SAM batteries can even see the enemy, much less shoot it down to protect their air-search radar.
These are all part of the reason why when the F-22 first started coming to joint exercises it was considered seal clubbing for them to use it, and why subsequently everyone with the resources to do so,(and some like Russia who didn’t), began pooring absurd amounts of money into trying to produce their own stealth fighters.
I also question your assertion that they won’t have many air defense systems, as in practice unless you are the USAF fighting a much, much weaker country they have proven pretty survivable and easy to replace. There is also the fact they can be in neighboring allied but not at war countries, which makes them basically invulnerable.
It’s also worth noting that while the Gripen is indeed very good flying out of very short mountain roads and very rough fields, basically any fighter jet is capable of flying off roads and dirt tracks, they just need longer and flatter ones while suffering a bit more maintenance cost while doing so.
I mean I can think of plenty of conflicts the RCAF could get involved in over the next few decades that might involve neighboring semi-neutral countries or ships, but of course Canada definitely has its own air search radars.
As for flying out of the bush, there is nothing unique to an airport runway that a fighter jet needs that cannot be met by an appropriately swept road and the right support vehicles. As an example see basically every single takeoff and landing the Ukrainians have done in the last three years. Gripen is especially good at it with the goal of being able to use very short mountain roads and which is worth considering if your airforce is built around it, but it’s hardly unique.
Radar transmitters and receivers don’t have to be one in the same, and indeed often aren’t in a military context. Your stealth plane is not sending out radar pulses except when it’s on its own in an extreme emergency, but rather is listening to the radar echos from your AWACS and ground air defense trucks. By contrast if the enemy has a stealth plane, those active radars have to get much, much closer to the front lines and often will be in easy range of anti-radar missiles before their accompanying SAM batteries can even see the enemy, much less shoot it down to protect their air-search radar.
Hmm. I would have assumed external receivers would be important too, since they can be in multiple places or just bigger, but I guess I don’t know that for sure.
These are all part of the reason why when the F-22 first started coming to joint exercises it was considered seal clubbing for them to use it, and why subsequently everyone with the resources to do so,(and some like Russia who didn’t), began pooring absurd amounts of money into trying to produce their own stealth fighters.
TIL.
I also question your assertion that they won’t have many air defense systems, as in practice unless you are the USAF fighting a much, much weaker country they have proven pretty survivable and easy to replace. There is also the fact they can be in neighboring allied but not at war countries, which makes them basically invulnerable.
There is no such country in consideration here; I somehow doubt Denmark will want to play.
Yeah, if they can get their own air defences rolled into Canada with impunity the game is pretty much over. I assume the strategy would be to have a bunch infrastructure laid out in advance to slow them down, and not worry about deep strikes into their territory so much.
It’s also worth noting that while the Gripen is indeed very good flying out of very short mountain roads and very rough fields, basically any fighter jet is capable of flying off roads and dirt tracks, they just need longer and flatter ones while suffering a bit more maintenance cost while doing so.
I’ve never heard someone suggest you could run an F-35 out of the bush. Actually, I’ve heard the supply chains are involved by airfield standards, even. I’m sure if you just needed to land and take off once somewhere lightly prepared you could get away with it, especially with the VTOL models, although I do wonder how bad the rock ingestion problem is exactly.
Yeah, if there’s some payoff coming or starting over is actually just as expensive, sometimes a sunk cost is worth considering.
Why not the Gripen?
I believe the main reasons Gripen was rejected by the 2022 report was lack of any Stealth capability, rarer among allies, and higher cost. Practically, while the Gripen is a pretty good 4th gen aircraft, non-stealth aircraft really arn’t capible of combating any airforce with stealth aircraft, and so Canada would be pretty much limited to only fighting Russia or smaller regional powers, and no small part of Canada’s NATO focus is on deterrence in Asia, where Gripen can’t really do much.
That’s a pretty absolute take. Can you back that up a bit? It lowers survivability, for sure, but even stealth aircraft aren’t invisible, especially versus a technologically sophisticated adversary with cutting-edge sensors and networked warfare like we would be. The Gripen also has the advantage in that it can be operated from dispersed airfields with little supply chain, so it doesn’t even have to spend too much time in the air - it was designed for a defencive war against a superior foe.
Wait, higher cost? What for? I might actually have to read that. You’d think the minimal supply considerations and it being an older aircraft would make it cheap.
From what I’ve heard it was basically a forgone conclusion. The airforce really wanted the F-35 from the start, and were probably still in denial about if the good times with the US would ever end.
Stealth aircraft arn’t invisible, but if you need to get within 50km to even know there is an enemy aircraft there while they can can shoot at you from 500km away you are not going to achieve much beyond slightly depleting the enemy missile supply.
It also means that the enemy now needs advanced radars to be deployed every 100km to even know you’re there, as compared to deploying 1/10 the radars at every 1000km for the same effect. If you want the coverage to know where the enemy is above your country and not just they entered it, that goes up by the square root.
As for cost, the main driving factor is that there are ~160 Gripens flying for 6 countries, and 1100 F-35s flying for 10 countries, plus another thousand or so on order by the US itself. When it comes to extremely intricate and complex development and tooling heavy devices like aircraft, economies of scale matter a lot.
Getting the Gripen E down to ~121m CAD was a remarkable achievement in economic efficiency, no seriously this was incrediblely impressive, that involved significant compromises for cost, nevertheless it doesn’t change that Lockheed Martin can sell a more capible fighter at ~117m CAD just by being able to have an actual assembly line and tons of spare parts.
Yeah, but in this scenario you’re not sending continuous radar pulses out from your plane, because that would instantly give away your position. Electronic warfare stuff is still mostly classified, but I have to assume finding the enemy has long been a team effort, and now with networked warfare would be pretty seamlessly so. Which brings us to:
That’s true, but in a defencive war they won’t have much in the way of fixed radars themselves. Meanwhile, the Gripen seems vastly more survivable on the ground than a whole airfield capable of operating the F-35.
Without a bunch of information that’s classified and a bunch that might not even be available I can’t calculate myself how those factors balance. And, of course there’s the elephant in the room of if our F-35s would even be able to fly in this scenario.
Oh, okay. That makes sense.
Radar transmitters and receivers don’t have to be one in the same, and indeed often aren’t in a military context. Your stealth plane is not sending out radar pulses except when it’s on its own in an extreme emergency, but rather is listening to the radar echos from your AWACS and ground air defense trucks. By contrast if the enemy has a stealth plane, those active radars have to get much, much closer to the front lines and often will be in easy range of anti-radar missiles before their accompanying SAM batteries can even see the enemy, much less shoot it down to protect their air-search radar.
These are all part of the reason why when the F-22 first started coming to joint exercises it was considered seal clubbing for them to use it, and why subsequently everyone with the resources to do so,(and some like Russia who didn’t), began pooring absurd amounts of money into trying to produce their own stealth fighters.
I also question your assertion that they won’t have many air defense systems, as in practice unless you are the USAF fighting a much, much weaker country they have proven pretty survivable and easy to replace. There is also the fact they can be in neighboring allied but not at war countries, which makes them basically invulnerable.
It’s also worth noting that while the Gripen is indeed very good flying out of very short mountain roads and very rough fields, basically any fighter jet is capable of flying off roads and dirt tracks, they just need longer and flatter ones while suffering a bit more maintenance cost while doing so.
I mean I can think of plenty of conflicts the RCAF could get involved in over the next few decades that might involve neighboring semi-neutral countries or ships, but of course Canada definitely has its own air search radars.
As for flying out of the bush, there is nothing unique to an airport runway that a fighter jet needs that cannot be met by an appropriately swept road and the right support vehicles. As an example see basically every single takeoff and landing the Ukrainians have done in the last three years. Gripen is especially good at it with the goal of being able to use very short mountain roads and which is worth considering if your airforce is built around it, but it’s hardly unique.
Hmm. I would have assumed external receivers would be important too, since they can be in multiple places or just bigger, but I guess I don’t know that for sure.
TIL.
There is no such country in consideration here; I somehow doubt Denmark will want to play.
Yeah, if they can get their own air defences rolled into Canada with impunity the game is pretty much over. I assume the strategy would be to have a bunch infrastructure laid out in advance to slow them down, and not worry about deep strikes into their territory so much.
I’ve never heard someone suggest you could run an F-35 out of the bush. Actually, I’ve heard the supply chains are involved by airfield standards, even. I’m sure if you just needed to land and take off once somewhere lightly prepared you could get away with it, especially with the VTOL models, although I do wonder how bad the rock ingestion problem is exactly.