Risk of Trojans, value of $$ manned fighter vs unmanned drone or shoulder or truck launched weapon. F16’s or f18’s are just fine defending a border against non governmental threats. 30 of any kind of fighter won’t defend against governments.
This feels like posturing or theater for votes. After all, didn’t Carney just recently move the headquarters of his company to New York from Canada? If there is such a risk with the United States, why does he maintain so many ties to it personally? Why eliminate all of those Canadian jobs?
Leaving that aside, there really is not a good alternative to the F35. Everything else is older and simply not a match. They may be cheaper, but it will not help if they are easily defeated in combat. Even the newer Chinese aircraft are not comparable according to leaks - maybe the best competitive aircraft is one of the newer Russian options, if Canada really wants to go that route. But buying a Eurofighter or Saab in 2025 seems silly. New avionics is not enough to make them competitive.
Canada doesn't need to buy joint strike fighter. They need a capable air defense platform for their borders, hopefully something that could intercept a proper threat. An F-35 isn't going to catch up to a MiG-29 encroaching on it's borders, let alone a Tu-160. It's designed for breaking into contested airspace, not defending peacetime borders.
> But buying a Eurofighter or Saab in 2025 seems silly.
Why? The Eurofighter has always been a formidable jet and the Gripen is a better single-engine fighter than the F-35 in most respects. They're certainly the cheaper option for Canadian taxpayers.
You have to factor in how little power projection means to Canada. They value reliable defense against Russian aggression over the ability to power-gap people with expensive doodads. America can't sell them backdoored weapons by threatening American aggression, either.
> The Eurofighter has always been a formidable jet and the Gripen is a better single-engine fighter than the F-35 in most respects.
From what I’ve read the Gripen has no stealth, isn’t as advanced on electronics, and is mainly built to be cheap and flexible. Some claim it is more maneuverable but others say the F35 is just as maneuverable. But the F35 just won’t need to ever get close for that to matter.
Stealth is really a moot point. It's extremely expensive to maintain and compromises certain aspects of an airframe's design to maintain a minimal cross section. Again - this makes it a great weapon in contested airspace but a taxpayer burden for combat air patrol. Even Americans could barely justify the F-35 to themselves, in terms of pure maneuverability the F-16 still wins most simulated dogfights.
In practice, Canada does not have to defend against a credible stealth-equipped adversary. The F-35 wouldn't even help them if they did. God willing, North America will not be the stage for World War III, so they also have no need to survive in contested airspace. Canada's defensive mission remains intercepting supersonic bombers, something the F-35 fundamentally cannot do.
> But the F35 just won’t need to ever get close for that to matter.
The F-35 is not a super-jet. The F-22 exists for a reason; in terms of mission capacity the F-35 is basically an F-117 redesigned to suck less. It's a very cool plane that is fundamentally useless to countries that are not constantly molesting the borders of other nations.
Isn't modern stealth is less about actually being invisible than about delaying response? Anyone can see it's there if you walk up to it, but if you had to walk up so close and deep into its weapons range to be sure, it serves its purpose, no?
Why do you say the F35 cannot intercept a supersonic bomber? Or maybe how are you defining that characteristic? I would think it can just fly out to a range from where it can fire a missile and does not actually have to get up close.
> Nor does an Su-27 when it's radar silent and guided by passive EOTS
Thanks for sharing that link about the Su. It’s an interesting read but I wonder if there was some malfunction, because they mention restarting warning systems.
> It's a very cool plane that is fundamentally useless to countries that are not constantly molesting the borders of other nations.
I feel like there is some editorialization in here.
It is, but it's also going to work because right now the only real political issue in Canada is a patriotism contest. Carney would be a fool to ignore that, and in fact he'd be best served by calling an election in a hurry and trying to wrap himself in the flag in the meantime.
If it costs the country a pile of money down the road so be it, a politician's real job is getting into and staying in power.
> But buying a Eurofighter or Saab in 2025 seems silly. New avionics is not enough to make them competitive.
Why would that be when the F35 flies like a turd, no matter which variant?
Why would that matter if both F22 and F35 can go supersonic only in short bursts, because otherwise 'der lack ist ab', meaning the paint job and its stealthiness is gone, not to mention bad weather with heavy rain, snow, hail?
Why would new avionics be necessary to be competitive, when the avionics with which they compete still seem like bananaware?
Why is there no US-Aerobatics team flying that capricious crap?
Other nations have very capable missiles, radars and AEW/ECM, too.
It's not about the planes alone, but how they are integrated into operations, how much they cost to operate per unit/time flown, and how much time/man-power is needed to keep them that way between flights/turn around.
Risk of Trojans, value of $$ manned fighter vs unmanned drone or shoulder or truck launched weapon. F16’s or f18’s are just fine defending a border against non governmental threats. 30 of any kind of fighter won’t defend against governments.
This feels like posturing or theater for votes. After all, didn’t Carney just recently move the headquarters of his company to New York from Canada? If there is such a risk with the United States, why does he maintain so many ties to it personally? Why eliminate all of those Canadian jobs?
Leaving that aside, there really is not a good alternative to the F35. Everything else is older and simply not a match. They may be cheaper, but it will not help if they are easily defeated in combat. Even the newer Chinese aircraft are not comparable according to leaks - maybe the best competitive aircraft is one of the newer Russian options, if Canada really wants to go that route. But buying a Eurofighter or Saab in 2025 seems silly. New avionics is not enough to make them competitive.
Canada doesn't need to buy joint strike fighter. They need a capable air defense platform for their borders, hopefully something that could intercept a proper threat. An F-35 isn't going to catch up to a MiG-29 encroaching on it's borders, let alone a Tu-160. It's designed for breaking into contested airspace, not defending peacetime borders.
> But buying a Eurofighter or Saab in 2025 seems silly.
Why? The Eurofighter has always been a formidable jet and the Gripen is a better single-engine fighter than the F-35 in most respects. They're certainly the cheaper option for Canadian taxpayers.
You have to factor in how little power projection means to Canada. They value reliable defense against Russian aggression over the ability to power-gap people with expensive doodads. America can't sell them backdoored weapons by threatening American aggression, either.
> The Eurofighter has always been a formidable jet and the Gripen is a better single-engine fighter than the F-35 in most respects.
From what I’ve read the Gripen has no stealth, isn’t as advanced on electronics, and is mainly built to be cheap and flexible. Some claim it is more maneuverable but others say the F35 is just as maneuverable. But the F35 just won’t need to ever get close for that to matter.
Stealth is really a moot point. It's extremely expensive to maintain and compromises certain aspects of an airframe's design to maintain a minimal cross section. Again - this makes it a great weapon in contested airspace but a taxpayer burden for combat air patrol. Even Americans could barely justify the F-35 to themselves, in terms of pure maneuverability the F-16 still wins most simulated dogfights.
In practice, Canada does not have to defend against a credible stealth-equipped adversary. The F-35 wouldn't even help them if they did. God willing, North America will not be the stage for World War III, so they also have no need to survive in contested airspace. Canada's defensive mission remains intercepting supersonic bombers, something the F-35 fundamentally cannot do.
> But the F35 just won’t need to ever get close for that to matter.
Nor does an Su-27 when it's radar silent and guided by passive EOTS: https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2023/06/11/how-su-30-has-intercep...
The F-35 is not a super-jet. The F-22 exists for a reason; in terms of mission capacity the F-35 is basically an F-117 redesigned to suck less. It's a very cool plane that is fundamentally useless to countries that are not constantly molesting the borders of other nations.
Isn't modern stealth is less about actually being invisible than about delaying response? Anyone can see it's there if you walk up to it, but if you had to walk up so close and deep into its weapons range to be sure, it serves its purpose, no?
> It's extremely expensive to maintain
I’m not familiar. What does that involve? Is it maintaining paint or something?
> Canada's defensive mission remains intercepting supersonic bombers, something the F-35 fundamentally cannot do.
Why do you say the F35 cannot intercept a supersonic bomber? Or maybe how are you defining that characteristic? I would think it can just fly out to a range from where it can fire a missile and does not actually have to get up close.
> Nor does an Su-27 when it's radar silent and guided by passive EOTS
Thanks for sharing that link about the Su. It’s an interesting read but I wonder if there was some malfunction, because they mention restarting warning systems.
> It's a very cool plane that is fundamentally useless to countries that are not constantly molesting the borders of other nations.
I feel like there is some editorialization in here.
Those European programs will be competitive alternatives if enough money is thrown at them.
It is, but it's also going to work because right now the only real political issue in Canada is a patriotism contest. Carney would be a fool to ignore that, and in fact he'd be best served by calling an election in a hurry and trying to wrap himself in the flag in the meantime.
If it costs the country a pile of money down the road so be it, a politician's real job is getting into and staying in power.
Doesn’t matter if it is competitive. One of the adversaries we may be facing is the USA.
Can’t let a hostile nation control our weapons.
> But buying a Eurofighter or Saab in 2025 seems silly. New avionics is not enough to make them competitive.
Why would that be when the F35 flies like a turd, no matter which variant?
Why would that matter if both F22 and F35 can go supersonic only in short bursts, because otherwise 'der lack ist ab', meaning the paint job and its stealthiness is gone, not to mention bad weather with heavy rain, snow, hail?
Why would new avionics be necessary to be competitive, when the avionics with which they compete still seem like bananaware?
Why is there no US-Aerobatics team flying that capricious crap?
Other nations have very capable missiles, radars and AEW/ECM, too.
It's not about the planes alone, but how they are integrated into operations, how much they cost to operate per unit/time flown, and how much time/man-power is needed to keep them that way between flights/turn around.
Taking all this into account, combined with things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erieye mounted on something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_R-99 the Gripen seems like a very smart and economic choice.
Have some crisp bread instead of the sugary cool aid:
https://www.saab.com/products/gripen-e-series
Or use another fluff piece like https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/01/forget-f-35-meet-the-jas... if you don't want to rely on marketing material by the producer :)