- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
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.
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hey guys, I think that trump guy might just be really awful for America.
Noggles
Why is that a bad thing ?
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.
They went to the fighter store and all the F-35s were turned upside down.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
I never understood why they stopped making the F22. Less profit, probably.
What makes you form that opinion?
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.
Dunno if you’ll find a more European fighter than the Gripen.
Uses US engine
Good for them. It’s clear that we (the U.S.) can no longer be trusted to act in good faith.
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 thatEven if they don’t have an “off switch” they can just not update the software. Those jets require constant updates and without it the radars don’t work right and the stealth degrades.
State level actors are capable of providing those updates themselves… That update is the mythical off switch they talked about and it’s absolutely sensational bunk.
I don’t think it’s as simple as “upgrade it myself.” They need data to know how to upgrade it. That takes massive Sigint capabilities, etc. Other countries don’t have the capability.
Of course, with our intelligence allies withholding intelligence today and cooperating with each other, the playing field is much more level, so maybe.
The Intel here is primarily the specs and settings of enemy EW, radar, and weapons. The second they turn any of that on within detection range you have the intelligence on it. That’s why Turkey got dropped from the F-35 deal way back. They had Russian air defense systems and D.C. didn’t want them combining the two to give Russia a profile of the F-35 from their own systems.
That’s all true, but Vance is a coward who will care more about his life than about what America wants.
America has shown it wants Donald or a Donald substitute.
well they also voted for kennedy, and they still killed him, assuming that’s how that works.
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).
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 service life of the f16 has been like forever, i think it’s been close to like 70 years now? Hell of a modernization in between then and now, similar story with the f22, although it’s quite a bit newer. Military equipment doesn’t really have a service life, it’s more so an effectiveness constant.
The Donald has Hitler levels of luck in that regard.
Most dictators do, unfortunately. It takes several attempts and many courageous people willing to sacrifice to get there and sometimes that doesn’t even stop the dictatorship, as the dictator has a successor lined up.
plus donald has Musk as a lightning rod and a human shield.
As they should. I’ll tell you that as an American you shouldn’t trust the US government.
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.
