Instead of F-35, Portugal turns to Europe in search of new fighter
Instead of F-35, Portugal turns to Europe in search of new fighter
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
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.
-
Love to see it
-
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.
-
-
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
-
-
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! 🇨🇦
-
Mmm.. Pretty interesting article.
-
Mate I dislike JS as much as anyone but there's no need to bring it in here.
-
-
Yea, imagine getting a brand-new fleet of F-35s and then king trump wakes up and has them bricked to blitz-annex the Azores.
-
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.
-
Uses US engine
-
-
As they should. I'll tell you that as an American you shouldn't trust the US government.
-
Good for them. It's clear that we (the U.S.) can no longer be trusted to act in good faith.
-
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.
-
Thank fucking god
-
PORTUGAL CARALHO
-
Very smart move.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Bravo to Portugal!!!
-
It will be good for the USA to not be responsible for 70% of the NATO defense budget. We can close many military bases throughout Europe and pivot to Asia and form new alliances.
-
You think Asia will want to ally with you? Lol.
The only country which would do that is Russia.
-
-
Why the hell does Portugal need an air force? Is Russia going to cross the entire continent to attack them? Is Morocco going to launch an invasion through the straight of Gibraltar?
Cool use of money.
-
"Why the hell does Ukraine need nukes?"
You in 1994, presumably.
-
The comparison doesn't really make sense, Eastern Europe has seen conflict since the 90s: the Yugoslav Wars, the Transnistria conflict, the Georgian–Ossetian conflict, the Chechen-Russian conflict, etc. etc.
Continental Western Europe hasn't seen conflict for almost a hundred years. The closest conflict was the Troubles in the British Isles.
Who does Portugal need to defend themselves from?
-
-
Portugal has a massive maritime Exclusive Economic Area for the size of the country both because it mainly stands alone at the westermost tip of Europe (bar a small piece of Spain to the north of Portugal and then, way further North and more to the East, the Republic Of Ireland), and because of the Azores archipelago (which adds a massive circle in the middle of the Atlantic to Portugal's maritime EEA) and the Madeira archipelago (which adds a semi-circle off the West coast of Africa).
Further, Portugal is expected to militarily cooperate with the rest of the EU in case of an attack on any EU country (the most likely of which would be Russia attacking an Eastern European member) and ditto for NATO, which is especially important for exactly fighter planes because they're the most mobile military assets around.
It makes sense for the Portuguese Military to focus more on the Air Force, Navy, the local equivalent of Marines (Fuzileiros) and air-transported commandos and less on Armor, Artillery and Regular Infantry exactly because it's land territory is far less likely to be directly invaded but it both has a massive sea "territory" and it belongs to very large military alliances or alliances with military treaty obligations containing far away members which have a real risk of being invaded.
-
Okay, but actually attacking them on the far western tip of the continent would require going past the rest of the EU/NATO bloc. That's just not realistic. The most they might ever deal with is piracy, and they don't need jets for that.
Fulfilling obligations is obviously necessary, but they don't need new jets. This is obviously just military Keynesianism.
-
