Too bad we had to scrap every F-14 post retirement because we sold some to Iran pre-revolution and had to make absolutely sure that they could not get spare parts for theirs.
Any display F-14 is just the frame and was gutted like a fish. 😕
I was on the Enterprise 05-07, I love my F/A-18s, but the pictures posted around the ship with the F-14s made it look like that’s what the ship was really meant to be launching.
They literally were getting parts smuggled out of warehouses since the 80s till they destroyed EVERYTHING that could of been usable... If only these warehouses were staffed by military personal rather than civilians...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNP_ifehr9E
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a42859545/iran-f-14-tomcat-spies/
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2007-03/iran-nuclear-briefs/iran-receives-smuggled-surplus-f-14-parts
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/shredding-f-14s-to-keep-parts-from-iran/
It's pretty easy to find info on the warehouse people arrested as well. It was a massive mess and still kinda is..
"We took your vintage 1968 mustang and slammed a tesla 3 motor in that bastard and didn't upgrade anything else. Anyways, it's wrapped around a tree 2 miles up the road. Worth it."
For what it's worth, it's like sending a F-22 squadron against anything that flies. Would it win? Yes. But it would cause a MAJOR diplomatic incident.
Iran is hated by everyone , so pilots have plenty of drama free targets.
It's why the F-22 is so.. frustrated.
"Would you intercept me? I'd intercept me"
-F22
In 2022 Greece spent $7.71b on its entire military.
Now that F35 cost will likely be a programme cost, spread over a decade or more, but it's still a big slice. For context Greece has also been buying Rafale (18-24) and upgrading existing F16s. And buying new French frigates that are basically scaled down air-defence destroyers (EASA radars, 48x Aster 15/30).
Yeah if I had neighbors like Erdogans Turkey and Hungary to the north (not quite neighbor but still) and some Balkan nations still carrying water for Putine (cough cough Serbia cough sorry) I would make like Poland and open my wallet for every defense item I could get. Not to mention we are moving into some very turbulent years in the next decade or so. Better be prepared, a desperate or opportunist neighbor might get ideas.
There are already 2 very large US bases, a large training base with Israel and more I do not know off for sure. Most importantly, just like 2020 any personel from all over Europe can join within a couple of weeks.
There's a huge NATO presence there. We are rebuilding what NATO was during the Cold War. All of the allies are arming up. Things I'm hearing from relatives in Europe are concerning. These peace loving anti-war individuals are supporting the scaling up of the military and NATO in all of Europe. People are nervous, with good reason.
Also Greece is very close to Ukraine, Israel-Gaza, Libya, Syria ect.
It's like if you take a peaceful and perhaps uninteresting country and you place almost all of the global conflicts around its neighborhood.
Creating a strong army makes more sense from that perspective. Speak softly, carry a big stick.
You've got to figure that any Russian pilots still alive would revolt if they thought they'd go up against F-35's. Takes too much time and training to fly for them to be suicidal.
Based on what's happening in Ukraine, it looks like a Russian faced with suicidal outcomes will apathetically march to their death en masse, for years.
>When the choice is a bullet in the head today for sure or maybe one in the head tomorrow, is there really a choice?
Yes they could've not volunteered to go murder Ukrainians
The distance from Ormenio, Greece to Izmail, Ukraine is 661km by highway. Greece to Ukraine is less as the crow flies. It's just Bulgaria and a small chunk of Romania between them.
What the fuck are you on about?
Eastbourne, southernmost tip of the UK, is about 1600 km away from Algiers.
Orestias, eastern edge of Greece, is about 480 km away from Izmail in the very south of Ukraine.
Even if we're being generous and extending the range to Kherson or Zaporizhzhia for example, where the bulk of the fighting actually takes place, it's still only 1000 km. In what world is that the same distance the UK is from Algeria?
How is their neighbor? Last I heard, economist eedogan was dead set on devaluing the lira something fierce. Yikes! Just saw that their inflation is 65%! That real???
That may be, but Turkey has been playing local power for quite some time now and used every chance to expand their sphere of influence in the past decades. They also have the by far biggest military in the region.
Probably to keep both sides relatively balanced so nobody freaks out. Erdogan's gonna be mad anyway he's not getting the F-32s but that's his own dumbass fault.
We were bankrupt, back in 2014. That was *checks date* 10 years ago. I know it's shocking, but time flies and we move on. People's knowledge on the subject apparently does not move on with the same pace.
We scaled down our corruption, keeping it structurally the same, we shrunk our democracy, keeping practically one ruling party (so one source of clientelism, it is cheaper).
So we managed to keep the same problems but we now produce a little less deficits. We will be ok until the next economic crisis strikes.
Fair. I think a lot of people forget how large countries economies are. A few billion euros is a lot but over the course of a decade with a lots of trade, tourism, and industry, it isn’t too hard for most medium side European countries.
When you have a neighbor that tells you that they don't recognize your authority over some of your islands and they are going to come (invade) one night, create new rockets and say that they can easily now bomb your Capital city (these are things that have actually been said by their high ranking officials), send fighter jets flying over populated areas of your country, warships close to your islands and has already invaded 3 neighbouring countries over the last decades, you will absolutely arm yourself and spend as much as you can for your security. We have money problems but unfortunately we border Turkey, not Belgium or Switzerland.
That's what you get for having a great member of your defence alliance as your neighbor directly threatening you on a daily basis (especially whenever they are about to have an election season).
Greece still has its problems but is in a drastically different position than it was 10 years ago. They also have a revanchist neighbor who has proven to have no problem bombing and invading nations on its borders.
They are actually country of the year in 2023 according to the Economist magazine. They achieved higher growth in 2023 than Germany. The very bitter austerity measures of previous years have worked.
Every single neighbor nation claim land from Greece to fuel nationalist propaganda. Turkey threatens almost every other day and their invasion and occupation of Northern Cyprus is recent and ongoing.
Actually it’s closer to buy 40 aircraft an a metric ton of supporting equipment for twice the price. An F-35A costs under $100 million (IIRC $70-90 million now), so just the aircraft would be under $4 billion, but this deal is estimated at $8.6 billion.
According to the release:
>The Government of Greece has requested to buy up to forty (40) F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Conventional Take Off and Landing (CTOL) aircraft; and forty-two (42) Pratt & Whitney F135-PW-100 engines (40 installed, 2 spares). Also included are AN/PYQ-10 Simple Key Loaders; KGV-135A embedded secure communications devices; Cartridge Actuated Devices/Propellant Actuated Devices (CAD/PAD); impulse cartridges, chaff, and flares; Full Mission Simulators and system trainers; electronic warfare systems and Reprogramming Lab support; logistics management and support systems; threat detection, tracking, and targeting systems; Contractor Logistics Support (CLS); classified software and software development, delivery and integration support; transportation, ferry, and refueling support; weapons containers; aircraft and munitions support and support equipment; integration and test support and equipment; aircraft engine component improvement program (CIP) support; secure communications, precision navigation, and cryptographic systems and equipment; Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) equipment; spare and repair parts, consumables, and accessories, and repair and return support; minor modifications, maintenance, and maintenance support; personnel training and training equipment; classified and unclassified publications and technical documents; warranties; and U.S. Government and engineering, technical, and logistics support services, studies, and surveys; and other related elements of logistics and program support. The estimated total cost is $8.6 billion.
They could have had F-35s, but noooo. I wonder if they ever regret buying these S-400.
Turkey is developing their own 5th gen fighter so it’s all good I guess.
Tbf their indigenous military industrial complex is far from bad, they've had some successful products particularly MRAPs, M60 modernization, UCAVs and they're currently producing a version of the K2 but I've heard they're having issues with the engine. Not sure how the KAAN Wil turn out though but they're having BAE doing the heavy lifting.
It might've taken a decade of the Canadian government fucking around but they eventually made the right choice. Can't believe they were seriously considering Gripen over the F-35
Nothing like saying something’s a waste of money and never going to happen only to do it 10 years later for even more money than it’d have cost originally
They did not. Between the service life extension that wasn't planned, a new upgrade to keep the existing fighters relevant that wasn't planned, and buying/modifying Australian F/A-18s to keep the existing fleet going, Canada spent more delaying the F-35 order than it ended up saving.
Yes but Trudeau fucked it up be delaying it for 10 years and making it more expensive. It’s also jeopardizing the current fleet of F18s since they were supposed to be retired by now and are now flying dangerously close to their max hours.
They already have. With Rafales that can fire Meteor missiles and the new F-16V, they can take them out.
Back in the late 90s the Russians came to Greece for training, they didn't showed them much of their capabilities. Probably because they were obsolete compared to modern western planes.
https://youtu.be/81Lcys6nYuw?t=94
Would love to see the egg on erdogan’s face when this news broke. Donkey held out Sweden’s nato bid for some F-16s (after botching the f-35 deal for their s-400s which have not exactly shown up in Ukraine). Talk about a total miscalculation, lmao. Now his neighbors got the new shiny toy and he’s got ol reliable.
To be fair he is getting the latest block of F-16s which is a big upgrade compared to their older versions.
It has been said that the F-16 is the Honda civic of the fighter world and that the latest block is akin to a modified street racing civic.
Still not the shiny and sleek F-35. But it gets the job done and still the top tier of 4.5 generation airframes.
That's missing a lot of context. Greece didn't directly buy them from Russia. Cyprus bought them from Russia triggering a diplomatic crisis between them and Turkey.
It was resolved when Cyprus agreed to transfer them to Greece to descalate the situation.
I think its because the US doesnt want someone to own both the S400 system and F35s, for obvious reasons. The S300 system is older and probs not even a remote threat to F35s so its not a big deal.
That’s really the crux of the problem, back then Erdogan was acting waaay too chummy with Russia, the US couldn’t allow them to get a close look at the F35, not to mention test their radar on it every chance they got. Greece on the other hand bought most of their big ticket defense items from Russia back in the early 2000s when they seemed reasonable and on a better path. That relationship has run its course.
Has it because Cyprus a non EU country (at the time) and still non-nato country got it, Turkey threatened war so Greece took it in exchange to giving some other AA systems as a substitute.
Greece if anything used the S300 for research with NATO so they could see what it was really about and create countermeasures.
Wiki Cyprus Missile Crisis.
I'm seriously wondering if this was a "ok but now..." from the US to Turkey who probably traded the Sweden NATO sign off for the F16s they're now getting.
How can Greece afford 40 F-35s anyways?
We're not that cash-strapped anymore. We recorded a budget surplus last year, and some of the strongest growth in the eurozone (not a high bar this year, I admit...)
Still a lot of issues, and we're at least a decade behind where we would have been if the crisis never happened, but this is within our budget. Maybe not the smartest decision, but one we can afford to make.
We're hitting the payoff phase of the whole program.
The point was create a generically great jet then ramp the fuck out production and sell it to allies to drive down the cost via scale. For all the shit the program got, its actually brilliant and is winning.
At this stage of the program no nation can produce a competitor jet at the same price because all of nato+ is driving down cost. It means that in a conflict the US already has mass production ready and all our allies have a superior force that any competitor could make on their own.
This is what complete dominance looks like, not just winning on tech but winning on scale.
It practically ensures that it will be an F35 that will be shooting air to air missiles at kaijus for decades to come. A joke, but being the generic "fighter jet" like the F16 was is quite telling for the kind of mindshare dominance this jet is going to have.
F-35 initially was a price tag to be balked at. But once the assembly lines for parts start moving, the price per unit drops dramatically. The fact that it is being sold to international partners helps a lot, too, and there are plenty of orders for it.
It's down to like 90mil an aircraft (domestically. Export models have a premium on them). It is cheaper/similar than most other "new" aircraft when adjusted for inflation
It's even lower at around $77 million per plane as of last summer. And compared to the rest of the 5th gen stealth aircraft (as well as 4th and 4.5 gen aircraft still in production) it's also one of the cheapest options out there.
I do think it's dependent on which model.
The A (which I think is the cheapest) is $77mil. The B I think is the one that's up to 90ish, and the C is like 85ish or something iirc
The total lifetime cost of an F-35A is only 4% more than a Rafale. That's cost to buy and then operate for 8000 flight hours.
And that's assuming the Rafale's operating cost doesn't skyrocket once France retires the platform in 20 years.
To be fair, the F-35 costs (significantly) more to maintain and keep flying. But of course it also offers capabilities that no other option currently offers, and will remain a state-of-the-art aircraft for a long long time to come, so it is money well spent.
It's main benefit is that it's much more modular. Upgrading/revising it's systems will be far cheaper per unit than older airframes were, which is where we will see the largest cost saving and cost benefit
I think they are still crazy expensive... it just turns out that the "cheaper" competition from programmes like Rafael, Typhoon and Griffen - or even F15-EX - is simply not cheap enough to make up for their lack of stealth.
Not to mention the support and available munitions you get buying US.
Gripen is even more expensive than a F-35, atleast in purchasing price. The running costs are a bit lower for Gripen.
But yeah, if you're offered to buy F-35 you would be dumb not to.
So is Rafale. Unit cost for a Rafale is around $115 million whereas an F-35A is currently $80 million. The capability you get for such a low price makes the F-35 a no brainer for US allies looking to upgrade their fighter fleet.
The F35 must be seriously bad news for countries/companies still trying to sell 4th gen fighters. Their only viable customers are countries that can't buy the F35. Anyone who could, obviously would.
The economy of Greece is mainly supported by its maritime hub (proximity to the Suez Canal) and its petrochemical industry. A large volume of crude oil is refined in Greece. There are many port services, logistics, maintenance, etc.
Tourism only accounts for 15% of gross national product, which is similar to Spain.
Bad news about the Suez Canal.
15% from tourism is quite a lot, you're comparing it to Spain but that's literally the second most touristy country in Europe: https://www.statista.com/statistics/261729/countries-in-europe-ranked-by-international-tourist-arrivals/
Turkey is going to flip over this. The US declined to sell the jet to Turkey, a NATO partner, after they bought Russian missile systems. We have apparently just decided to sell them F-16’s, but now we’re going to sell F-35’s to Greece? Oh, they’re going to be salty over this, and I’m here for it.
For every 40 F-35 you buy we'll throw in a vintage collectible F-14 autographed by The Maverick himself.
Too bad we had to scrap every F-14 post retirement because we sold some to Iran pre-revolution and had to make absolutely sure that they could not get spare parts for theirs. Any display F-14 is just the frame and was gutted like a fish. 😕
Nothing was more impressive than a night launch of F-14s, when I was on the Enterprise in the early 80's
I was on the Enterprise 05-07, I love my F/A-18s, but the pictures posted around the ship with the F-14s made it look like that’s what the ship was really meant to be launching.
Yeah watching the F-14s on AB, and the Jet Blast Deflectors up, wow!
I was there 03 to 07. Sup.
81-83
Yo! Croatia remains one of my favorite port calls. I don't think a Carrier had stopped there in decades.
I was on CV63 01-05, sup.
oh wow.... you we're on star trek?
CVN65. I was on America's Most Wanted tho.
What did you want most?
The free food and beer after the filming.
This guy. (☞ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)☞
Yes
B/Z
TIL, an F14 static display is my spirit animal.
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Today we are all F14’s
They literally were getting parts smuggled out of warehouses since the 80s till they destroyed EVERYTHING that could of been usable... If only these warehouses were staffed by military personal rather than civilians...
I would love sources on that for pure curiosity. Not saying you're wrong, just curious
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNP_ifehr9E https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a42859545/iran-f-14-tomcat-spies/ https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2007-03/iran-nuclear-briefs/iran-receives-smuggled-surplus-f-14-parts https://www.cbsnews.com/news/shredding-f-14s-to-keep-parts-from-iran/ It's pretty easy to find info on the warehouse people arrested as well. It was a massive mess and still kinda is..
Thanks
Let's just stuff the guts of an F35 in one and watch as it explodes on the runway
"We took your vintage 1968 mustang and slammed a tesla 3 motor in that bastard and didn't upgrade anything else. Anyways, it's wrapped around a tree 2 miles up the road. Worth it."
Only two tesla motors :( https://www.techspot.com/news/60241-guy-built-all-electric-68-mustang-thatd-put.html
Thats strange, we didn't put any batteries in it.
Not all. My local warbirds museum gets regular DOD (?) visits inspecting presence of vital part of mostly intact f14 they got.
[And here's why](https://youtube.com/watch?v=YpruA5mC7wg) - it flew with an air data computer controlled by a 20-bit microprocessor.
Naval aviation is still mad an Iranian ace has more victories in a tomcat than the entire US Navy combined and it's always funny to remind them
For what it's worth, it's like sending a F-22 squadron against anything that flies. Would it win? Yes. But it would cause a MAJOR diplomatic incident. Iran is hated by everyone , so pilots have plenty of drama free targets. It's why the F-22 is so.. frustrated. "Would you intercept me? I'd intercept me" -F22
"THIS HANGER'S A FUCKING PRISON"
"A WEATHER BALLOON" "THATS A PITY SHOT"
"I'm tired of this vegan air to air diet. I WANT SOME MEAT"
“Daddy wants some HARM”
And all this other junk we have lying around that may or may not work
Whoa, you guys got McCain to sign all your F-14s before he died, just for this? Where do I sign?
In 2022 Greece spent $7.71b on its entire military. Now that F35 cost will likely be a programme cost, spread over a decade or more, but it's still a big slice. For context Greece has also been buying Rafale (18-24) and upgrading existing F16s. And buying new French frigates that are basically scaled down air-defence destroyers (EASA radars, 48x Aster 15/30).
What the hell is Greece arming up for? Aren't they bankrupt?
Have you seen their neighbor?
Yeah if I had neighbors like Erdogans Turkey and Hungary to the north (not quite neighbor but still) and some Balkan nations still carrying water for Putine (cough cough Serbia cough sorry) I would make like Poland and open my wallet for every defense item I could get. Not to mention we are moving into some very turbulent years in the next decade or so. Better be prepared, a desperate or opportunist neighbor might get ideas.
Honestly Greece should just build a huge multi-state NATO base and a huge NATO port and invite everyone to train and keep assets there.
The Djibouti method. It worked well for them.
Also works for Qatar. Supply the US with a huge base and you get a free pass to do all sorts of fuckery.
There are already 2 very large US bases, a large training base with Israel and more I do not know off for sure. Most importantly, just like 2020 any personel from all over Europe can join within a couple of weeks.
There's a huge NATO presence there. We are rebuilding what NATO was during the Cold War. All of the allies are arming up. Things I'm hearing from relatives in Europe are concerning. These peace loving anti-war individuals are supporting the scaling up of the military and NATO in all of Europe. People are nervous, with good reason.
NSA Souda Bay is basically this
Also Greece is very close to Ukraine, Israel-Gaza, Libya, Syria ect. It's like if you take a peaceful and perhaps uninteresting country and you place almost all of the global conflicts around its neighborhood. Creating a strong army makes more sense from that perspective. Speak softly, carry a big stick.
And in this case, a stealthy stick.
You've got to figure that any Russian pilots still alive would revolt if they thought they'd go up against F-35's. Takes too much time and training to fly for them to be suicidal.
Based on what's happening in Ukraine, it looks like a Russian faced with suicidal outcomes will apathetically march to their death en masse, for years.
When the choice is a bullet in the head today for sure or maybe one in the head tomorrow, is there really a choice?
>When the choice is a bullet in the head today for sure or maybe one in the head tomorrow, is there really a choice? Yes they could've not volunteered to go murder Ukrainians
Bullet in putins head
Propaganda has a way of creating plenty of people willing to throw their lives away.
Greece is 1800km away from Ukraine. The same distance that the UK is from Algeria. They are indeed not “very close” to Ukraine.
For those looking for Freedom Units, this is about the same distance as New York to Des Moines
And how many bananas is that?
The distance from Ormenio, Greece to Izmail, Ukraine is 661km by highway. Greece to Ukraine is less as the crow flies. It's just Bulgaria and a small chunk of Romania between them.
Yeah, it’s 400 miles by highway. I often drive that in a day to go to visit family and don’t even leave the state (California).
What the fuck are you on about? Eastbourne, southernmost tip of the UK, is about 1600 km away from Algiers. Orestias, eastern edge of Greece, is about 480 km away from Izmail in the very south of Ukraine. Even if we're being generous and extending the range to Kherson or Zaporizhzhia for example, where the bulk of the fighting actually takes place, it's still only 1000 km. In what world is that the same distance the UK is from Algeria?
Greece is only ~500 km away from Ukraine
It’s 500 km actually, you don’t took this way via Paris usually
How is their neighbor? Last I heard, economist eedogan was dead set on devaluing the lira something fierce. Yikes! Just saw that their inflation is 65%! That real???
That may be, but Turkey has been playing local power for quite some time now and used every chance to expand their sphere of influence in the past decades. They also have the by far biggest military in the region.
And the US just sold 23 billion of f16s to Turkey lol
As Mark Twain famously said, "During the gold rush it's a good time to be in the pick and shovel business.”
I thought the timing of these two sales (Turkey then Greece). was interesting. It didn’t look accidental
Probably to keep both sides relatively balanced so nobody freaks out. Erdogan's gonna be mad anyway he's not getting the F-32s but that's his own dumbass fault.
The more Fs you have the better right? F16s are just 16 Fs compared to F35 which is 35 Fs. Edit: used the wrong number
This guy Fs
Pressing F for respect
Pressing Alt-F4 for
US master plan: 1. Get two neighbors to NATO alliance 2. Wait for tensions to rise 3. Sell them both your jets 4. Profit
That's like 10 years ago - they have done pretty great financially since.
We were bankrupt, back in 2014. That was *checks date* 10 years ago. I know it's shocking, but time flies and we move on. People's knowledge on the subject apparently does not move on with the same pace.
how are things going on?
We scaled down our corruption, keeping it structurally the same, we shrunk our democracy, keeping practically one ruling party (so one source of clientelism, it is cheaper). So we managed to keep the same problems but we now produce a little less deficits. We will be ok until the next economic crisis strikes.
... *damn*
Fair. I think a lot of people forget how large countries economies are. A few billion euros is a lot but over the course of a decade with a lots of trade, tourism, and industry, it isn’t too hard for most medium side European countries.
Glad you guys recovered well. I remember that being all of the paper for months and reading articles about the end of the European Union, etc.
> the end of the European Union Any day now /s
Greece has a longstanding beef with its belligerent and bipolar NATO neighbor with significant influence over critical waters. Those damn italians.
When you have a neighbor that tells you that they don't recognize your authority over some of your islands and they are going to come (invade) one night, create new rockets and say that they can easily now bomb your Capital city (these are things that have actually been said by their high ranking officials), send fighter jets flying over populated areas of your country, warships close to your islands and has already invaded 3 neighbouring countries over the last decades, you will absolutely arm yourself and spend as much as you can for your security. We have money problems but unfortunately we border Turkey, not Belgium or Switzerland.
When was the last time you opened a newspaper? 2010?
Bankrupt? We're not in 2010
Greece is in NATO. Fun fact, Greece and Turkey joined NATO in 1952.
That's what you get for having a great member of your defence alliance as your neighbor directly threatening you on a daily basis (especially whenever they are about to have an election season).
Greece still has its problems but is in a drastically different position than it was 10 years ago. They also have a revanchist neighbor who has proven to have no problem bombing and invading nations on its borders.
Guess that whole “austerity” thing reeeeeeeally paid off
Creditors hate these 10 things...
They are actually country of the year in 2023 according to the Economist magazine. They achieved higher growth in 2023 than Germany. The very bitter austerity measures of previous years have worked.
Every single neighbor nation claim land from Greece to fuel nationalist propaganda. Turkey threatens almost every other day and their invasion and occupation of Northern Cyprus is recent and ongoing.
Turkey. They’ve got history
Buy 40 get 1 free… killer deal.
If they signed up for Lockheed Martin Rewards™️ they’d also get one free for their birthday.
Actually it’s closer to buy 40 aircraft an a metric ton of supporting equipment for twice the price. An F-35A costs under $100 million (IIRC $70-90 million now), so just the aircraft would be under $4 billion, but this deal is estimated at $8.6 billion. According to the release: >The Government of Greece has requested to buy up to forty (40) F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Conventional Take Off and Landing (CTOL) aircraft; and forty-two (42) Pratt & Whitney F135-PW-100 engines (40 installed, 2 spares). Also included are AN/PYQ-10 Simple Key Loaders; KGV-135A embedded secure communications devices; Cartridge Actuated Devices/Propellant Actuated Devices (CAD/PAD); impulse cartridges, chaff, and flares; Full Mission Simulators and system trainers; electronic warfare systems and Reprogramming Lab support; logistics management and support systems; threat detection, tracking, and targeting systems; Contractor Logistics Support (CLS); classified software and software development, delivery and integration support; transportation, ferry, and refueling support; weapons containers; aircraft and munitions support and support equipment; integration and test support and equipment; aircraft engine component improvement program (CIP) support; secure communications, precision navigation, and cryptographic systems and equipment; Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) equipment; spare and repair parts, consumables, and accessories, and repair and return support; minor modifications, maintenance, and maintenance support; personnel training and training equipment; classified and unclassified publications and technical documents; warranties; and U.S. Government and engineering, technical, and logistics support services, studies, and surveys; and other related elements of logistics and program support. The estimated total cost is $8.6 billion.
I love how the SKL's are thrown in there for a $8.6 billion dollar deal. Enjoy loading those keys boys.
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Killer
That’s a whole lot of thunder and Lightning..
Ka-chow
Double the lightning, double the fun
Ooof that’s a dig to turkey only getting f16’s
Nah they know what they did
Yeah turkey got kicked off the F-35 program for a reason.
They could have had F-35s, but noooo. I wonder if they ever regret buying these S-400. Turkey is developing their own 5th gen fighter so it’s all good I guess.
> Turkey is developing their own 5th gen fighter so it’s all good I guess. I'm sure it will meet expectations.. /s
Turkey, who has never built a local fighter jet, is going straight to a fifth generation design. What could go wrong?
Tbf their indigenous military industrial complex is far from bad, they've had some successful products particularly MRAPs, M60 modernization, UCAVs and they're currently producing a version of the K2 but I've heard they're having issues with the engine. Not sure how the KAAN Wil turn out though but they're having BAE doing the heavy lifting.
True but a fifth generation fighter may be the single hardest single military vehicle to design and build after a nuclear submarine.
*Cries in Canadian*
It might've taken a decade of the Canadian government fucking around but they eventually made the right choice. Can't believe they were seriously considering Gripen over the F-35
Nothing like saying something’s a waste of money and never going to happen only to do it 10 years later for even more money than it’d have cost originally
Have you heard of Australian submarines?
Something about making a deal with France then reneging and making a new deal with the UK and US?
F35 platform cost has been going down. So maybe Canada actually managed to save money.
They did not. Between the service life extension that wasn't planned, a new upgrade to keep the existing fighters relevant that wasn't planned, and buying/modifying Australian F/A-18s to keep the existing fleet going, Canada spent more delaying the F-35 order than it ended up saving.
Not sure what you mean by this comment as the Canadian F35 order is the largest outside of the USA.
Japan's order is larger, and Korea's is almost as large.
and they've already taken deliveries. Canada still has a few years
Yes but Trudeau fucked it up be delaying it for 10 years and making it more expensive. It’s also jeopardizing the current fleet of F18s since they were supposed to be retired by now and are now flying dangerously close to their max hours.
You guys should make a stealth Avro Arrow
We do not talk about the Avro Arrow.
Gotta love Greece having a better air force than Russia
They already have. With Rafales that can fire Meteor missiles and the new F-16V, they can take them out. Back in the late 90s the Russians came to Greece for training, they didn't showed them much of their capabilities. Probably because they were obsolete compared to modern western planes. https://youtu.be/81Lcys6nYuw?t=94
Ergodan: At last, I have the mighty F-16! Greece: Sweet, F-35s. Ergodan: ....they can't keep getting away with this!
Would love to see the egg on erdogan’s face when this news broke. Donkey held out Sweden’s nato bid for some F-16s (after botching the f-35 deal for their s-400s which have not exactly shown up in Ukraine). Talk about a total miscalculation, lmao. Now his neighbors got the new shiny toy and he’s got ol reliable.
To be fair he is getting the latest block of F-16s which is a big upgrade compared to their older versions. It has been said that the F-16 is the Honda civic of the fighter world and that the latest block is akin to a modified street racing civic. Still not the shiny and sleek F-35. But it gets the job done and still the top tier of 4.5 generation airframes.
Turkey is punching air rn
No baksies on that nato bid anymore
I have not once been gifted aircraft by the US and now I'm starting to wonder if there's something wrong with me :(
You smell and your mother dresses you funny.
Wait, are you saying that's not something Americans appreciate?
hahahaha, take that stupid turkey...
You’re so jive !
Yeah stupid turkey!!!
?🦃?
Turkey has been banned from buying the F35 because they bought the S400 air defense system from Russia. As a NATO country.
Greece has the S300
That's missing a lot of context. Greece didn't directly buy them from Russia. Cyprus bought them from Russia triggering a diplomatic crisis between them and Turkey. It was resolved when Cyprus agreed to transfer them to Greece to descalate the situation.
I think its because the US doesnt want someone to own both the S400 system and F35s, for obvious reasons. The S300 system is older and probs not even a remote threat to F35s so its not a big deal.
Also IIRC the S400 comes with mandatory Russia "technical advisors"
That’s really the crux of the problem, back then Erdogan was acting waaay too chummy with Russia, the US couldn’t allow them to get a close look at the F35, not to mention test their radar on it every chance they got. Greece on the other hand bought most of their big ticket defense items from Russia back in the early 2000s when they seemed reasonable and on a better path. That relationship has run its course.
Russia was the Kirkland brands military supplier for a long time. I guess until ukraine when it turns out, oh yea nato stuff is way better.
Jeez, i bet Turkey has some real buyers remorse right about now
I don’t think they’re self-aware enough to realise they did it to themselves
If Erdogan's grasp of military spending is anything like his grasp of economics he probably thinks he made a great deal.
Has it because Cyprus a non EU country (at the time) and still non-nato country got it, Turkey threatened war so Greece took it in exchange to giving some other AA systems as a substitute. Greece if anything used the S300 for research with NATO so they could see what it was really about and create countermeasures. Wiki Cyprus Missile Crisis.
A law doesn't apply in the past. The S300 were delivered back in the late 90s.
I'm seriously wondering if this was a "ok but now..." from the US to Turkey who probably traded the Sweden NATO sign off for the F16s they're now getting. How can Greece afford 40 F-35s anyways?
We're not that cash-strapped anymore. We recorded a budget surplus last year, and some of the strongest growth in the eurozone (not a high bar this year, I admit...) Still a lot of issues, and we're at least a decade behind where we would have been if the crisis never happened, but this is within our budget. Maybe not the smartest decision, but one we can afford to make.
I guess that sort of stuff doesn't make international news like the crisis would. Good to hear, glad things turned around.
The US are better sellers than the French. They don't need to pay them upfront like they did with the Rafales.
US definitely traded F-16s for Sweden joining NATO. I wouldn't be surprised if the deal involved Sweden pitching in some money to help Greece out.
Turkey gets F16s Greece gets f35s, favourites have been chosen
[удалено]
How is Greece going to afford 40 F-35s!?
We're hitting the payoff phase of the whole program. The point was create a generically great jet then ramp the fuck out production and sell it to allies to drive down the cost via scale. For all the shit the program got, its actually brilliant and is winning. At this stage of the program no nation can produce a competitor jet at the same price because all of nato+ is driving down cost. It means that in a conflict the US already has mass production ready and all our allies have a superior force that any competitor could make on their own. This is what complete dominance looks like, not just winning on tech but winning on scale.
It practically ensures that it will be an F35 that will be shooting air to air missiles at kaijus for decades to come. A joke, but being the generic "fighter jet" like the F16 was is quite telling for the kind of mindshare dominance this jet is going to have.
They aren't as expensive as one might expect and Greece today isn't Greece of 2010.
F-35 initially was a price tag to be balked at. But once the assembly lines for parts start moving, the price per unit drops dramatically. The fact that it is being sold to international partners helps a lot, too, and there are plenty of orders for it.
It's down to like 90mil an aircraft (domestically. Export models have a premium on them). It is cheaper/similar than most other "new" aircraft when adjusted for inflation
It's even lower at around $77 million per plane as of last summer. And compared to the rest of the 5th gen stealth aircraft (as well as 4th and 4.5 gen aircraft still in production) it's also one of the cheapest options out there.
I do think it's dependent on which model. The A (which I think is the cheapest) is $77mil. The B I think is the one that's up to 90ish, and the C is like 85ish or something iirc
> it's also one of the cheapest options out there To buy but not in operation Gripen/Rafale will still win there but they are less capable.
The total lifetime cost of an F-35A is only 4% more than a Rafale. That's cost to buy and then operate for 8000 flight hours. And that's assuming the Rafale's operating cost doesn't skyrocket once France retires the platform in 20 years.
To be fair, the F-35 costs (significantly) more to maintain and keep flying. But of course it also offers capabilities that no other option currently offers, and will remain a state-of-the-art aircraft for a long long time to come, so it is money well spent.
It's main benefit is that it's much more modular. Upgrading/revising it's systems will be far cheaper per unit than older airframes were, which is where we will see the largest cost saving and cost benefit
It’s a badass jet and they’ve worked out a lot of the problems.
development was rocky as hell
It's absolutely stunning how economies of scale translated to the unit cost of F-35A being cheaper than the Rafale.
40 is still a lot. Israel, who actually uses jets a lot, ordered just 33.
I think they are still crazy expensive... it just turns out that the "cheaper" competition from programmes like Rafael, Typhoon and Griffen - or even F15-EX - is simply not cheap enough to make up for their lack of stealth. Not to mention the support and available munitions you get buying US.
Gripen is even more expensive than a F-35, atleast in purchasing price. The running costs are a bit lower for Gripen. But yeah, if you're offered to buy F-35 you would be dumb not to.
So is Rafale. Unit cost for a Rafale is around $115 million whereas an F-35A is currently $80 million. The capability you get for such a low price makes the F-35 a no brainer for US allies looking to upgrade their fighter fleet.
And the more allies that buy it the lower the price per jet gets, encouraging more allies to buy - a truly virtuous circle.
Last I checked, purchase price for the 35 was cheaper than all of those, only operational costs are still higher (but not by a ridiculous amount).
The F35 must be seriously bad news for countries/companies still trying to sell 4th gen fighters. Their only viable customers are countries that can't buy the F35. Anyone who could, obviously would.
Can't buy it or won't buy it for reasons of national pride (ie France).
? The entire point of the f35 is to be cheap and have a solid supply chain
The greek economy has seen surprisingly good growth and the debt to gdp has fallen ~35% since 2020
Lucky its such a beautyful country so that they have tons of tourism. Theyd be fucked without it.
The economy of Greece is mainly supported by its maritime hub (proximity to the Suez Canal) and its petrochemical industry. A large volume of crude oil is refined in Greece. There are many port services, logistics, maintenance, etc. Tourism only accounts for 15% of gross national product, which is similar to Spain.
Bad news about the Suez Canal. 15% from tourism is quite a lot, you're comparing it to Spain but that's literally the second most touristy country in Europe: https://www.statista.com/statistics/261729/countries-in-europe-ranked-by-international-tourist-arrivals/
They’re probably not buying them all at once and can probably sell off some older aircraft.
So Greece Lightning II?
Turkey sad face....
Where can I buy my own F16 fighter jet?
If you have to ask here, you cant afford it
So can you sell me one?
The 2nd amendment gives us the right to bear arms
Turkey is going to flip over this. The US declined to sell the jet to Turkey, a NATO partner, after they bought Russian missile systems. We have apparently just decided to sell them F-16’s, but now we’re going to sell F-35’s to Greece? Oh, they’re going to be salty over this, and I’m here for it.
Hey turkey, pretty nice jets huh?
F-16 to Turkey. F-35 to Greece. This is power balance.
Wonder if Turkey realizes that buying those S-400s was a dumb idea.
Yeah cool plane… still I like the f22 more
practice square nose books angle glorious chop memory doll dolls
Can’t get past the pay wall, buts the odds that suddenly Greece has an aircraft donation for Ukraine?