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.

  • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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    5 hours ago

    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.

  • Skua@kbin.earth
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    8 hours ago

    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

    • Riddick3001@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      that’s $2 billion in sales that Lockheed Martin doesn’t get

      And that’s just the beginning.

      • earphone843@sh.itjust.works
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        7 hours ago

        I feel like billionaires might resolve the Trump/musk issue for us. Fucking with a defense contractor’s bottom line is pretty dangerous, especially when you have private security (Musk)

        • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          I feel like billionaires might resolve the Trump/musk issue for us. Fucking with a defense contractor’s bottom line is pretty dangerous, especially when you have private security (Musk)

          Honestly, I feel it’s more likely to display how much the defense industry is just another ordinary industry. They’ll whinge and wring their hands, maybe openly support the limpdick opposition if they’re feeling particularly pressured, but all that experience in making killing machines is just engineering and marketing. They’re not more likely to have clout or death squads (of their own, at least) than other major industries of comparable size and importance, and everything is structured in such a compartmentalized way that they couldn’t really leverage that against the government if they actually wanted to throw down.

          The defense industry is more like the oil industry than a cyberpunk future. Influential, not independent.

        • Riddick3001@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          Fucking with a defense contractor’s

          Good point. Hadn’t really thought of it that way. What an enormous mess…

      • Skua@kbin.earth
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        7 hours ago

        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
        • baerd@lemmy.world
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          47 minutes ago

          For once, our (Croatian) government lucked into making a good choice when they went with Rafales instead of F-16Vs.

          • Skua@kbin.earth
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            2 hours ago

            Uhh, don’t expect any special insights here

            It looks to me like it’s pretty impressive considering that it’s the second combat plane ever built in the country, and the experience gained from that is a valuable thing.

            I have to assume that it’s less capable and less expensive than the four that I mentioned, based on how it has fared as an export. It seems to have struggled against the European, American, and Chinese offerings, or in many cases have been considered as a trainer by countries that are already flying one of those previously-mentioned ones. Obviously there’s a lot of politics involved in these purchases, but if Australia has already bought F-35s and wants Tejases as trainers then it suggests that Australia has a good reason to think that Tejas is a lot less expensive and also less effective at actually fighting a war

            It seems like it suits its role well, though - a cost-effective solution for India’s needs, and a way to develop domestic expertise

  • Tuukka R@sopuli.xyz
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    8 hours ago

    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.

  • perestroika@lemm.eeOP
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    9 hours ago

    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”.

    • Delta_V@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      US MIC: “I wish the Feds would buy more guns and less butter.”

      *monkey paw curls*

    • takeda@lemm.ee
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      7 hours ago

      For them it is easier, because as I understand they didn’t sign any contract yet, just were planning to.

  • Gsus4@mander.xyz
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    7 hours ago

    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.

  • PNW_Doug@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    Good for them. It’s clear that we (the U.S.) can no longer be trusted to act in good faith.

  • Eezyville@sh.itjust.works
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    9 hours ago

    As they should. I’ll tell you that as an American you shouldn’t trust the US government.

  • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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    3 hours ago

    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.

    • Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 hours ago

      Why the hell does a sovereign country need an air force ? Really ? (Hint : to stay sovereign, for starter)