Comments by "Titanium Rain" (@ChucksSEADnDEAD) on "" video.

  1. If you can't defend an airfield, you can't defend your ports, factories or power plants. Patching a runway only takes around a day.
    4
  2. The A-10 was designed for Vietnam. It was meant to be the A-1 Skyraider replacement. Its problem isn't nukes but anti-air weapons.
    3
  3.  @Toblerone-j1t  The problem is that who the hell is manning hundreds of small airbases? There's security concerns with leaving thousands of gallons of fuel and live weapons dispersed around the country. I don't misunderstand the doctrine. I understand it perfectly. Sweden does not expect to take the fight to the enemy, so their doctrine is to make the fight as costly as possible to the aggressor so that they don't even try. The issue here is that in circumstances like Ukraine, a country has managed to fend off an attack and is in the "now what?" phase. Ukraine does not have the decisive means to throw the counterpunch which sends Russia rolling back towards its borders. You've planned to lose a war slowly. That's your doctrine. That's fine. Now you want to win the war and retake your land and liberate your people. Is your doctrine going to work?
    3
  4. The Gripen can't replace a twin engine air superiority fighter.
    2
  5. Stealth isn't wasted. You want to win the fight or just pretend to have a military?
    2
  6. ​ @Mountain-Man-3000  Fewer soldiers doesn't mean higher pay.
    2
  7.  @johns70  I'm not American. My perspective is that if you try to preserve military assets at all costs, the enemy will ignore them. Look at how any mention of the F-117 will bring the nationalist Serbs out to brag about bagging one, and how highly they praise the SAM crews for surviving the American SEAD operation. While they preserved their military in the NATO intervention, Milosevic tapped out and gave NATO what it asked for to begin with. The point of having a military is ensuring the executive and legislative power of the state inside its borders and thus its sovereignty. If your military hides and the enemy just keeps hitting you until you give up and concede, then what is the point of that military? If you can't defend your airports and air bases, then you can't defend your power plants. Your ports. Your oil and gas storage facilities. A dispersed doctrine makes no sense because none of your infrastructure is dispersed. While you're busy flying Gripens off stretches of highway, your enemy shut down your trade, your electric power, your economic activity, your heat and water. You devoted so much thought into packing your planes into hidden holes that you left your country's entire jugular exposed.
    2
  8.  @claymclaren5788  You do realize that most aircraft have diagnosis programs, right? In the majority of trials held countries did not find the Gripen cheaper or easier to maintain. In fact the Finnish trials found the F-16 was cheaper to fly, and in a Swiss parliamentary inquiry it was revealed Saab had lied about the CPH of the Gripen by a factor of almost a third. The Canadian forces have issues, and purchasing Gripens would not solve them.
    2
  9. Over a thousand F-35s built means support and parts for decades to come.
    1
  10. They have China and North Korea to worry about. They need a serious fighter, not a budget one. Also, the F-35B can take off from their carriers, the Gripen can't.
    1
  11. That's marketing wank. That's like saying you have a light that makes you invisible. You CAN use a light to overwhelm an eye or camera, but everyone knows the light is turned on. You can't create a black hole.
    1
  12. Vectored thrust is meaningless in a missile fight. Pointing the vector away from the centerline costs energy, and losing energy means becoming missile bait.
    1
  13. The countries that actually evaluate their options don't think the Gripen is cheaper. Only online commenters think it is.
    1
  14.  @LackofFaithify  All those numbers are nonsense. I've been reading those numbers for years. In actual evaluations, the Gripen never comes out as massively cheaper. It's a wash. In the 1992 Finnish eval the Gripen C wasn't even the cheapest option per hour (the F-16 was) or in lifetime costs. In a 2012 Swiss parliamentary discussion about the Gripen, it was revealed Saab had advertised a 10,000 franc CFH but it turned out it was actually over 24,000 franc (about 26k USD). Different countries measure costs differently so often a country rates their CPH by including everything from staff salaries to airfield maintenance along with depot level maintenance, while another figure may be the cost of taking an airplane for a spin (cost of fuel, lubricant, a few conscripts to turn a few screws and replace a couple of parts in the hangar).
    1
  15. ​ @andersgrassman6583  Yeah and in a wargame that A-hole general also sank the US fleet. In real life? Operation Praying Mantis. Losing wargames wins wars. There's a reason China created their own BluFor. They have a military unit trained to use American tactics and they crush the PLA in exercises. Because China realized that winning wargames for prestige only makes your troops weak. They need to be defeated in training to become stronger. People who actually do this for a living want to lose war games. Online commenters pretend that losing in training is bad.
    1
  16. You need stealth for defense too.
    1
  17. Bronk has been shilling the Gripen non stop. But the fact is that Sweden could not be counted on as a supplier if you needed to use the Gripen for real. When a war breaks out, you want the guys acriss the ocean, unmolested, to be sending you the stuff because they built a thousand units.
    1
  18. Undisputed, undefeated, never lost a round.
    1
  19. Lower range than the F-35.
    1
  20. Even outside of NATO most countries don't train for dispersed operations.
    1
  21. It's not stealth. Stop this sales pitch.
    1
  22. Your skepticism is warranted. The source for that figure is about 20 years old and the person behind it isn't exactly an authority on the matter.
    1
  23. Most US fighters were designed before people had PCs at home. The benefit of hindsight is a factor here. The US is also introducing modular software, the problem is that there's aircraft from the 1970s still loading data from magnetic tape.
    1
  24. Most of the electronics inside the Gripen are made in the UK, US, Germany, etc.
    1
  25. The C/Ds will be taken apart to cannibalize parts and components for the E.
    1
  26.  @AlexRMcColl  Originally, the Legacy Gripens would be rebuilt as Gripen Es. Then as it turned out, much like the Legacy Hornet and the Super Hornet, they're actually different aircraft and can't be upgraded directly. However, it was reported that parts from the Legacy Gripens would be taken out and used on the new pure-built Gripens when compatible. I didn't know the plan changed again.
    1
  27. Finland's analysis put the Gripen operating cost higher than the F-16. And this was the older variant because it was in the 90s. An E variant will obviously be more expensive. If you can't afford a F-35 you can't afford a Gripen either. South Africa famously put half their fleet in storage because they couldn't afford to fly them.
    1
  28. The F-35 is a success with over 1000 produced while the Gripen continuously fails bids.
    1
  29. ​ @matso3856  As opposed to Swedish arrogance? They even tried to bribe governments into buying the Gripen, and proposed to take part in Libya to get some advertising for the Gripen.
    1
  30. The engine is kind of underpowered for that kind of circus trick.
    1
  31. Low frequency radars are not proliferating. They're larger and harder to move. They're the first targets for cruise missiles day one.
    1
  32. Ironica because the Gripen has been plagued with bribery scandals.
    1
  33.  @johns70  How do you defend infrastructure when you already admitted you can't defend an airfield? Instead of taking the airports out, the enemy - knowing you have a doctrine of dispersing forces - will instead target the stuff you can't disperse and cripple your country. I'm looking at Ukraine. 2/3rds of the missile attacks on airfields missed, and those that hit runways were repaired.
    1
  34.  @craigfinnegan8534  But if you have a vulnerable location, you can address its vulnerability.
    1
  35. Ironic because Saab desperately tried to lower their bids to get sales and even resorted to bribes.
    1
  36. And yet no actual trial for fighter adoption has found that price differential. Funny how the people who look at the actual numbers don't see the Gripen as cheap, but the people who look at two decade old marketing wank think it's the best thing since sliced bread.
    1
  37.  @claymclaren5788  Nobody thinks its cost effective except for the internet. If you're chronically underfunded, you can't afford the Gripen. The South African military put half their Gripen fleet in rotating storage because they couldn't afford the per hour flight costs. If you can't keep 100 tanks running, you can't keep 4 Gripens running. Aircraft are expensive. Either pay up or give up on having an air force.
    1
  38. The older the aircraft, the more ut costs to keep flying.
    1