Sweden says it built a Russian fighter jet killer

[Somerville]

Popped up in my news feed this morning. Anyone have more info on this?

Sweden says it built a Russian fighter jet killer

• Sweden's air force says its Gripen E fighter jets are designed to kill Russia's fearsome Sukhoi fighter jets, and that they have a "black belt" in that type of combat.
• The Gripen E can't carry the most weapons and has no real stealth. And it isn't the longest-range, fastest, or even cheapest jet. But it has a massive and respected electronic-warfare capability.
• The Gripen E is Sweden's cheap solution to killing Russia's fighter jets and surface-to-air missiles, and Russia probably can't do much about it.
• Sweden is too small really to optimize your counter-electronic warfare capabilities against
• Additionally, the Gripen E can fire almost any missile made in the US or Europe.

 

[jbi]

I would happily put the Grippen against anything the Russians could throw at it.

 

[PirateMk1]

Popped up in my news feed this morning. Anyone have more info on this?

I wonder if the F-35 designers looked at the Gripen, which is an excellent plane, and decided to take a few pages from the its electronic warfare book?

 

[beerftw]

Popped up in my news feed this morning. Anyone have more info on this?

The gripens are not the sukhoi killers the article claims them to be, but they are awesome jets that could hold their own against them.

The gripens do not really beat any other high end jets overall, their main benefit though is that they perform close enough to their top tier competitors for a cheap cost, meaning the gripen is the best jet dollars to function. This means poorer nato nations can keep in the fight with modern gear capable of combatting russias, without having to throw down f-15 or f-35 or eurofighter money.

Bulgaria wanted them, and their govt got mad when the f-16 won the bid to start replacing their aging mig 29 fighters, their preferred jet was either new gripens or second hand eurofighters from italy, both would have aided them in nato compliance without paying top dollar, they saw the f-16 as tossing money to an inferior jet that cost more than the superior one, but with heavy lobbying the f-16 won that contract. This was a big deal for the bulgarian govt as bulgaria is literally the poorest nation in europe and a few f-16's literally breaks their defense budget.