European Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter sandyj
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They got so much wrong with this article. TheJ-11 variant sent was the J-11A, which uses older radar/avionics from the original Su-27SK. China did not send the J-11B to the Falcon Strike exercises. When they did send the J-10 series, the BVR results were heavily in China’s favor, especially with the J-10C which uses AESA PL-15 combo.
lcloo
Captain
You are posting an old report of exercise between Gripen and old early J11/SU-27 with out-dated radar. Moreover the article was written by an Indian based in Delhi, Apoova Jain, tainted by biased intention.
Not sure what‘s the true intention but if you would have checked, you would have noticed as explained by @siegecrossbow that this was the firs such engagement in 2015 and the following years, the PLAAF participated with J-10C fighters which revered the outcome dramatically.
As such … calm down!
No intention at all. Just found the article, posted on August 9 2021 by the way. "Calm down"
There is nothing wrong with finding an article and wanting to post about it, but appropriate commentary is always beneficial.
In this case, the manner in which you posted it would make people wonder if you've read and reviewed the premises and logic of the article and how much you agree with it -- however nothing in your post elaborated on those aspects, and if anything seemed to convey that you accepted it.
Just a word of advice for the future.
Bltizo focuses on the technical comparison of both planes as if they were two randomly matched fighters and so he misses the most fundamental observation: the 2015 exercise was recreating the scenario for which Gripen was designed in the 80s - Swedish JAS39 vs Soviet Su-27 in defensive air operations over own territory.
Gripen is typically presented as a small and cheap aircraft with emphasis on STOL and other unconventional solutions as if they were some marketing gimmicks. Those who point to Gripen's role in the Swedish Bas90 system often suggest that Gripen was meant to win through numbers and non-standard approach to logistics. Neither is true. Gripen was meant to win through capability alone and the economic aspects of Gripen's design were caused by the constant budget overruns with Viggen.
Sweden needed aircraft with top performance but couldn't afford the cost levels associated with such fighters. Viggen was a highly capable fighter built in the 70s in a country of 8 million. It put the defense budget against the wall. Therefore Gripen is small because this is a way to reduce and control cost, Gripen's construction is modular because this is a way to reduce and control cost, Gripen's softare is written in Ada and has open and modular architecture because this is a way to reduce and control cost, etc. etc.
When it entered service in 1996 Gripen was by far the world's most sophisticated fighter jet and implemented every possible technological solution in service except AESA radars (J/APG-1 on F-2 a year before). Sweden creatively resolved Gripen's lower ceiling of 15km versus Su-27s maximum of 19km with maneuverability, better situational awareness and smaller RCS. Open architecture and Ada meant that it could integrate every weapon NATO had at its disposal and PS-05/A was a generation ahead of anything the Soviets had at the time - especially the N001 used by Su-27.
Therefore Gripen performed well against J-11A because it was designed to do so. It would perform well against J-11B and J-10A for the same reason. It could not perform as well in BVR against J-10C because J-10C is the equivalent of Gripen NG - an aircraft with the next generation of systems and weapons. It can be thought of as a counter to Gripen and Gripen's contemporaries.
JAS39C is not an inferior plane for an air-to-air mission. It is greatly limited in its air-to-ground capability which tends to dominate the concerns of American planners and consequently the media. But Gripen was designed as a defensive fighter countering raids against airfields, not as an offensive bomber attacking airfields i.e performing "offensive counter air" in USAF nomenclature.
For defensive air-to-air Gripen is superior to F-16C/D Block 50/52, F/A-18C/D or Mirage 2000-5Mk.2, practically equivalent to original Rafale with RBE2 (PESA) and inferior to Typhoon and F-15 without AESA radars - but still capable of successfully engaging them. It is a great plane as long as all you plan to do with it is defend your own airspace and shoot RBS-15s against ships invading your shores.
Gripen winning against J-11B would only mean that Sweden had capable aerospace engineers in the 80s and 90s and we already know that it absolutely did. It would lose against a fighter with an AESA radar because AESA radars were only experimental systems in the 80s and the only aircraft using phased array and long-range missiles was MiG-31.
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Troll alert, of late we seem to be attracting a fair few of them. Probably being a premium Chinese defence forum we are targeted.
... We have no information suggesting the DACTs were conducted in a specific manner meant to emulate the Gripen's "original role".
More importantly, even the Gripen itself were not the original A/B variants (C/D being substantially more capable of course), so I'm not sure how you can entertain the idea of reviewing this DACT exercise without looking at the difference in technology between the respective aircraft....
And frankly I'm not sure how you can say with such confidence that Gripen is "superior" to mirage 2000-5 Mk 2, F-16 50/52 C/D, or F-18C/D in the defensive counter air role either, given those aircraft are all of similar or equal technological advancement with Gripen C/D (and superior to Gripen A/B), while featuring no particular inferior kinematic or payload handicaps (if anything all of those aircraft are superior). Not to mention any air war would be fought in a system of systems manner anyway.
The Gripen is a competent light fighter aircraft.l, and it has competent subsystems and weapons for the various generations it is intended to compete with. But calling it superior to those other aircraft in the "defensive counter air" role is overreaching.
You are better off arguing that it is in some aspects a cheaper, lighter (lower logistics tail) aircraft compared to some of the other aircraft you mentioned, which would be fair.
But there's nothing inherently or decisively more capable about the Gripen family relative to 4th generation fighters of equal technological advancement and subsystems/weapons advancement.
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