At this point, the only commitment is to buy 16 F-35s. Mark Carney will be making the final decision on whether to proceed with purchases of another 72 of the stealth fighters.

The F-35 is a poison pill for Canadian defence sovereignty against a hostile America. We cannot win against an invasion, but with the Gripen we can make it a phyrric victory for them.

  • Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.caEnglish
    17·
    3 days ago

    I would actually say go ahead with the limited purchase. Then use the F-35 as aggressor aircraft in training that way we know how to fight them.

      • rekabis@lemmy.caOP
        4·
        2 days ago

        I know what he’s talking about: not against American pilots, but as make-believe American pilots.

        Which is a good idea, but not perfect: American pilots will have noticeably different behaviours and tactics, and even personality types that are (generally) not found up here. While training against other Canadians in an F-35 is great, it’s not as good as training against Americans in an F-35.

        But that’s the trick - how do we get America, using F-35 aircraft, to help us to train up our Gripen pilots?

        And when our original order of 88 or so F-35 planes could, if completely cancelled and on a per-dollar basis, buy 420 Gripens straight from Europe, how do we get America to unknowingly train up so many Gripen pilots?

              • alsimoneau@lemmy.ca
                1·
                22 hours ago

                It doesn’t matter if you only use them in training. At worst you can’t train, but it doesn’t stop you from responding to an actual military situation.

                • Matty Roses@lemmy.today
                  1·
                  21 hours ago

                  Pretty expensive training cost for the benefit.

                  Especially since, as Ukraine has shown, buying swarms of little drones can make expensive airplanes like the F-35 a non-factor.

                  I’m not Canadian, but as someone who doesn’t like the US military, I’d advise you to cancel your contracts with the US, and buy lots of drones from China and Turkey, while you ramp up your local capacity to build them. Let the Americans choke on their own military contractor welfare.

          • puppinstuff@lemmy.ca
            English
            2·
            1 day ago

            I’m not sure that’s a confirmed thing but Trump did make the threat last year, so 🤷

            • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
              2·
              1 day ago

              They aren’t proving they can’t because they refuse to give us the code. We have to assume they can.