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Gman.45
My biggest argument against the Gripen (which they hate) is this...if anyone believed that it was REALLY as capable as Saab claims, for the price that they claim, and the operating costs that they claim, then their order book would be overflowing. Literally they'd have a production backlog for the rest of their natural lives. But it's NEVER won a competition. It got selected in Brazil by default, they wanted the Rafale but it was too expensive, so they went to their second choice which was the Super Hornet, then Boeing got caught spying on them so they tossed them from the competition and ended up with their last choice by default...and even Brazil obviously isn't as confident in it as they once were...they were supposedly going to buy up to 100 of them at some point, and now they're down to just 36, and it's going to take them 8 years to take them.
The Gripen E has been on the market for 15 years, and including the 60 for Sweden they've sold 96 jets...20% less than Lockheed Martin's number of F-35's delivered just last year alone. The Gripen has lost or pulled out of competitions with F-18's, F-16s (both new and used), Typhoons, Rafales, Super Hornets, and more...it's literally never won.
All the supposed benefits of the Gripen offer aren't that great in the long run. Technology transfers of a limited amount of the tech in the jet (most of the gripen isn't actually made by Saab, so they can't transfer it), production of a jet that nobody else is buying, and jobs for a couple years while we build around half of our order and then turn out the lights on the way out. Remember, they offer in country assembly to every country they try to sell it to...so we'll never build any Gripens not destined for us.