"Gripen Fighters Won’t Save the Argentine Air Force" Topic

"Argentina has expressed interest in buying 24 Gripen E fighters from Brazil, which has just inked a licensing deal with Sweden permitting the South American country to manufacture its own copies of Saab's new single-engine fighter.

"Our willingness to cooperate with Argentina, our neighbor and ally, is total," Brazilian defense minister Celso Amorim said.

If you're British and you're worried—don't be. A few Gripens will barely begin to restore the badly-depleted Argentine air arm, which lost up to a third of its 409 warplanes during two months of brutal fighting with U.K. forces over the Falkland Islands in 1982…"
Full article here
link

Believed me… there are not Argentine Air Force anymore.
Nor Navy… less Army.

We probably became a new Costa Rica in a few years. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Not too up to date on the role of the Argentinian Air Force
but wouldn't the aircraft in the bbc story below fit?

link

Who are the threats to Argentinian airspace? I'm pretty sure there isn't the budget for overseas deployment either.

The RAF still deal with attempted Russian incursions and go up against sophisticated air defense systems so they have a much better capability.

David

I think British technical interest and export licensing aspects of Gripen will also have an effect here :)

Yeah, I suspect that the Brits are not going to release much technology to Argentina.

But I honestly figured a hundred Super Tucanos would be more along the line of what Argentina's Air Force needed…

I think this is all a smoke screen on Tango's part,I think they are buying 25 Gripens. I am on to you Tango…chuckle chuckle..

Argentina makes many friends with beef exports. Spend the money on cargo planes instead

So, now I have to kill you… (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

We probably became a new Costa Rica in a few years. (smile)

By all accounts, Costa Rica's a great place to visit. And they don't even have the Quilmes and great beef!

I visited Costa Rica some times.
Great plase for pleasure (smile)
No, they have not Quilmes (Isenbeck is better now here)and great beef, but atonish good sea food!

In 1982, when I return from the Islands, I was attached to two Costa Rica Lieutenants (public relation) who visit our country. I still remember how kind they were and how old… 45 and 51 years old! And only Lieutenant!.

Amicalement
Armand

Thanks for sharing that, Armand.

24 Gripens does save the Argentine air force.

Their current operational supersonic force is 16-ish Mirage III/Vs of dubious airworthiness. The A-4 fleet numbers 16-23 aircraft operational.

So 24 Gripens completely restores supersonic capability and gives them something to match Chilean F-16A/B/C/Ds.

And there have been other investments:

- acquisition of Grob G120 basic training planes
- additional acquisition and upgrades of IA-63 Pampa jet trainers (not sure of status)
- planned procurement of Brazillian KC-390 tanker/transport (C-130 equivalent).

If Gripen buy does not proceed then Argentina loses supersonic capability and air defence is down to upgraded A-4ARs (upgraded to 1990s F-16 level avionics).

It's still not an assault force that can take on Britain. But it retains capability – and that is very important in an age where so many airforces no longer operate supersonic or any combat jets

Britain might have 200+ Tornados and Typhoons but I don't see them all being deployed to Falklands. In fact, Falklands is currently guarded by 4 Eurofighters.

And 24 Gripens is a huge buy in todays terms – remember much larger Brazil is acquiring only 36 initially with long term plans being up to 112. It's large by Latin American standards where fighter fleets number about 24 fighter jets in total.

So in the end if Argentina's force consists of 24 Gripen, 16-23 A-4AR, and 11 modernised Super Etendard, then that's still far more capability than most of Eastern Europe combined and far more than most Latin American countries and far more than most African states.

I odn't think the buy will happen personally. The Argentinians could've brought F-16s or Mirage 2000s by now but have pulled back every time due to economics.

Hunted updates on Argie Mirages – most recent is that only 6 are airworthy which is an improvement over 2 in recent times as well as an apparent complete grounding earlier this year.

They're seeking spares but it's getting hard, especially as most operators ceased using them by 2000 and Pakistan has brought up most of what is remaining.

24 JAS-39s with a decent maintenance contract is a huge boost.

They can't afford the fuel, never mind the aircraft. They're in debt to Americans and defaulting continuously

"Defaulting continuously" is a stretch – if it weren't for a handful of vultures that bought up defaulted bonds when they went bust in the '90s, they'd not have hit that wall *yet* this time. That said, their economic trajectory looks dire – rampant and under-reported inflation, and state interference steadily increasing…. I certainly agree that 24 shiny newish jets is unlikely to be something they have the funds for.

Leaving aside the fact the Gripen is a generation behind the Typhoon, with all due respect I'm going to guess RAF pilots are more experienced and better trained than their Argentinian opposite numbers.

Plus, without a means of hauling a decent garrison to the islands, even taking out the Eurofighters won' do much except annoy the hell out of us.

The one advantage the Argentinians do have is against them we can't use our normal trick of broadcasting in clear… but in Welsh.

The Argentinians must be the only other nation with a decently sized Welsh-speaking population.

Sneaky, I call it :)

The real story here is Brazil slowly and inexorably getting a lock on South American defense industry. They're doing it real smart: political agreements, commercial ties, step by step.

Brazilian manufacturing is generally in very poor shape for an allegedly up and coming economy, but Embraer is the really big exception, so you may be onto something there.

EMBRAER and in past Neiva have proven quite capable in aerospace field since 1960s (for Neiva at least- they've since been merged with EMBRAER).

And they've exported a helluva lot of planes around the world including French and British air force (and this was in 1980s!).

They also co-developed the AMX light combat jet together with Italy. It's still in service with both airforces and Italian ones have seen action over Kosovo, Libya and Afghanistan.

Shame it never won any export contracts, but there were too many cheap second hand F-16s/MiG-29S on market and too many other operators stopped operating jets all together or reduced fleets to next to nothing. Same issue also killed the Hawk 200.

Leaving aside the fact the Gripen is a generation behind the Typhoon

Actually they're same generation – 4.5.

Gripen achieved service entry sooner but has all the pre-requisites for 4.5 Generation. Eurofighter is more capable but it's also a much larger aircraft.

And Argies would be getting JAS-39E which is an upsized, modernised version.

The Eurofighter will still be more capable (in A2A role as it's still limited in groujd attack due to upgrades not being implemented) but JAS-39E is a fine jet and far cheaper to acquire and operate.

In fact I suspect we'll be seeing more JAS-39 sales with F-15/-16/-18/Eurofighter/Rafale* production winding down to 2020 and only other Western jet on market being F-35.

*French think Rafale will still be produced after 2020 but they've cut down their own orders considerably and the thing has yet to secure an export sale with Indian contract bogged down in typical Indian red tape and the Indians starting to eye other options again.