Finnish DefMin interested in F-35s, not Gripens

[pron]

Question to hornetfinn

Hi, have you been following the channel "MilitaryRated" on YT?
And do you know anything about the man from Finland(former officer in the Finnish defence forces) that talks in the video about the F-35?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKNPCk-fd8I

[hornetfinn]

Question to hornetfinn

Hi, have you been following the channel "MilitaryRated" on YT?
And do you know anything about the man from Finland(former officer in the Finnish defence forces) that talks in the video about the F-35?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKNPCk-fd8I

Hi! No I have not and I don't know the guy either. Have to check their videos, but this one was well made otherwise but it's really strange to once again hear those totally wrong figures for flight hour costs and availability numbers... Norwegians have recently said that their F-35 flight hour cost is 20% higher than their F-16s, which is totally understandable given how much more capable, heavier and powerful F-35 is.

But he brings up a real good point that US politicians should really address. There are now quite serious concerns in Europe about reliability of US as an ally and provider of major weapon systems. That's not good for anybody and I think that something should be done to it. Finnish F-35 buy is great example of those concerns as if Russia would attack us (and that is totally possible, although unlikely), we should be able to strike targets well inside Russia with those F-35s and say JASSM-ERs.

[pron]

Some was okay in the video, but other things was rather far off. They have a lot of video, and I will try to watch more of them.

[hornetfinn]

Oh no, now USAF has started using B-52s to bomb Finland!!!



https://ilmavoimat.fi/-/yhdysvaltojen-b ... geId=en_US

Two U.S. B-52 Stratofortress bombers dropped guided JDAM bombs on targets in Rovajärvi firing range area on 6 March. Finnish Air Force F/A-18 Hornet fighters escorted the bombers to the target area.

The Air Force has trained with U.S. strategic bomber aircraft in Finnish airspace since July 2024. The United States regularly conducts Bomber Task Force deployments during which the bombers perform training missions with European NATO Allies. B-52 bombers carried out air-to-ground drops now for the first time in Finland.

Really interesting signaling as Rovajärvi is only about 200 nautical miles away from Murmansk and some of the largest and most important Russian military bases.

[sprstdlyscottsmn]

That looks like one of those 36lb training bombs. Not used to single a single munition come out of that bay

[hornetfinn]

Interesting. Finnish Air Force says that JDAM was used. Here you can see a video of it, including hitting the target:

https://twitter.com/FinnishAirForce/sta ... 0296915386

I think it was 500 lb variant and the image compression made it look smaller than it was. Or maybe I'm missing something?

[sprstdlyscottsmn]

Sorry, I was just saying that in comparison to the massive B-52 a single 500lb bomb looks like an F/A-18 dropping a training bomb.

[hornetfinn]

Oh I see, now I understood. I'm kind of slow...

[sprstdlyscottsmn]

I can see why my statement was misunderstood, it's not all on you.