La Francia ha lasciato da sola il finanziamento al Rafale F5 dopo il ritiro degli Emirati Arabi Uniti

> France will ultimately have to finance the Rafale F5 programme alone after the United Arab Emirates decided to withdraw from participation. The dispute centred on access to sensitive technologies, particularly in the field of optronics, which Paris refused to share. Initially, Abu Dhabi had been ready to contribute up to €3.5 billion to a programme estimated at around €5 billion.

> Financially, the consequences are significant. The development of the F5 standard alone is estimated at over €5 billion, while the broader Rafale programme reaches approximately €11.7 billion. Without Emirati funding, France will have to absorb the full burden, stretching its defence budget and potentially slowing down implementation.

5 billion for f5 rafale development? I mean f3 rafales are currently being sold for upwards of 100 million per unit, so a 5B development for this seems cheap

I will never understand why did our military decided to go for the F-35s, it doesnt make any sense for us.

FYI – Czechia decided to buy US F-35’s which become a national controversy due to their price, etc.
Sweaden offered us an amazing deal with Grippens, but we still said “no”.

I’m not an expert, nor an member of our airfoce nor army, but in past US did/tried to influence it’s allies in to buying their planes, and this is what i believe has happen now, as i’m a person who from childhood was interested in military stuff, i’d say i know our military, budget, what we should/do focus on, etc. etc. well enough.

It makes no logical sense besides few minor pros to buy F-35’s over Gripens for example, i spend hours trying to figure this out but i just cant, i do believe this was US inflenced buy and what said our commander of airforce really did not convince me otherwise, as in an interview they asked him about this and why are we buying them and his reply was “because they’re simply the best” … That’s not how you buy military stuff (nor justify buying it when asked about it) – also this was not some random interview, but from the Czech military itself called “Kamufláž”.

I swear imma gonna sound pretty stupid right now maybe, but just examples (for us):

F-35
Pros:
– Stealth
– Better air-to-air fighter then Grippen.
– One of the best fighter aircraft currently active

Cons:
– Foregin procuded
– Harder to access repair parts
– Harder to access repair parts due to distance
– Harder to access repair parts due to the number of users/planes in use of this type
– Much harder to mentain then Grippens
– Much more expansive to mentain then Grippens
– Infrastructure will need to be upgraded (airfields, etc.)
– New trainings needed
– Currently the US (producer) is an unreliable ally
– degrades European defence by not sourcing locally
– Sweaden offered a much, much better deal with Grippens then we have now (no need to train mechanics, upgarde airfields, etc.)
– Much more costly to have then Grippens
etc.

And the main part, how on earth Czechia needs a top-tier air-to-air foregin fighter instead of some normal one produced locally? Grippens are most suited for us, and our needs, in war we are no the country which is meant to provide air-sup. but rather air support. In peace time, they’re (used) here to “interecept” not communicating civilian aircraft or military on missions, this is going to be much more expansive with F35s,
we should focus on CAS (Close Air Support) and air defence when it comes to our country size, budget, military size. This doesnt make any sense for us.