Finland (Suomi)

[inch]

f35 my quess for whats it worth

[ArmChairCivvy]

Just read an update on the new corvettes on corporalfrisk.com and the confirmation on the design assistance was more specific than what other sources have indicated earlier:
"the vessels will have a drop of MEKO-blood in them, as the concept has been fine-tuned by German design bureau MTG-Marinetechnik GmbH."

[Lord Jim]

If Finland actually purchases 60 new fighters, it highlight the difference in priorities between them and many NATO members with regards to how defence is viewed. Compare this to how many F-35s countries like Belgium and Norway are purchasing, and how fast and far their air forces have shrunk over the past decade or so. Finland's air force used to be pretty small compared to most NATO members, but now it could be the opposite.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Compare this to how many F-35s countries like (Belgium and) Norway are purchasing

52?

Anyway, I do buy the point you are making.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Build you own or buy off the peg?

The difference does not seem to be huge: Finland is getting 4 (slightly larger) corvettes for e 1.2bn whereas very comparable 5 will cost Saudi Arabia (from a Janes piece) just shy of e2 bn
"five new corvettes with a price tag of $2.1 billion. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been negotiating the deal since 2015, with the last vessel expected to be delivered in 2022. The contract will involve around seven million hours of work at the company’s shipyards in Bahía de Cádiz, Ría de Ferrol and Cartagena. According to the data from Navantia, the ships will be based on the Avante 2200 design. The total displacement of these corvettes is over 2,500 tons, the length of the hull is 98.9 m. The two diesel power plants will provide a speed of up to 25 knots. The crew will consist of 92 sailors. The ships will be armed Harpoon anti-ship missiles, ESSM surface to air missiles, a Super Rapid naval gun built by Leonardo, a CIWS system, torpedo launchers and remote weapon stations."

[Voldemort]

https://corporalfrisk.com/2018/05/26/th ... time-army/

You can find what Finnish Army approximately looks like during war. Key units include mechanized brigade, motorized brigade, three infantry brigades, two mechanized battlegroups, two motorized battlegroups, helipcopter battalion and special forces battalion.

[serge750]

Gripen E !!!

[Voldemort]

According to Defence Technology Review Finland's K9 option is for 48 guns. If Finland uses the option the total amount would 96 guns.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Finland's choice for counter-battery radar is predicted to be made public by the end of the year. Interestingly there are a couple more contenders in addition to the usual suspects: Saab, Elta Systems and Raytheon

[Lord Jim]

Just heard an interesting article in Radio 4. It appears the Finns have formally complained to Russia about their jamming GPS signals during recent exercises, causing problems for civilian air traffic amongst other things.

[ArmChairCivvy]

have formally complained

Just the PM

[PapaGolf]

Excellent, provides realistic training scenarios.

[Voldemort]

Finnish GTP by Sisu has won competition for new 4x4 in Latvia. Things are looking very good for Finnish armoured vehicle industry with Sisu winning in Latvia, Patria having revealed their new 6x6 last summer and Protolad selling four PMPVs to FDF for testing.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Patria having revealed their new 6x6 last summer

In the early days of AMV that was often talked about, but the news piece has passed me by
- do you have any links for that?

The first (then one and only) Protolab errr, proto, came here, to the UK, for blast resistance testing
- must have passed, if 4 more have been put on order?

[Voldemort]

Patria having revealed their new 6x6 last summer

In the early days of AMV that was often talked about, but the news piece has passed me by
- do you have any links for that?

The first (then one and only) Protolab errr, proto, came here, to the UK, for blast resistance testing
- must have passed, if 4 more have been put on order?

https://www.army-technology.com/project ... d-vehicle/

It appears to have passed the test since FDF has bought four of them for further testing.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Not bad for 24 t, delivering 10 dismounts:
" ballistic protection system of the Patria 6×6 vehicle offers STANAG level 2 standard ballistic protection for the occupants. The vehicle can be integrated with STANAG level 4 threat level protection kit for protection against heavy machine gun fire.
“The armoured chassis of the vehicle also offers blast protection against mines and IEDs up to 10kg of TNT.”["]

[ArmChairCivvy]

An indication of what a modern CMS costs, from the Finnish broadcasting news service:
"The logistics command of the Finnish Defence Forces has received permission from the Defence Ministry to request the final tenders for new state-of-the-art military boats for the Finnish Navy. The 400-million-euro Squadron 2020 combat system will include four new ice-breaking missile corvettes, along with various weapons, sensors, and integrated command and control systems.

The final tender requests are the result of process that began last summer, when three suppliers were chosen from a field of eight to participate in the final bidding: Sweden's Saab, Germany's Atlas Electronik, and Canada's Lockheed Martin Canada."
- e 100 mln per ship
- might be slightly inflated as the supplier is 100% responsible for the integration of named weapon systems ( of which the SAM choice has not been made, or at least not released to the public domain)

Rather than using the inflated River B2 prices for comparison, you can get three stretched River B1s (without warship bells& whistles) for
"The Brazilian Navy placed a £133m ($210m) contract with BAE Systems for the delivery of three ocean patrol vessels and associated support services in January 2013." much less
- the £ was stronger then and, sure, going that far back would need inflation adjusting

[Voldemort]

Finnish Army has conducted first live firing with M31 AW guided rocket and validated its performance.

[ArmChairCivvy]

AW [guided rocket and] validated [its] performance.

So they did not take these tests at face value?

Notably only semi-hard targets used, and the hardest of those (in the BMP class as for protection) not shown in the after impact frames

[Voldemort]

AW [guided rocket and] validated [its] performance.

So they did not take these tests at face value?

Notably only semi-hard targets used, and the hardest of those (in the BMP class as for protection) not shown in the after impact frames

Gotta test them in Finnish environment and other things. Don't know what sort of target sets were used or how many rockets were fired. Anyway these are not very good against hard targets. Poor attempt at replacing cluster bombs.

[Lord Jim]

I really wish we would seriously consider replacing our tracked GMLRS with HIMARS based in an existing chassis already in use with the British Army. It should be a no brainer and if the Finnish Army is happy to use such a platform in their environments then we should have no problem whether they are deploy in the Baltics, Norway of anywhere else. GMLRS and the various rockets already in service or planned is the west most effective artillery system by a mile. We need to learn how to use them again in a conventional war and could take notes form nations that have still trained for such like Finland.

[ArmChairCivvy]

AW should really be called Area-effects, not ' Alternative'.

Anyway, the Finns wanted the launchers on tracks and were quite hesitant about the support vehicles being on wheels
- the liberal range (though inferior to Smerch) gives you enough options as to where to stop and what to drive through, to get there. So they binned the thought of needing to convert support onto tracks, too.

[Voldemort]

AW should really be called Area-effects, not ' Alternative'.

Anyway, the Finns wanted the launchers on tracks and were quite hesitant about the support vehicles being on wheels
- the liberal range (though inferior to Smerch) gives you enough options as to where to stop and what to drive through, to get there. So they binned the thought of needing to convert support onto tracks, too.

There's really no reason to have support on tracks. Makes the units more cumbersome to move around without any real benefits. MLRS doesn't need to drive up to middle of the forest to shoot. We bought MLRS because nothing else was available.

The "Alternative" referrs to alternative to cluster munitions.

Long range fire plattforms don't need tracks, just look at Russian rocker launchers and S-3/400s.

[ArmChairCivvy]

We bought MLRS because nothing else was available.

Himars?

[Voldemort]

We bought MLRS because nothing else was available.

Himars?

Seemed to have existed at the time but not in surplus and hence too expensive. So only viable option was surplus MLRS, just like with Dutch Leo2A6s.