It's both until its not. If only 1 or 2 countries signed up, it'd be an expensive failure. If everyone signs up, cost go down and economies of scale make it a wild success.

Yeah, F35 turned into something I would never have anticipated: it's actually not that expensive anymore.

I'm not taking a side on this particular issue, but there are many reasons a person or a country might buy something that wasn't very good, even if they knew it wasn't. Maintaining a relationship with the vendor (aka a foreign nation with whom you maintain diplomatic/economic relations) is a big one.

Because they are buying USA weapons, not the weapons that fits what their country needs. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/fighter-jet-purchase--...

> If F-35 is such a failure, how come many countries have chosen to buy it?

What's the alternative? How many other models can be purchased at all?

Canada went through a bunch of drama to find a replacement for the legacy F/A-18s, and the main options were: Eurofighter Typhoon, Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, F-35, and the Saab Gripen.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...

Gripen wasn't in the same league, so we basically have the Typhoon and SuperHornet as other options, and both were at least a decade older with regards to their 'base' design (though there have been further upgrades).

So if you're going to be stuck with a plane for 20+ years, you might as well pick the newest model year.

Personally I'd be happy with the Super Hornets (and thrown in some Growlers) for Canada given "6G" fighters are starting to be designed—basically skipping the "5G" F-35—but Boeing were a bunch of dumbasses when the decision was being made:

* https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/18/justin-trudeau-says-canada-w...

> Personally I'd be happy with...

There's a lot of armchair quarterbacking in these comments, this one taking the cake.

HN weighing in on military stuff is always comedy to those of us who've been in the military. It's nobody's fault – this stuff can be baroque in its complexity – but it does make for some entertaining reading!

HN weighing in on anything outside of tech is comedy

Also tech, a good portion of the time.

Management is the most comedic topic of all, but it borders on tragedy.

This thread is the HN equivalent of Dale Gribble laughing at those sheeple.

Finance / economics is the same here. Medicine can be hit or miss. Sometimes medical researchers show up and do surprise.

> There's a lot of armchair quarterbacking in these comments, this one taking the cake.

If one's government is going to spend billions and billions of your money, having some level of public satisfaction for its use isn't a bad thing to have. Or at least having a decision making program that people have confidence in.

The F-35 is a decent enough result, especially in comparison to what's going on with Canada's naval procurement program.

Because it cost $2 trillion and it's so so. Mostly becausr it cost $2 trillion. $2 trillion is a fair chunk of cash.

Allies buying American hardware isnt necessarily a sign of quality, also. America puts pressure on them to buy its hardware.

Turkey seems awfully broken up about not being allowed to buy the F-35.

Turkey had a choice between S400s from Russia and F-35s and they chose the S400. Theyve since doubled down on that choice.

Realistically it was probably the better choice.

The US MIC was probably more cut up about it than Turkey which is probably why this stunt was pulled: https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/06/29/us-could-buy...

Even if it was come to a war situation where they had to trade off 10 s-400’s for a single f-35, they’d still be significantly ahead financially from what I remember.

Russian air defence has had a rather poor showing lately, so perhaps not.

I think that's a skill issue. Ukrainians are operating similar equipment with better success. Much like how India and China seem to have no problems operating the sister ships of the kuznetsov

Air defence was a weak point for Ukraine until Western countries provided some. As for the S-400, it's a post-Soviet design, and if the T-14 is vaporware and the Su-57 overhyped at best, perhaps one should not take claims on the S-400's capabilities at face value, especially given that there is visually confirmed evidence for two of them having been destroyed.

Not really. Ukraine had perhaps the most comprehensive ground based air defense network in Europe apart from Russia by virtue of the sheer quantity of S300 batteries.

The problem they faced last winter was that they were finally starting to run low on missiles and that using S300 on $20,000 drones was incredibly wasteful.

The only capability they were really missing as opposed to just running short on was the anti ballistic missile capabilities.

A window or two in Moscow needed repairs I suppose.

Like the storm shadows I'm still waiting for my invitation to the much vaunted Crimea beach party.

There's a bit of a problem because even if it's a (partial) failure as far as project management goes, competition is so low that if you're a US-aligned state and want a 5th generation fighter, the F-35 is still the only reasonable option.

In general, even if something is awful as product and its development was a disaster, if it's monopoly on something important it is still going to sell.

> If F-35 is such a failure, how come many countries have chosen to buy it?

The F-35's "killer feature" is non other than the US nuclear umbrella.