Gripen: What we must learn from Sweden

recently the sub Yas 39 grip and moved from beloved Underdog to being put forward as a prime candidate not just for Ukraine but to serving as an inspiration of how NATO countries can use fighter jets in a dispersed posture with decentralized Logistics support and maintenance Griffin gives the Swedish Air Force and other countries a low-cost lightweight fighter platform that is very capable but the question remains whether Griffin or the Swedish air force model of operations can be integrated adapted or absorbed among NATO countries [Music] thank you [Music] in this video I want to talk to you about Gripen why it's used in a force is more than just about a platform and what the secret ingredients are for the sweets and why this may not work for everyone joining me too is Professor Justin Brock from the Royal United Services Institute and Dr Sophie and trobos from the Freeman Air and Space Institute to give you an all-round appreciation of Sweden's air force model and the limitations for NATO I'd also be very interested to hear your thoughts on this let me know in the comments how suited you believe Griffin and the Swedish model is to Nato partners and if we should adapt a similar way of handling things this video is sponsored by patreon and channel membership supporters the support provided by you my patrons and channel members allows me to focus on producing content without relying on YouTube's recommendation algorithm and it directly funds various projects like The Insider cockpit series and archive and research trips as patrons and channel members you receive Early Access to videos have access to our Discord server and you'll receive a free sign up gift right now there are also a number of interviews with experts that are in Early Access so you can watch those immediately on signing up have a look at the various Support options in more detail in the description below and now let's talk about Gripen and the Swedish air force model [Music] foreign [Music] with grip and we have an aircraft that is currently transitioning to what is sometimes referred to as four and a half generation specs sub especially if we compare to some of the competitors like Lockheed Martin really doesn't use the generational breakdown but as a shorthand it is somewhat useful to situate Gripen in the fighter jet realm in Sweden the Groupon C force is currently transitioning to the grip and E which features an improved sensor Suite including a swashblade aesa radar set a more capable and integrated electronic warfare system sensor Fusion two additional hardpoints and a higher carrying capacity with a more powerful engine its cockpit has been redesigned to feature a single wide angle display focusing on the main tactical information required for the pilot it is an impressive aircraft for a country the size of Sweden even if certain key components like the engine or various weapon systems come from other countries the core strength of grip however is the ease of its maintenance and the designed ability to operate from dispersed runways through Griffin the Swedish Air Force operates with the ability to quickly and effectively disperse fighter squadrons and wings from a handful of main bases to about 30 dispersal bases around the country all grippin needs is a straight Hallmark basically a road of 800 by 16 meters which is surprisingly small considering it's a fighter jet and a small ground crew of about five conscripts and one experienced cruise ship with everything that is needed for turnaround packed into a small Convoy of about one to two trucks Gripen provides a unique capability that is not mirrored in terms of specialization by any other comparable platform that sounds impressive and it is but before I sound like I was sponsored here by sap I am not as you know patreons and channel members are the ones that fund research trips and one of them was of course recently two sub where I familiarized myself firsthand with Gripen and also got to chat with them on grips and of course Sweden's capabilities but let us now turn to the main question is Gripen dispersed operations and the Swedish air force model transferable to Nato to a point yes there are lessons that NATO can or must learn from Sweden but there are also I would say clear limitations I will look at four main issues in order to integrate Parts at least of the Swedish model into NATO Air Forces say countries let's look at countries like Germany Great Britain France or even the us because in fact there is tightening cooperation between the US and the Yousaf and Sweden so in order here to do this we really need to think beyond the platform-centric approach that we commonly have and the assumptions that you can just make a switch happen by just buying a new platform it doesn't work that way so I'm going to go through this in chapters first I'm going to talk about grip itself then I'm going to talk about basing then training and then the most important one mentality thank you so sure I don't want to stay platform-centric here but this is in fact important it's the key aspect to grippin We Must ALL accept grippin was built for dispersed operations like no other Western fighter in servers whether F-16 typhoon Raphael you name it none of those aircraft was designed with dispersal being a key component in the in the requirements of course you can make an argument for some of the other planes the old veto Harrier Fleet for example or f-35bnc but Harrier is going out of business and F35 is also not primarily meant for this it'll be interesting to see for example how the Finns actually handle the f45 platform considering what they're doing is relatively similar to what Sweden does of course that doesn't mean that other Jets cannot disperse but their requirements were different so the Jets themselves became different beasts with of course resulting gives and takes limiting their ease of use in dispersed operations compared to Gripen with grippin you've got a small aircraft I mean look at it I'm only six foot two and it's tiny for a fighter it is meant to land on short Forest highways be supported by a small team and then it goes off again all the important panels are easily accessed from the ground you have a high capacity auxiliary power unit for cold start requirements you have automatic short Runway Landing procedures like the deflected canards no other plane was designed like this or can be retrofitted into this Griffin does what is meant to do that's its greatest strength but also it has limitations in terms of power range and with some limits to the offensive weapon systems that it carries but it perfectly fits the Swedish requirements and Regional operational conditions but that doesn't necessarily mean that you can transfer it to other countries talking about basing it wasn't that long ago that NATO countries were still consistently conducting dispersal training as parts of their models operati but since the Cold War this was cut back and the number of operating bases main operating bases even not just the dispersal ones but those were reduced to an absolute minimum while Western Air Forces through the legacy of their operations over the past decades can flexibly relocate parts of their force from A to B they are heavily reliant on a very centralized system at home whether we are talking about one or two main repair and overhaul facilities the heavy use of contractors the logistic infrastructure or the actual basis that can sustain high intensity activity it is a system that works within the required budgetary constraints and that is why we in the west have the air forces that we have we are set around a specific budgetary efficiency rather than resilience and that moves from basing over to the training over to the actual number of aircrafts that we have there's been a a drive in that this is true of all sorts of parts of the military government everywhere drive for efficiency over flexibility so the way that the ministry of Defense contracted uh out the the military flying training system as it's now called was done on on the basis of producing the right amount no more no less in theory of of air crew at the right times and if there's no uh flexibility or no fat in the system if you like then that makes it uh quite worrying from in the military terms because if if for example we do we're involved in three arguments taking a couple of years of fighting a major conflict we can't buy you know 20 more f-35s and just all of them we'll have for next week to because we think oh goodness we need a few more platforms what this also means is that while Western Air Forces do have an expeditionary core or mindset they are not set up for quick active decentralized small-scale dispersal operations like Sweden Sweden has the setup for this from the aircraft to the small mobile dispersal teams and the actual sites where you disperse to which other nations do not have the kind of core maintenance and tooling set and Spares kits for a griffin are delivered and kind of live in their main hangars on their main basis in 20-foot shipping containers that sort of plug into the side of the the building as it were rather like trucks at a kind of Supermarket Distribution Center or something here sort of reverse onto the spider into the side of the hangar and become part of it at that point but can then be quickly moved and so because all the tools live in the shipping containers anyway it's very very quick and easy to just put those things on trucks and move them out um and then mobile teams can do the refueling rearming and all the protection and air traffic control and Fire and Rescue and everything else from vehicles in these dispersed locations for extended periods of time if they need to let's then talk about training there is something that I often run into with grippin and that is well it's it's it's it's really an assumption that comes with gripping and that is because Sweden has this Reliance on conscripts everything is set up in such a way that you don't need a specialty or specialty training and that is not the case yes Sweden relies on conscripts for grip and turn around re-armond and refueling but it also has a highly specialized force from the C2 so commander control Global eye and of course it sets an extremely high standards on individual Pilots themselves while NATO Air Forces generally look at developing a flexible adaptive and Global Air Force within budgetary constraints through a focus on multiple training enablers such as tankers and a-wax and a mix of training experience Sweden because of its geographical location as a regional actor it's defense needs and its dispersed posture that that requires operators to display personal initiative make decisions and have a substantive understanding of the Tactical situation for them and others it places a much higher emphasis on the individual pilot and small two to four ship formations rather than the system as a whole of course the system itself is still important but there are lines on it is less pronounced because that would make the dispersed operations vulnerable in the first place that also necessitates training their crews in a very different way from the way most European air forces are indeed Global Air Forces train because it implies a very high level of responsibility in Mission complexity for terms of briefing as well and planning as well as flying in particular also potentially planning and re-planning sorties at short notice and complex Mission areas with limited Communications and limited support Crews so even two ship leads or four ship leads have to be very very capable and as such that the Swedish Air Force doesn't have a tour system for example where in a lot of European Air Forces like the RAF um and or in the US Air Force for that matter fastjet Crews will do typically three years on a on a tour now they might do a couple of tours with the Squadron but typically they might move between squadrons between bases get experience in different roles they may do ground tours uh or tours for example as a forward air controller or that kind of thing and then come back to Flying as a you know a squadron commander maybe or later as a wing Commander um whereas in the Swedish system you join a Fighter Wing and you're expected to be there for 20 to 25 years you're not expected to move you're expected to put down routes and essentially your career primarily speaking is with the Squadron um or at least within the wing which has a couple of squadrons typically and so they have the luxury therefore of having this much more kind of in-depth and focused training package that goes over a decade to move up to where um you know two ship leads might be three years in for example four ship leads maybe six years in if you're good you might be trained as a four ship lead um whereas compared to say the RAF or the the the US Air Force forcibly you might be expecting perhaps in your second or third year on Squadron um and maybe even at that point if you're very good starting to train as a weapons instructor which is sort of the store of tactical knowledge and and what's and combat leadership essentially an expertise in in weapon system employment and tactics whereas in the Swedish system you don't start even being looked at as a potential weapons office uh weapons instructor or Mission Commander until you've been in the on a wing about 10 years so it's this much slower more in-depth progression and they all do air to air to start with and then then kind of broaden that specialty once they're combat ready air to air but it results in an extremely flexible adaptable fighter force that can do genuinely complex high-intensity Mission sets from a really dispersed posture with this decentralized kind of tactical commandment control at the same time it's then quite vulnerable to Personnel disruption for example so if you lose a bunch of people who retire early or you're struggling for attention then of course it takes much much longer to potentially make good on that loss or that you know under under provision of trained pilots because it takes you so much longer to train people to the standard you need okay we come to the big elephant in the room here mentality the Swedish Armed Forces we can say really say and its Air Force in particular have developed a specific mentality around National Defense and it's very different to other countries Finland is perhaps yeah Finland is the closest analog now Sweden's model transcends even the military there is that concept of Total Defense that covers how a country as a whole is going to operate and interact with each other in times of Crisis but where that links to Gripen and the Air Force is both in training we spoke about the levels of training of individual pilots and operators that they receive but also in nurturing personal responsibility paired with initiative and crucially an appetite for calculated risks that if something does go wrong and it will go wrong serves more as a lesson rather than a reason for sanctioning or punishment take Sweden's main Doctrine about the joint operations where you refers to this risk appetite multiple times here are just two examples there are situations where operators must make decisions about risks as a result of the assignment given by a senior operator risks are analyzed and managed through the operation plan and thus the risks are set against the context in which the operation will be carried out it is in this context that we initially weigh our acceptance of risks related to the mission and its objectives in the context of planning we talk about the acceptable risk an operator makes decisions about what and when something needs to be done this means that the operator must make conscious choices about the method of decision making for quick action decisions must be made despite incomplete information it assumes that opportunities are valued against risks big thank you here to the Swedish Air Force personnel that talk to me about this institutionalized ethos and specifically Anton for pointing me in the direction of this open source publication you of course correct to say that other forces also take risks I mean it is indeed every single tactical operational or strategic decision entails risks however there is I would say a difference to the degree that the Swedish Air Force manages and approaches risks as an institution and that goes from the top echelons of officers to the single conscript it's and it's really not sort of this gung-ho disregard for risk rather it is more about trusting in well-trained individuals to make decisions rather than subscribing them to certain procedures with the sole aim of minimizing all possible risks this is an organizational culture that has been nurtured for many years it's a generational thing really it's their smarter Bird yeah they live and breathe this NATO Air Forces don't and this is one of the biggest obstacles in moving towards a Swedish model among NATO Air Forces there's a degree to which you could certainly radically improve the ability of European Air Forces to operate dispersed by changing procedures permissions practices tactics and particularly uh kind of cultural attitudes to risk so things like that you know watching the swedes um when I was up in the Arctic with them you know doing rearming and refueling of aircraft in some cases with the engine still running you know by the side of a dispersal strip with teams of six as well teams of sex five performan concerts with two three months training you know winching up and down the weapons refueling the aircraft you know certifying it all to go with one highly skilled you know three or four year minimum trained technician just supervising it you know the the permissions and the kind of authorizations to be required to to do that and who would hold the kind of risk that a system like the German system or the British system would perceive in that there's nothing technically stopping us doing that but it would be a huge cultural shift to enable us to move that way now I want to know from you what do you think about this topic what what are your opinions here be sure to check also the description for all my sources and the many ways you can support this Channel and of course remember as patreons and channel members you already have early access to a number of other videos as well as a whole interview chained with another expert as always I wish audio Legends a great day and see you on the sky

Channel: Military Aviation History

Views: 359,515

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Id: eEX8JJ0eXL4

Length: 20min 29sec (1229 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2023

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