Recently, the F-16 purchased by Argentina was finally delivered, and the Minister of Defense personally went to Denmark to pick up the plane, and President Milley was connected to the Minister of Defense in real time. #MCN首发激励计划#
For Argentina to prefer to buy a second-hand F-16 that is more than 40 years old than a brand-new Thunder, many Chinese military fans are indignant. In fact, this is also normal, arms procurement has never been cost-effective first, but political first. As long as it is not like Venezuela and Iran, which have fallen out with the United States after buying American fighter planes, they will basically not have nothing to do with other countries' weapons, and it will not be troublesome enough. Argentina has always had good relations with Europe and the United States, and it is an arrogant pure white country, and the newly appointed Milley is crazy and pro-American, so it is naturally impossible to buy a dragon. The scandal with Xiaolong before was at most used by Argentina to lower the price with Denmark.
In addition, from the performance point of view alone, the Thunder is not suitable for Argentina. Argentina spent a total of $650 million to buy these 24 F-16s, including airborne weapons and a full set of spare parts, training and maintenance equipment, etc., if it is used to buy Thunder 3, it can only buy 12 planes. You must know that Argentina does not have a single jet fighter, and it uses only 12 Thunders to protect Argentina, which is 3,700 kilometers long from north to south, 1,400 kilometers wide from east to west, and covers an area of 2.78 million square kilometers.
Although the combat radius of the Thunder Dragon can also reach more than 1000 kilometers, it is the result of three auxiliary fuel tanks, and the weapons are 2 medium-range bombs and two combat bombs. And the F-16 can carry two one-ton bombs while carrying three auxiliary fuel tanks, and the combat radius can still reach thousands of kilometers at this time!
In addition, the maximum speed of the F-16 is Mach 2, while the Thunder is only Mach 1.6, and the 12 planes could not cover the whole of Argentina, and the speed was so slow that something could not arrive in time.
In fact, the Thunder has a small combat radius and low bomb load, not because China's aviation industry is not good, but because its initial positioning is an ultralight fighter, the engine uses medium thrust, and the F-16 uses a large thrust, with a thrust of 50% more, so the two should not be compared together at all.
The most suitable comparison for the Thunder is Sweden's Gripen and India's brilliance. However, even comparing it with these two aircraft is very unfair to the Thunder. Because the Gripen is Sweden's main aircraft, it was originally used to fight the Su-27, and if it can be on the best thing, it must be the best; and at the beginning of the design, it is also India's main light aircraft, and all the subsystems are imported from the West for high-end goods, regardless of the cost, and the poor performance is just because the integration ability of the Indians is not good. The Thunder Dragon is the product of the first cost from the beginning, the fly-by-wire flight control is half-hung, only the longitudinal is fly-by-wire, and the horizontal is mechanically operated; the proportion of composite materials is also very small, resulting in excessive empty weight, small bomb load, and low thrust weight. In fact, just look at the original code name of the Thunder Dragon "Super 7", just surpass the J-7, how good can its combat effectiveness be?
Although the materials used by Gripen and Gripen are better, the sales are not good: needless to say, the glorious ones have only been built in a total of forty or fifty planes, all of which are used by India itself; Gripen has only produced more than 100 planes, most of which are used by Sweden itself, and overseas users are only Brazil, South Africa, Thailand, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, each of which is basically ten or twenty planes, among which the Czech Republic and Hungary are still successfully exported by leasing and selling. This shows that the market demand for ultralight fighters is very narrow, and the Thunder is not a performance problem if it does not sell well.
Why is it hard to sell ultralight fighters? The biggest obstacle is the second-hand F-16. As we said earlier, the combat effectiveness of the two is not at the same level at all, even if it is a country with a relatively small territorial area, as long as the air defense pressure is greater, it will choose stronger fighters.
For example, among the Gripen's customers, South Africa and Thailand have little pressure on air defense, so they have been using it; Hungary and the Czech Republic are facing the risk of spillover from the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, but the former is pro-Russian, so it has always used Gripen, but the latter is extremely anti-Russian, so it purchased F-35 to replace Gripen. As for Brazil, although the air defense pressure is not great, it is a big country after all, and there are not enough ultralight fighters, so Sweden took out the Gripen NG, which has a take-off weight close to the F-16, to get the order.
And if you are in urgent need of advanced fighters, but you really don't have the money, then the second-hand F-16 is the best choice. For example, Romania, which is on the front line of NATO against Russia and has an underdeveloped economy, did not choose Gripen, but bought second-hand F-16s from Portugal and Norway. Because of the fear that war will break out at any time, the shortcomings of the short-lived life of the second-hand F-16 airframe are not considered shortcomings in the eyes of these countries.
The same goes for the Thunder Dragon, Myanmar and Nigeria are both countries with little pressure on air defense, and it is okay to use it, Pakistan is facing a strong enemy India, and the combat effectiveness of the Thunder Dragon is not enough. It is reported that Pakistan is very satisfied with the J-10C after obtaining it, so it is ready to stop production of the Thunder next year, save money to buy more J-10C and J-31, and the early Thunder will also be upgraded to the level of the Thunder 3. Pakistan's choice shows that the inherent shortcomings of ultralight fighters can only be partially compensated for by relying on advanced avionics and airborne weapons, and that if we want to defeat European and American fighters in the international market, we must use larger and more advanced models.