AHC: Saab Viggen: NATO's Thunderbolt

sharlin

Banned
Blimey, I always thought the Viggen was a later generation aircraft, something from the mid 70s or the F-16's era...
 

NothingNow

Banned
Landshark said:
After reading the F-104 thread I got to wondering about this. How can the Saab Viggen become the backbone of the NATO air forces from the 70's onward?
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Sweden sells a production license to some NATO country, which then provides an alternate source of spares to buyers in case of a Swedish arms embargo (unlikely,) while the US doesn't block sales of the RM8 engine to any buyers of the Viggen in retaliation for not buying a US aircraft.

So, all in all, this is absurdly unlikely.
 

jsb

What about if they used a different engine ?

Say they used a R&R engine instead ? Then after the prototype gets flying the RAF takes a look and realises its not getting anything better ? With a big UK production then it can be a solid NATO aircraft. (as long as it gets sold quickly it needs to be built before the F16 gets ready, so 67 - 74 range)

JSB
 
Hrvatskiwi

Hrvatskiwi

The easiest way to do this is simply having Sweden join NATO, which isn't too hard. It happens in the TL in my sig :)

EDIT: The method in question was an actual conquest of Finland by the USSR at the end of WWII after a decisive breakthrough in 1944, leading to a Communist Finland which has a confrontation with Sweden over the Aland Islands, leading to Finland regaining the Aland Islands, but Sweden joins NATO. SAAB aircraft become very popular with NATO.
 
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Slowpoke

Maybe by having SAAB successfully market the Draken to other countries (apart for IIRC Austria)? A PoD could be the failure of Lockheed to bribe politicians (say, the deals are discovered as they are nearing completion orsmth). With a proven record, SAAB finds it easier to advertise its next product.

And yeah, it needs a Sweden in NATO PoD too. Otherwise no NATO country would buy it, regardless of performance.
 

Landshark

I was thinking that the POD could be that the Lockheed Bribery Scandal breaks earlier. One problem though is the timings. The Starfighter entered service in the early 60's and the F-16 in about 1980. The Viggen's first flight was 1967 and service entry was 1971.
 

AdA

The biggest problem with the Viggen is that, until the much later AJS upgrade, the Viggen was a multi version rather than a multirole aircraft. The Swedish AF operated five different version for the Attack, Recce, Trainning, Maritime Strike and air defence roles, all single role. Each was excellent at its designated role, but at the time the US designs were promising genuine multirole capability, something Saab only offered with the Grippen.
 

Rubicon

Banned
AdA said:
something Saab only offered with the Gripen.
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FTFY

The strike variant the AJ 37, was operational in -71, The fighter variant JA 37 in -79.
The AJS modification came in -92 giving the AJ 37, SF 37 (photo-recon) and SH 37 (maritme recon) limited multi-role capabilites.
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

Did the Swedes even attempt to sell to NATO or WarPac? I had thought that they only tried selling to neutral, democratic countries (which is a pretty restricted market :( )

And, as pointed out, the US refused to sell US engines for Viggens to India.
 

Jukra

AdA said:
The biggest problem with the Viggen is that, until the much later AJS upgrade, the Viggen was a multi version rather than a multirole aircraft. The Swedish AF operated five different version for the Attack, Recce, Trainning, Maritime Strike and air defence roles, all single role. Each was excellent at its designated role, but at the time the US designs were promising genuine multirole capability, something Saab only offered with the Grippen.
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F-16 did not really become a multirole aircraft until 1990's either. What F-16 had, however, was a solid user base with the USAF.
 

Landshark

Dathi THorfinnsson said:
Did the Swedes even attempt to sell to NATO or WarPac? I had thought that they only tried selling to neutral, democratic countries (which is a pretty restricted market :( )
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I remember reading in a book on the F-16 some years ago that the Swedes proposed the Viggen as a contender to the NATO fighter contest in the 70's.
 

AdA

Jukra said:
F-16 did not really become a multirole aircraft until 1990's either. What F-16 had, however, was a solid user base with the USAF.
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Even the early F16A could perform attack missions as well as fighter missions. The Viggen had much greater attack capabilities in the AJ version, and could use Skyflash missiles in BVR intercepts in the JA version, something few F16s could. (The air defence variants for the ANG could use AIM7 missiles, and Portugal bought this version specifically for air defence duties)
 

Rubicon

Banned
Landshark said:
I remember reading in a book on the F-16 some years ago that the Swedes proposed the Viggen as a contender to the NATO fighter contest in the 70's.
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Just to clarify, the plane should be refered to as the JA/AJ/SH/SF/SK 37 depending on the model.

The JA 37 is the fighter variant with limited bomber capabilites, the AJ 37 is the bomber version with limited fighter capabilities. The 'J' stands for 'Jakt' Swedish for fighter (literally hunting), the 'A' for 'Attack' (which I think you can figure out what it is in English).

So you can probably figure out what the J 29, A 32, J 35 and JAS 39 purpose are just by their designations.
 
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