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The new fighter jet to be acquired should also be able to fight ground targets. The Luftwaffe cannot do that today.
If the Swiss soldiers were ambushed and called for air support, they would not receive any air support. Neither the F-5 Tiger nor the F / A-18 Hornet in the Swiss version can attack targets on the ground.
At the time, Switzerland gave up this air warfare capability by purchasing the F / A-18, although the F / A-18 was not just a ‘Flighter ”, but also a“Attacker ‘, so it can attack ground targets. When the order was placed in the early 1990s, the Swiss authorities waived it for cost and safety reasons.
The Cold War was over, the Warsaw Pact was no longer a threat, and the military broke with war scenarios such as the great tank battles in central Europe.
When the Hawker Hunter fighter-bomber was decommissioned in 1994, the Air Force definitely lost its ground combat capability. Politicians and the army were willing to leave a “vacuum” militarily speaking.
Modified threat situation
In 2020, the perception of the threat situation appears to have fundamentally changed. The basic report “Air Defense of the Future” recommended in 2017 that the ground combat capability be reintroduced.
The catalog of requirements also states that the new combat aircraft should “support the army with operational fire beyond the range of its own artillery and with aerial reconnaissance.”
Ground combat capability as a deterrent
Major Bernhard Müller is the commander of the Air Force. He told SRF News about the reintroduction of ground combat: “Our main goal is to prevent a war from happening. So we need funds that have some deterrent potential. ”The military also includes ground combat capabilities.
The fact that the DDPS wants to regain the ability to attack ground targets from the air is nothing new. The Swiss army wanted to close this gap with the acquisition of the Swedish Gripen fighter jet. But people refused to buy the Gripen in 2014 at the urn. The gap remained open.
In 2017, then-Defense Minister Guy Parmelin and later Senior Vice President and the FDP attempted to modernize the F / A-18 in parliament so that these missiles could have fired at ground targets as well. The center and the left have rejected the 20 million project. CVP national adviser Alois Gmür said at the time that it was impossible to see why ground combat capability was needed, that the threat situation had not “changed that much” since 1994.
Goals also outside the border
With the new acquisition, the army could regain ground combat capability. In deployment scenarios, army planners assume that the new fighter jets would also strike targets abroad. That would mean that an enemy army would not only be fought when it reached the Swiss border, but rather from a greater distance.
But can air strikes be carried out in the densely populated areas of Switzerland and neighboring countries without having to complain about civilian casualties? Air Force Commander Bernhard Müller replies that the new fighter jet is not an area bomber, but uses guided missiles that would target targets up to the subway.
Precision ammunition should be able to fight high-value point targets. For example, command facilities, opposing logistics or “large systems that can affect Switzerland,” says Müller. So weapons that threaten Switzerland from a distance.
Only third priority
The Chief of the Air Force, Bernhard Müller, emphasizes that each multipurpose combat aircraft already has the option of being used as a weapon for air defense, aerial reconnaissance and ground combat. But it is only a limited ability, Müller emphasizes. Other requirements for the combat aircraft are more important than ground combat capability.
Even if the ground combat capability has a “third priority,” the army does not want to do without it, Müller says: “If we do without a capability from the start, as with the F / A-18, then it is also not available in terms So it’s not available in the simulator either. We can’t educate and train them either. We don’t want to make that mistake here. “
If the electorate agrees to buy a fighter plane, in a few years air-to-ground weapon fighters will fly through the skies. Otherwise, the F / A-18s will fly for a few more years, with no ground combat capability.
