Does the F-35 price include all that?
And why would they pay for weapons?
Since the post came immediately after mine, I will assume the question was directed at me.
The F-35 has built into/carried internally in the design various avionics systems which have been touched upon in the various F-35 threads in DT. Just going over it briefly here, the F-35 will include all the various types of systems I mentioned. In order to operate as a multi-role fighter in hostile airspace, it needs such systems.
Without a targeting pod or equvilent, an aircraft has a difficult time detecting, illuminating or targeting a ground target with munitions, therefore the F-35 will have this built in.
Without DAS and EWSP and aircraft is even more vulnerable to GBAD and air threats. This would be of even greater importance for a non-LO offering like the Gripen NG, since it would not benefit from the overall difficulty a potential threat would have of detecting and engaging a LO platform like the F-35. All the same, the F-35 is to have these types of systems in case it does get detected and engaged.
The F-35 will have NATO compatible datalinks, otherwise the aircraft would not be able to make use of the significant work already done to pass information between different platforms.
Now weapons integration is also important, and it is not the same as purchasing the weapons. Rather, it means an aircraft design has been tested and can successfully deploy a particular type weapon. For air to air missiles, this usually means that the aircraft's radar and/or IRST can provide cueing and guidance information to the missile. For air to ground missiles and bombs, it means that the aircraft knows when to release the weapon to successfully reach the target, as well as being able to properly illuminate the target and/or pass target location information to the weapon being deployed.
Now in the case of the F-35, AFAIK since all variants (-A/B/C) will be seeing US service, the various US weapons will be integrated with the design. This means that AIM-9X, AIM-120 AMRAAM, AGM-65 Maverick, AGM-84 Harpoon, JASSM, JSOW, JDAM, SDB, etc will be able to be used from the F-35. I believe, but have not spent significant time checking, that if a partner nation wants to operate other weapons from the F-35, they can pay the costs to have a particular weapon integrated. Having said that though, there are a number of partner nations which likely would like to use various weapons from MBDA like Meteor, Brimstone, etc and therefore the integration costs would likely be spread out across a number of different end-user nations. It only really becomes an issue if there is just one nation which wants to employ a particular weapon, then that nation would be stuck paying the cost to integrate their chosen weapon. Given the weapons used by the different partner nations, IMO the nations which are most likely to have this occur if they order the F-35 is Israel, Japan and Singapore.
In the case of the Netherlands, which has stocks of US and possibly European weapons for use from their F-16s, such weapons would most likely either be already integrated for use from the F-35, or be the subject of several nations working together to get a particular weapon integrated. This would not necessarily be the case with the Gripen NG, since it seems likely that there will be significantly less users of the Gripen NG than the F-35. This could leave the RNLAF in the position of either having to pay to integrate some/all of their weapon stocks onto the Gripen NG, or having to purchase a new set of weapon stocks which are already integrated. Either of which effects the real price of getting the Gripen NG into Dutch service and does not seem to be reflected in the 'complete' packages listed.
-Cheers
