<p >In December 2021 the Finnish Defence Ministry confirmed that the F-35A had been <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/european-lost-finland-signs-f35" target="_blank">selected as the winner</a> of the HX tender to supply 64 fighters to replace the country’s F-18C/D Hornet fourth generation aircraft. The F-35 won the tender by a considerable margin over the competing Swedish Gripen, French Rafale, pan-European Eurofighter, and Boeing F-18E/F Super Hornet, with the F-18E/F having been the runner up, also by a wide margin, as both American fighters proved significantly more attractive than their European rivals. This made Finland the latest of multiple countries across Europe to favour the F-35, which <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/f35-europe-clients-production-dominance-market" target="_blank">consistently won every tender</a> it competed in against local fighters. The F-35 is expected to revolutionise the offensive potential of the Finnish Air Force, with the fighter’s strong optimisation for penetration strikes into heavily defended enemy airspace placing significant additional pressure on Russia with which the northeast European state shares a <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/finland-nato-accession-russian-security" target="_blank">1,340 kilometre border</a>.&nbsp;</p><p ><img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/03/24/article_67e0dc1f389740_39717051.png" title="F-35 Retracts Landing Gear During Takeoff"></p><p >An unusual aspect of Finland’s F-35 procurement was that very little funding was allocated to procuring armaments for the fighters, at just 755 million Euros, or nine percent of the total procurement amount. Shedding some light on this, the Air Force elaborated shortly after the F-35’s selection was finalised: “the weapon package is refined during the procurement process, taking into account, among other things, the availability of the latest types of weapons and the development of the operating environment.”&nbsp;Although one possibility was that a very limited arsenal was being budgeted in order to allow the F-35s to remain within the constraints of the HX tender, allowing armaments to then be purchased under followon packages in future, another possibility is that the primary purpose was to allow the Finnish Air Force to procure more advanced new air-launched weapons in future. With the AIM-120 radar guided air-to-air missile remaining the F-35’s primary weapon, and its only air-to-air missile capable of being carried internally, limited procurements of these missiles could allow the Finnish Air Force to instead field the newer AIM-260 missile <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/obsolete-f16s-target-practice-aim260" target="_blank">currently under development </a>as the primary missile of its fleet.&nbsp;The AIM-260 began development in 2017 specifically as a response to China’s development of the PL-15 for its own ‘4+ generation’ and fifth generation fighter units, and was initially intended to enter service around 2022, although actual progress towards development remains uncertain, with the possibility remaining that it may already be equipping U.S. Air Force or U.S. Navy frontline units.</p><p ><img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/03/24/article_67e0dc49005102_38290293.jpeg" title="AIM-120 AMRAAM Air-to-Air Missiles"></p><p >The close proximity of the Finnish Air Force’s operations to Russian territory makes procurement of the AIM-260 missile potentially highly attractive, as while the AIM-120C is closely matched in its capabilities by the rival Russian R-77-1, and is <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/su57-k-77-game-changer" target="_blank">outmatched by the R-77M</a> deployed by the&nbsp;<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/russian-air-force-new-su57-su34" target="_blank" >fast growing fleet</a>&nbsp;of&nbsp;Su-57 fifth generation fighters, the AIM-260 is expected to have at least a comparable performance to the newer Russian missile, and likely a distinct advantage. This would ensure a wider advantage for F-35 units over Russian fighter units. Although the Su-57 is less stealthy than the F-35, and is thought to use less advanced avionics, the much larger size of its sensor suite and its much larger weapons carrying capacity and superior flight performance are expected to pose a challenge, particularly when networked with ground based air defences and other supporting assets. Unlike the AIM-120, the AIM-260 is expected to integrate an onboard AESA radar allowing it to better home in on stealth fighter targets, following on from the Chinese PL-15 missile which did so from 2014. The missile’s expected longer range, greater electronic warfare countermeasures, and superior flight performance and data links, are expected to make it attractive to a number of operators despite its estimated much higher cost than the AIM-120. Finland’s unusual budgeting for its F-35 fleet’s armaments, however, has fuelled speculation that this may have been intended in large part to accommodate the AIM-260.</p>
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