SAAB tries to play in F-35 territory.

via Alert 5 from The Local.se (English Version).

An aggressive marketing campaign from Swedish defence firm Saab is extolling the virtues of weapons that help users to ”see first – kill first” and can be adjusted to focus specifically on ”soft targets”. 
At a weapons fair in Qatar in late March, the company informed potential buyers that its Gripen fighter planes guaranteed a high ”death ratio”, newspaper Expressen reports.

In its marketing materials, the firm also boasts that its Bill 2 anti-tank guided weapon contains a ”soft target mode” that can be used to hone in on civilian houses, cars, and groups of people.

Asked about the JAS 39 Gripen's ”See first – Kill first” slogan, Saab spokeswoman Marie Karlsson told Expressen:

”I actually don’t know what we were thinking when we used those words. I wasn’t involved in making that judgment or taking that decision,” she said.

Pressed further, she declined to criticize the company’s choice of wording.

”We are after all a defence and security company working with defence-related products. Like any other company, we make use of marketing messages.”

But Henrik Westander at PR agency Westander Publicitet & Påverkan lamented the fact that very little appeared to have changed in the defence industry in marketing terms over the last three decades.

”I remember how [Swedish defence firm] Bofors marketed an anti-aircraft gun in the United States in the 1980s using an image of a sharp-shooting cowboy drawing both his pistols at the same time.

"They wanted to give the impression that it was all a game, and it’s still like that now,” he told Expresssen.

Just plain wow.

The F-35 is single handed changing the fighter industry.  You can (and the critics will) attempt to question the meaning behind this ad campaign but its pretty evident that every 4th gen fighter manufacturer on this planet is trying to copying/match the F-35's abilities.

They'll fail.

But they'll try.

See first-kill first?  That's straight out of the stealth handbook.  SAAB has always been a plucky little fighter but this is pathetic.  They're not playing to their stregnths.

All they're actually doing is highlighting how far behind the F-35 they really are.

I love it.

Sidenote:  The above video is interesting.  Its labeled as a heavy load but its just barely more than a F-35A carries internally.  Add two pylons for the Meteor missiles and you're equaling it without any strain.  I guess heavy is relative.