"The Royal Norwegian Air Force operates a small fleet of Falcon DA20ECM aircraft in the electronic warfare role. Built in France as the Dassault Falcon 200 and originally designed as a business jet, the type soon found use with military forces and was modified to undertake maritime surveillance, electronic warfare and other roles.
I've known we operated a few (the pics of the DA20s are Norwegian birds from the 717 Squadron), but it's interesting to see them phased out in favor of the P-8. How's the P-8's electronic warfare capability compare? For SIGINT they're well equipped with a
handful of nifty add-ons.
But jamming or offensive electronic support capabilities? I'll admit, I'm not entirely sure if the P-8 even has this capability. I'm guessing there'll be some Norwegian specific gear added to the P-8 to improve their offensive ECM capabilities.
We also use a fleet of Learjets for certifying allied vessels during NEMO trials (NATO electro-magnetic operations trials) and for electronic warfare, so I wonder if they'll be phased out too
.
Not sure who needs them more.
While Denmark also has to cover the North Sea, Skagerrak Strait and parts of the Baltic Sea, it's navy and air force are better equipped then Poland's and should be better positioned to patrol their waters and airspace. Norway, France and the UK also help patrol the seas and airspace to the West of Denmark.
Poland doesn't really have the luxury of support from regional nations other then Sweden and Finland, and occasionally German, as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have even more limited assets, and it doesn't exactly have a potent navy either with two OHPs, one Kilo, four ex-Norwegian Kobben which are approaching 60 years old and a handful of fast attack craft and corvettes. They're modernizing their navy with new OPVs and corvettes, but it's not exactly well equipped to deal with irritants in the region.
A few P-3Cs would go along way to improving Poland's ability to contribute to NATO's tracking of underwater and surface assets in the region and go along way to providing Poland with a more credible deterrence against enemy shipping, alongside coastal NSM batteries.
A case can be made for either nation, and either could definitely use these airframes, but I think Poland could use them a bit more.
....
For those interested, the pictures of the Polish Navy come from this thread -
https://defence.pk/threads/polish-military.135523/page-6
Norway is in a tough region of world
Oh yeah, Iceland's been a big pain in the butt recently
. I hear they increased their military's size from two to three personnel
!
What exactly makes the region tough? A friendly Europe, a more assertive, but not hostile Russia and the handful of Americans... not seeing it honestly.
What abt existing P3Cs? Wanna sell?
The less sarcastic explanation is this:
Norway doesn't have a positive defense relationship with Pakistan. Political relations yes, defense relations no. Most of our ex-military gear is sold to other, lesser equipped European nations typically in the Baltic region and while these airframes will most likely be sold rather then scrapped or put into storage, them being sold to Pakistan is a longshot at best.
I can't name you a single piece of equipment Pakistan uses that was either designed or produced in Norway or came from ex-Norwegian stocks, though I do know that Pakistan did inquire about our F-16s once they're retired in favor of the F-35.
Pakistan can ask of course, and it's not unreasonable for Norway to consider the request, there's just no precedent for such sales happening and I wouldn't count on them going to Pakistan.