PUBLISHED on August 8, 2025, 08:13 AM EDT – Key Points and Summary – In a hypothetical showdown between two allied 4.5-generation fighters, Sweden’s agile JAS 39 Gripen is pitted against America’s powerful F-15EX Eagle II.
While the Swedish jet is smaller, more maneuverable, and more affordable, the American F-15EX holds decisive advantages in speed, operational range, and service ceiling.
Most critically, the Eagle II can carry a massive payload of up to 22 air-to-air missiles, compared to the Gripen’s seven.
-The F-15EX’s overwhelming superiority in speed, power, and especially armament would make it the clear winner in any engagement.
JAS 39 Gripen vs F-15EX Eagle II: Who Wins?
Sweden and the United States are NATO allies, so it is extremely unlikely that the two nations’ warplanes will ever fight each other. Nonetheless, military aviation geeks love to engage in all sorts of “what if” scenarios and theoretical showdowns.
And since the National Security Journal staff is chock-full of such geeks (this writer is guilty as charged), we now present one such hypothetical faceoff: America’s F-15EX Eagle II vs. Sweden’s JAS 39 Gripen.
The Gripen multirole fighter plane is the pride and joy of the Swedish Air Force. The latest variant, the Gripen E, made its operational debut with both the Swedish and the Brazilian air forces in 2019.
Then there’s the Boeing F-15 EX, the latest iteration of the deadliest fighter jet of all time. (It has a mind-boggling 104 to 0 kill ratio.) The Eagle II went operational in July 2024.
Who would win in a hypothetical clash between these two mighty warbirds?
JAS 39 Gripen Advantages
An excellent source of comparative stats and tech specs on the two 4.5-generation fighter jets is available via the Military Factory website.
From Military Factory, we learn that the JAS 39 is smaller than the F-15EX in length, height, and wingspan (differentials of 17.6 feet, 3.8 feet, and 15.3 feet, respectively). Though neither plane is a true stealth fighter, the Gripen’s smaller dimensions give it a smaller radar cross section, making it comparatively more difficult for an enemy to detect and engage.
The Gripen is also lighter in weight than the Eagle II, with respective empty weight and maximum takeoff weight differentials of 16,976 and 50,706 lbs. This would presumably make the Swedish fighter the nimbler and more maneuverable of the two.
The Gripen is less costly to produce, with a price tag of $85 million as opposed to the Eagle II’s wallet-draining $97 million per-unit cost, and, accordingly, the Swedish plane has been built in significantly greater numbers than its American counterpart: 247 airframes built versus 144.
Given the lower cost of the Gripen, it’s not the least bit surprising that it is also less maintenance-intensive than the Eagle jet. As noted in a 2018 Global Defense Corp article, “The Gripen can be maintained by 1 qualified engineer and 5 non-qualified assistance conscripted from the air force. The Gripen can be fully A2A [as in “air-to-air” I presume?] operational in just under 10 minutes on the runway or a highway.”
F-15EX Eagle II Advantages
Despite its heavier weight, the Eagle II is still the faster of the two warbirds, with a max airspeed of Mach 2.42, leaving the Gripen in the dust at Mach 1.78. As the fighter pilot’s motto goes, “Speed is life.”
The Eagle jet also has a more powerful engine. The GE F110-GE-129 afterburning turbofans generate 17,155 pounds-force of dry thrust and 29,500 lbf. of afterburner thrust. The Gripen’s Volvo Aero RM12 afterburning turbofan engine’s output is a weaker 12,000 lbf. of dry thrust and 18,100 lbf with afterburner.
The Boeing bird’s GE engine is also more fuel-efficient, giving it a range of 2,485 miles, whilst the Saab fighter runs out of gas after 1,988 miles. What’s more, the F-15EX Eagle II has two engines, which increases the survivability of the crew. By contrast, the Gripen is a single-engine aircraft, so if that one engine is knocked out, there’s no choice but to hit the ejection seat.
The Eagle II is the higher flyer, with a service ceiling of 59,055 feet, which gives it a hypothetical ability to pounce from above on the lower-flying Gripen, whose service ceiling tops off at 50,000 feet.
Moreover, the F-15EX also benefits from having more arrows in the quiver. It has a whopping capacity of up to 22 air-to-air missiles, while the Gripen carries a mere seven Meteor AAMs. During a prolonged air-to-air engagement, the American fighter will still be in the fight long after the Swedish challenger has run out of missiles.
And the Winner Is…?
The F-15EX wins thanks to its advantages of speed, power, range, altitude, and armament, all of which far outweigh the Gripen’s strong points.
What’s more, there’s the intangible factor of combat experience; though the Eagle II variant specifically hasn’t been used in combat, the F-15 series as a whole has more than four decades of battlefield history on its side. Meanwhile, the JAS 39 has only been used in combat once thus far: On July 26, 2025, two Royal Thai Air Force Gripens flew alongside the RTAF’s older F‑16 Fighting Falcons in a mission to target Cambodian artillery positions firing on Thai troops along the disputed border. The Bangkok Post reported that the mission was successful, and all aircraft returned safely to base.
About the Author: Christian D. Orr, Defense Expert
Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU).
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