Well I actually don’t know how to make an accurate price estimation, I just calculate based on previous deals like the Indonesian EDA F-16 deal, Australian Super Hornet/Growler deal, etc. + extra for inflation, armaments, logistic support, training, etc. and it came out about ~ $9 billion.
Also, we must remember that if these purchase become true, then other plans will be frozen, e.g. most had already said the Su-30MK2 procurements is finished, no more coming, so that $1.6 billion budget is offsetted.
Yeah the Growler is a game changer. Russia doesn’t have any equivalent for export other than the Su-34 that can perform similar tasks. But probably the logic for the EA-18 lite is that China might be able to acquire the Su-34 themself or Russia might leak some data to China which would not be the case for the EA-18.
Anyway, the the F/A-18V + EA-18V package is supposedly said to be specially configured for the SCS and it will strike fear to the PLAN SCS fleet to such an extend that they will start converting to Christianity for divine protection, turning China the most Christian country in this century.
I have no idea why the S-3 Viking was not included, I like the S-3 too and think it makes perfect sense for VN. Maybe the S-3 can only be a viable choice if SK procures them but we aren’t sure if that will happen.