this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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never understood why the armies of the EU wouldn't bank on airframes produced locally, we have great technology with Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Rafale, Saab Gripen
Perhaps because we technically correctly think that using money on warfare is a complete waste of money and resources of the worst kind.
Until of course it isn't.
In hindsight, Europe should've started getting on its feet starting from 1990.
Looking at the reactions when Poland bought US planes taught me a lot about the lack of maturity / insights from Eastern European countries, still blinded by the shining lights from NATO and US while ignoring their EU neighbours.
Corruption. Paying for the protection racket. All good reasons /s
It's much simpler than that: the Americans are always in charge of international operations.
The Dutch Air Force officers still get soggy about the prize for "the explosion of the year" that they received for bombing a Serbian powerplant. ๐คฎ
An occasional pat on the back is enough, they don't even need to bribe our leaders anymore.
Aren't they all 4/4.5th generation and not capable of carrying nukes? I mean they are a great stopgap and I would prefer having plenty of them, but the F35 abilities are much needed on a tactical and strategic level.
Too bad, it's off the table with this liability.
the Rafale is used for nuclear deterrence and can carry medium range air launched cruise missiles. They are to be replaced with hypersonic cruise missiles with the Rafale F5 until 2035.
Currently Germany uses Tornados as nuclear bombers (as part of US nuclear sharing), those are ancient and held in the air with panzer tape, so Germany urgently needed a replacement, and yes the F35 is certified for US nukes, of course it is. The Eurofighter isn't -- but could. Easily. If Eurofighter was ok with sending necessary data over to the Americans, which they aren't, because industrial espionage: When you give data to the Pentagon Lockheed-Martin etc. inexplicably somehow also have access to it.
Eurofighter would be a-ok with getting Typhoons certified for French nukes, not that the French won't spy but they have all that data already anyways via Airbus. Which is why the general idea of switching over to French nuclear sharing was floated but at least at that time that was considered to be, if happening at all, quite a ways off so the F35 was ordered as a stop-gap. Only for the bomber Tornados, mind you, the EW ones are getting replaced by brand-new EW Typhoons.
First ones are scheduled to arrive 2026, I'm very much in favour of cancelling that contract, if that's expensive well buy them but then sell them on.
The Rafale can carry the ASMP, a french nucular cruise missile and I wouldn't be surprised if the Gripen could be upgraded such that it can do so as well.
Kay. Coming from Germany it is about the nukes of our .. ehm.. "friends". We still use the Tornado from 1974 because of incompabilities of our Eurofighters.
That is mainly because Germany does not want to give the US all the blueprints of Eurofighter, rather then it being technically impossible to do.
Might be the reason, but doesn't change the situation. I heared the RAF Typhoons are years ahead and also able to carry nuclear bombs.
Anyhow flooding the zone with Mirrages, Rafaels, Gripen and Eurofighters would be nice ๐
The UK does not have nuclear capable Eurofighter either. The only operational nuclear weapon system in British service is Trident, which is a submarine-launched ballistic missile.
As for Eurofighter of each Tranch are mostly the same design. However a Tranch1 Eurofighter is a much less capable plane then a Tranch3 one. The big difference is that the UK is replacing its Tranch1 Eurofighters with F-35 and Germany is waiting longer for Tranch4 Eurofighters, which will been completed 2030. There are also some differences in the weapons they carry and some different targeting pods and the like, but nothing insanely big.
The difference is mainly that the UK has their own nuclear warheads, so adapting a plane that's partially manufactured by them to those bombs is a pretty straightforward task that doesn't require sharing of secrets with an increasingly hostile "ally".
Thanks for explaining. I was under the impression they can carry US made warheads, but this makes much more sense.
That's just a guess from me, but since the UK has a domestic nuclear weapons programme, it would make a lot of sense to them to develop their own bombs and equip their own aircraft for dropping them.
A different part of the UK's nuclear deterrent is awfully US dependent, though, they chose US made Trident ballistic missiles as carrier system for their submarine launched strategic warheads.
Dated March 2023 this article is not so explicit about Typhoon being capable ๐ฌ So they bought the F-35 (but remanufactured the electroings much like Israel).
Does that matter though? e.g. if you do a nuclear strike, wouldn't you bring enough support to make sure the nuke reaches its target?
I would get of buying foreign products in order to appease them, but buying something you can't even use without their permission for every start is really stupid
Because none of them have the capabilities of the F-35. And they are even more expensive than the F-35.
But does Europe need anything like that? The European fighters could easily deal with the Russian ones, and that's basically all that counts unless they want to fight the US, in which case you still don't want the F-35 for obvious reasons.
You dont need the F-35 just for the russian planes, you need it for the russian ground to air missiles and radars(and targets that those things might protect). While you can suppress enemy air defences with non stealthy aircraft, that is much riskier and much more limited in scope. Which is why Russia isnt using its massive airforce in a way that is expected(by western standards). Even Ukraine's very limited anti-air capability has shut down the ukranian airspace to russian aircraft.
A stealth aircraft allows you to penetrate much deeper into enemy airspace and/or in a safer manner. It unlocks a completely different mission capability.
This is also useful against airplanes. Imagine if european planes have a radar with 120km range and a missile with 60km range. The equivalent russian planes have a 100km range radar and a 50km range missile. So while the european planes have the advantage, this advantage is anything mindblowing.
Now imagine a european stealth aircraft, with the same missile and radar but because it is stealth, it can only be detected within 20km of a russian aircraft. That means that the stealth plane can go in, shoot a missile and get out before the russian plane even detects it. The advantage is immense and allows the stealth aircraft to be orders of magnitude more effective.
There is a reason why everyone, including China, is spending billions to make stealth airplanes. The only reason people think stealth is irrelevant is because of russian propaganda, because Russia is too poor to produce stealth airplanes. The thing is, designing AND producing a stealth airplane is very expensive. There are a few european designs but those things wont be coming out for another 10+ years at the earliest(or in 20 years if we want to be realistic). In the meantime, Europe decided to use the f-35, which is a very capable and cheap aircraft(actually cheaper than rafale, etc).
It doesnt help that we have 2 different 6th generation airplane designs in Europe. It's a clusterfuck. Maybe Trump will help Europe get its shit together.
If so, it must be because they don't have enough R&D money because we haven't been buying them. Own goal.
Partially but the big advantage of being in a big alliance, is sharing stuff. That is the most effective way of progressing.
Take microchips for example. Taiwan is making them, with european machines and the european machines use american technology. Taiwan is able to create cutting edge microchips because they are allied and dependent on their allies. Similarly, a lot of russian technology has its roots in the soviet era, when russians had access to scientists/technology from all over eastern Europe.
Apes together strong. Thats the strength of alliances. But if you have a bad faith ape, that ape can destroy the effort of all other apes. Thats the weakness of alliances. For strategically important things(jet planes), you might be willing to take an efficiency hit, by creating things independently for security reasons. Which is why the french have rafale.
But keep making cutting edge things in order to maintain and improve your defence industry capabilities is very expensive. Thats why Canada doesnt have a jet plane industry, even though they used to have a very capable fighter jet industry. Or you could be like Russia, where you can design new planes but dont have the money to produce them, so you are basically spending a lot of money, creating one off planes.