F-35 Dropped From German Competition

[Panzermann]

As far as this competition is concerned, I really can't see the F/A-18 in Luftwaffe markings when the Eurofighter is already in service with an established logistics/support base. And European companies would like the business.

 

Other than maybe cost, does the Super Hornet offer any advantages over the Eurofighter? Possibly the new Block III with conformal tanks may have some advantage in range and stores capability.

 

 

But then a "EuroFighter ECR" would have to be developed from scratch. Just adding new systems replacing the systems the Pentagon does not want to share would seem cheaper to me. But then the BmVg has proven to explode costs and deliver nothing (Eurohawk...)

 

 

 

Some even point to the Super Hornet's carrier capability and dream about the Bundeswehr reestablishing a naval fast jet wing, which might then take over naval air warfare, SEAD (both currently done by Luftwaffe Wing 51, though they promptly let the former role wither), possible deployments to allied carriers (which Marine jet pilots hoped would justify their continued existence before they were disbanded) plus the nuclear role. Except the German B61 storage facilities are in Büchel, Rhineland-Palatinate - rather far from the sea, and unlikely to be moved due to the associated cost, and it ultimately being an American call.

 

 

Establishing the naval aviation again I am much in favour of, not becuase the crack pipe dream of carrier air, but to have trained pilots for over sea flight. totally surprisingly and unexpected that capability has lapsed in the Luftwaffe, because other missions took precedence. Told you so.

[BansheeOne]

NO, that's a MYTH. It's what I referred to earlier as false arguments. Again, HERE is the link. Also, NATO agrees with me:

While as usual your obnoxious arrogant dick tone doesn't invite listening to no matter whether you happen to be right or are talking out of your ass like about T-72 reliability on another current thread, that's an interesting case of outdated information being carried on. Seems the link between nuclear sharing and NPG membership represents the state of affairs pre-1979, not even as recent as the end of the Cold War.

Edited February 1, 2019 by BansheeOne

[lastdingo]

The "recall the bombers" was more realistic during the 1960's when ICBM/SLBM's weren't in the picture to any great extent yet. I don't know how much that would have applied to the UK's V-Bomber force.

 

IIRC their mode was to sortie just in case, then wait over the Arctic with tankers. This gave the president hours to think about it, but SAC would have them off the ground where they were vulnerable.

That 'recalling' then would rather have been a 'we didn't give the attack order' thing rather than a 'we cancelled the attack order' thing. It was more comparable to SSBNs leaving port or Tomahawk GLCMs leaving barracks and disperse.

 

@Panzermann; our less than 100 Kormoran 2 would need replacement, a decent munition stock for anti-ship strikes alone would cost a nine figures sum on its own and the generals would not have any fun with it (while more supersonic jets give them joy). The additional munitions would creaty very few very shitty depot jobs (no additional officers needed), and presumably less than 5 officer job slots in staffs. Meanwhile: "STEALTH" jets! That's SEXY!

 

Every Western navy and air force appears to neglect this, even the maritime-minded Italians and the maritime-minded British. IIRC even the French didn't buy any new AM.39 in a long time and cancelled ANS long ago.

Edited February 1, 2019 by lastdingo

[Simon Tan]

Is Germany and other NATO countires signatories to INF?

[Stuart Galbraith]

They are not signorities to it, but they likely have been subject to it. I know that the Soviets (and latterly the Russians's) had the right to inspect facilities in the UK for GLCM up till 2002, long after Greenham Common closed. Likely similar inspections too place on the Continent for GLCM and perhaps even Pershing facilities.

 

 

The "recall the bombers" was more realistic during the 1960's when ICBM/SLBM's weren't in the picture to any great extent yet. I don't know how much that would have applied to the UK's V-Bomber force.

 

There was a line over the west coast of Denmark IIRC. They would fly to that line and either get a recall, or an instruction to continue to target. We didnt have the airborne alert system the Yanks had, partly because at the time we didnt have that big a tanker fleet. What we tended to do was put aircraft on QRA, on which every 10000 foot runway had a pad for QRA dispersal V Bombers. In a crisis the PM would order dispersal, so to get the entire fleet they had to turn the entire UK into a glass lined parking lot. Which they probably would have done anyway. Bless.

[seahawk]

Considering that the AGM-84 is still used in the ship based role my Germany, adding a number of AGMs for a Hornet fleet seems easier, than to integrate the capability into the EF. Same with HARM and so on.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Ive never quite understood why, after funding so much development work to build a European Fighter, that having got it, the member nations go their own way in weaponizing it. Is it that hard to get all the operators of Eurofighter to stump up some money to put together a collective program to hang harpoon on it? Im sure we would be interested in having the capablity on the aircraft, even if we didnt use it. It would make it a hell of a lot easier to sell abroad.

 

Ditto B61. Nobody ever wants to use it, but it doestn strike me as unreasonable to expect a European consortium would figure out that putting the software and wiring in the aircraft to enable it to do it, might not be a bad idea.

 

I would assume that this was just a post cold war thing. But we made exactly the same mistakes with Tornado.

[lastdingo]

The issue regarding B61 is that it cannot be integrated without American cooperation, for one needs to know the bomb to do it. Else the Europeans would need to re-engineer the integration from the older aircraft, and the Americans would not accept that as sufficient, so wouldn't allocate B61s.

 

The American demands are excessive; they want to look so much into Typhoon software and ahrdware tha it's not considered a munitions integration, but industrial espionage by the Europeans.

So essentially they poison-pilled the Typoon as B61 carrier.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Wasnt the Tornado designed with B61 integration in it?

[BansheeOne]

The decision between the F-18 and Eurofighter for a Tornado replacement has now been announced to be made next year (but don't hold your breath).

[Chris Werb]

I was surprised to see AM-39 as the only anti ship missile used by France on the Rafale.

[Dawes]

Presumably the Eurofighter is the favorite?

[BansheeOne]

Per a report of the "Süddeutsche Zeitung", the US says Eurofighter will take three to five years longer to certify for the B61 than the Super Hornet. Which is unsurprising (in various ways) and indicates the latter is the favorite, though I'm not in the camp concluding the Eurofighter has no more chance at all. The German MoD refused a statement when asked.

[Dawes]

Sounds like the nuclear role is dictating the choice of aircraft.

[Panzermann]

Wasnt the Tornado designed with B61 integration in it?

 

Yes of course. the problem is in the new B61 having a new electronic arming and safety system that will have to be integrated. The bomb itself can hang off of a Tornado without much problem, though the new guidance kits need testing if they interfere with anyhting on the Tornado or during release. But the biggest problem is the electronics.

 

 

 

Sounds like the nuclear role is dictating the choice of aircraft.

 

Not quite. EuFi is primarly a fighter jet, not a bomber, whereas the F/A-18 is more on the bomber of fighter-bomber and the Tornado is clearly more on the bomber side of things. The superbug also would need the nuclear bomb integration, because the USN ones are not prepared for the new nuke generation, but for the EUFi it would be a totally new capability to be somehow squeezed into the airframe. Also the long range with the conformal fuel tanks on the newest Superbugs is attractive.

[Nobu]

I am not seeing the utility of German military procurement being led by nuclear strike mission capability. Within the context of NATO, three of the world's five official nuclear weapons states are more than enough to cover the alliance's needs in that regard.

 

Outside of the context of NATO, a Luftwaffe nuclear strike mission represents both a violation of NPT and a weakening of it.

[Josh]

B-61 guidance is INS with an unguided freefall option. The hard part of integration is PALS.

[BansheeOne]

Nuclear sharing has always been mostly political, giving NATO members a role in deterrence at a time some might have pursued their own nuclear programs otherwise; or in the case of Germany, would have liked to have nuclear weapons under national control, but couldn't go for it politically because they had enough trouble selling American ones on their territory to the public. So this was appeasement and reassurance in more than one way, and being ca. 1960, pre-NPT. It has since been criticized of violating the latter. To which the official reply has been sorta that no actual control would pass to non-nuclear members until WW 3 broke out, at which point international treaties aiming at preventing same would be rather moot.

 

Post Cold War, it became part institutional inertia, part badge of continuing alliance commitment by both the US and host nations. As noted before, critics pointed out that after NATO extension, no targets remained in range for bombs carried by tactical aircraft from Germany (though that obviously disregards air refueling), so the ostentative purpose to balance Russian weapons carried by aircraft and short-range missiles made no real sense. At some point or other since, all German parties have demanded or at least agreed with removing the last B61s from the country, and for some time the supposition was that the issue would quietly resolve itself with the retirement of Tornado. Like so many other things, that has changed since the Ukraine Crisis in 2014.

[Simon Tan]

Why?

[RETAC21]

Because of the "feel good aspect" of deterrence:

 

[Panzermann]

B-61 guidance is INS with an unguided freefall option. The hard part of integration is PALS.

 

The new B61-12 is ging to get a glide kit, GPS nav and all that you find in modern "precision munitons". Also it gets a ground penetration capability and an all new electronity arming system.

 

 

wikipedia gives an overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B61_nuclear_bomb#Mod_12

[Stuart Galbraith]

They would do better to withdraw B61 entirely, and strap the warheads onto a viable delivery vehicle like AGM158 or even Stormshadow. To use a B61 you either have to have a stealth bomber (which even when F35 is procured, not everyone will have), or a permissive environment that begs the question why a nuclear weapon is needed at all.

 

Do I think its still needed? Yes. Because the Russian General staff seems to have got itself in a rut that Tactical weapons may be viable because they dont hurt quite so much. Thats dangerous thinking that can only be countered by a viable NATO tactical stockpile. Not that there is much point between tactical an strategic use if they are used on Russian territory, but that is much the point of having them IMHO.

 

All that said, I was listening to a podcast yesterday on the German Typhoons, and I was a bit shocked to hear quite how few weapons it actually has for it even after flying tranche 3. Wouldnt it make more sense to deal with that first rather than go for a tactical nuclear platform that can be dealt with by other countries?

[Josh]

 

 

B-61 guidance is INS with an unguided freefall option. The hard part of integration is PALS.

The new B61-12 is ging to get a glide kit, GPS nav and all that you find in modern "precision munitons". Also it gets a ground penetration capability and an all new electronity arming system.

 

 

wikipedia gives an overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B61_nuclear_bomb#Mod_12

I should have specified INS guidance for the mod 12 only- but presumably any aircraft integrated with B-61 will be fit for mod 12 which replaces all other types. Guidance is INS only with an unguided spin stabilized option that remains from previous versions. CEP 30 meters in INS mode.

[lastdingo]

I am not seeing the utility of German military procurement being led by nuclear strike mission capability. Within the context of NATO, three of the world's five official nuclear weapons states are more than enough to cover the alliance's needs in that regard.

 

Outside of the context of NATO, a Luftwaffe nuclear strike mission represents both a violation of NPT and a weakening of it.

 

1st sentence agreed, 2nd sentence - not so easy. The Cold War craze is over, the nuclear powers coould indeed think that they will remain unscathed if Russia nukes, say, Warsaw. Retaliation is less probable than in the Cold War era.

 

https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2019/03/nuclear-deterrence-for-europe-part-i.html

https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2019/03/nuclear-deterrence-for-europe-part-ii.html

https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2019/03/nuclear-deterrence-for-europe-part-iii.html

[Stuart Galbraith]

I think you are wrong in questioning our nuclear commitment to NATO. That was there at least a decade an a half before we joined the EEC, I dont see Brexit changes it a jot. Ultimately if someone starts letting off buckets of Sunshine in Eastern Europe, we are going to be getting the fallout anyway, and the logical conclusion, our being a NATO hub for airfields, communications and so many things, is that we will be next. So we would commit. In fact, even a heavy cyber attack, in theory, would be enough to set it off.

 

The Americans would be unable to remain uninvolved in the event of a UK nuclear use, because they provide the missiles and some of the targeting systems we use. So they would be implicated however it turned out. There also remains the awkward point that, if we wanted to engineer a US nuclear response, we could arrange one fairly easily. We would just launch our missiles from a submarine parked off the US East coast and allow our enemies to come to their own conclusions.....

 

Im not sure about the French nuclear capability being nuclear capable. Till it was replaced by Rafale, it was carried by Mirage 2000N's IIRC, which obviously remained incapable of landing on a carrier. I think the Rafales they replaced them with also are land based variants.

 

Interesting article though, thanks for the link.