VnomadIn my opinion, MinDef is overly optimistic about what can be achieved with 37 aircraft. I cannot rule out they are sincere, I simply think they’re wrong. The Rekenkamer has reservations too. Two years ago, Mindef insisted 55 F-35s could be bought within budget. So much for their predictive abilities.
If only 32 aircraft had been ordered, chances are that figure would have been presented as the ‘bare minimum’ required by the air force.
I disagree. That is exactly what is happening. Goals will be reformulated to fit the means available, because military goals are secondary to economical goals. Sometime next year, current goals will go out the window, international cooperation will be the new magical ingredient. Mindef has decided buying as many F-35s as the budget allows, buying less will have repercussions for an ever dwindling workshare in the F-35 project.
Goals are always built around means. And compared to the other alternatives, the F-35’s capability added to the industrial participation in the program, mean its still the best choice even in the current circumstances.
Even if the bottom-line is the ability to sustain a foreign deployment of a 4 aircraft detachment, the Danish seem to be able to pull it off despite operating only 30 F-16s. No reason to think the RNLAF with 37 F-35s shouldn’t be able to do as much if not more.
VnomadAgreed, no more Warsaw Pact/USSR = no more threat & the Netherlands decision on F 35 numbers has more to do with political commitments than defence requirements.
Defence requirements are never independent from political commitments. In this case the Dutch commitment to the NATO and EU collective defence is both political and military.
The decision to participate in future front line NATO action bombing some unfortunate country back to the stone age is a political choice first & as you have stated above the F 35 is the obvious choice & by extension of that numbers of F 35 to be procured by NATO countries so that makes the political commentary on NATO relevant.
Its your own opinion that the NATO operations in the future will consist only of ‘bombing some unfortunate country into the stone age’. Its not borne out by facts, case in point: operations in the Balkans & Gulf War ’91. Even your assertion about the Taliban being poised to regain power in Afghanistan is a very flawed assessment of the case.
As things stand, there is evidence of the Netherlands contemplating withdrawing from the NATO or otherwise adopting an explicitly non-interventionist foreign policy. If you feel the Netherlands having no organic threats to its national defence and should therefore give up arms, more power to you. However it does not relate to the numbers or type of aircraft to be operated by the RNLAF, the debate on which is governed by the current political framework.
VnomadNo, it is not business as usual, the request was made when cold war was long over, they required over twice the number they now claim is needed,
and no other variable changed.
ed: actually one variable changed, performance was less than expected, so if anything, more would be needed.
The RNLAF operated an F-16 fleet twice as large as the current one, long long after the end of the Cold War. One could therefore argue that the costs involved in operating the surplus aircraft have been a huge waste and somebody needs to take responsibility for that.
VnomadMindef HAS stated 37 is the bare minimum. I suspect it is below the bare minimum for achieving what Mindef’s military goals, but then, buying the F-35 is to a very large extent about maintaining aerospace jobs.
Either you take the Defence Ministry’s statement at face value or you don’t. You’re offering as evidence on one hand and then raising doubts about its veracity in the very next sentence.
The military goals in question cannot be entirely contingent on the number of aircraft operational and independent of the capability on offer. Otherwise as I mentioned before the RNLAF could have managed with a higher end AJT; plenty of units for air policing/air defence while still freeing up a sizeable number for overseas basing.
VnomadI would contend that the Netherlands geography & modern history with it’s close neighbors makes it even more secure than New Zealand with it’s much longer coast lines & isolation.
Would 35 F 35s be enough to deter a nation powerful enough to defeat Germany or France before getting to the Netherlands? Why is the purchase of the F 35 not just a purely political decision?
We’re talking about its utility in expeditionary warfare and not fighting off a Warpac invasion. Its already been said that if the Netherlands does not feel it necessary to operate a modern air force, given its location and circumstances, so be it. No judgement. If however they wish to participate in the front-line of action overseas, then the F-35 is the most obvious choice.
So far NATO has failed to destroy the Taliban in Afghanistan before leaving (while at the same time allowing opium production to sore with all the misery that leads to) so it will probably claw it’s way back into power & there is the nation of Libya that got bombed back to the stone age by NATO leaving terrorist in power & I suppose all that is a good reason to participate & makes a cold war relic like NATO worth while. 🙁
This political commentary about NATO membership has nothing to do with the debate on the F-35.
VnomadWhere do you get it from that one wouldn’t be able to take part in international actions with anything else than F-35?
They could participate in international actions with Hawk-200 or TA-50s as well. An F-35 fleet on the other hand will have higher combat effectiveness, especially when operating interspersed with US forces at the initial (and therefore heavier) stages of a campaign.
VnomadEight is not the figure that keeps appearing in MinDef documents for foreign deployment – it’s four. A number that the Rekenkamer has stated isn’t properly supported by thorough analysis. The dutch air force will be sorely pressed to fulfill its obligations if there are any operational losses. 37 really *is* considered the bare minimum by MinDef. Until, possibly, price per aircraft inadvertently goes up again.
By the way, dutch F-35 funding has never been subject to cuts, the 4.5 billion euros reserved for F-16 replacement is the inflation-corrected amount reserved in 2002. Other defence items have seen their funding reduced – not the F-16 replacement.
37 is either the maximum number of fighter that’s the could be acquired for a fixed budget. Or it could have been the ‘bare minimum’ aircraft the Def Min thought it make do with. It would be too much of a coincidence to be both.
And if there was no flexibility factored into the replacement budget then it was a mistake on the Dutch Def Min’s part, because €4.5 billion will not even buy 87 new-build Block 52+ today, let alone a more advanced 4.5G fighter.
VnomadThe Dutch defence personnel who argue that 37 F-35s can do the job should be charged with crimes against the state for earlier attempting to foist an additional 48 F-35s on the nation to no purpose.
So the defence staff tried to get more aircraft than the minimum number they could manage with? Sounds like… business as usual.
By the same logic, it could be argued that since the RNLAF can operate with 60 F-16s today (down from 137), someone should be hauled up for forcing it to operate twice as many as ‘required’ in the interim.
But it doesn’t work that way. The size of the military is determined by the country’s commitments. The only necessary function the RNLAF performs is policing Dutch airspace (something a higher-end AJT can do). The rest is a choice i.e. the degree of responsibility the Netherlands wants to adopt vis-a-vis regional security and foreign intervention. And that choice, like always, is driven by budgets. They thought they could afford 87 so they estimated 87 aircraft. With spending cuts across the board post-2008, they can afford only 37 for now.
Neither figure is the bare minimum needed. The actual variable here is the scale of the Dutch contribution to a future multinational coalition; where it originally would have deployed a full squadron, they’d now dispatch maybe eight aircraft.
VnomadNo, the Minis are still associated with Britain, but the fact that they are no longer owned by Britain is illustrative of the broader problem.
Cars and brands are certainly part of it — at least they are for nations with nothing more significant to define themselves by. *
* In the present-day that is. History is a powerful force that resonates at many cultural levels, but history has its limits too — which is why Iran, China, Greece, Egypt, etc. are not today great nations.[/QUOTE]
Again, being a ‘great’ nation is such a vague concept to make this whole assertion of X country being great, Y being not, utterly meaningless. And having foreign entities invested in prominent industries makes little difference to the bigger picture.
VnomadThe air force can use roughly a third of its fighter for missions. The rest is in maintenance and is used for training.
That would imply that the RNLAF will have 12 F-35As available for missions. While it could be better, 37 F-35s (compared to the 60 F-16s in service today) is not too bad.
We’ve discussed this before, but once again then. The air forces duties appear three fold –
1. National air policing
2. NATO air policing
3. Expeditionary operations (almost certainly operating under an American umbrella)
A greater degree of coordination with Belgian and German air forces, can be used to lower the number of aircraft required for air policing. And while a (smaller) RNLAF air detachment to a Kosovo-type operation will generate fewer sorties, it will certainly have higher mission effectiveness than an alternative aircraft along with a far greater degree of data fusion with allied assets.
VnomadIt was the first thing that sprung to mind as a product in 2013 that evinces a British design lineage or cultural sensibility. That Minis are actually German now is an ironic side-note that only goes to reinforce my argument. But perhaps you could provide more compelling examples of modern Britishness?
Bear in mind that simply making stuff doesn’t mean anything in the absence of a cultural stamp — else contemporary China would be a great nation, which it isn’t. The iPhone is an American product, regardless of where it is put together. The Swedish game developer DICE is probably the most important in Electronic Arts’ portfolio, and possibly the largest in Europe, but the fact that they’re Swedish is irrelevant — they’re American-owned and make America-hoo-rah games for American audiences. It’s an example of Borg-like assimilation, not a source of national pride or identity.
^^
The contradictions are quite.. prominent.
The iPhone is American regardless of where its built, because of the ‘cultural stamp’ on it. But the Mini is now associated with Germany instead, just because the marque is owned by BMW? This when the vast majority of cars under the brand are still assembled in the UK.
And none of this relates to a nation’s ‘greatness’, an amorphous if not totally vague concept, hardly measurable in cars and brands.
VnomadA comparison based on deflated figures is useless. No customer pays flyaway cost, with the exception of special cases like attrition replacement.
The figures are all in 2013 dollars.
And secondly, I did not at any point suggest that a new customer would pay only flyaway cost. However the weapon system cost still remains a function of the flyaway cost. An aircraft with a lower flyaway cost compared to another will almost always have a lower weapons system cost.
In the F-35’s context, the latest LRIP costs are clear evidence that post-SDD it will remain competitive with most 4.5G platforms as far as acquisition cost is concerned.
VnomadIn simple terms, the flyaway cost is the cost of making the aircraft. OTOH, the weapons system cost is the cost of buying the aircraft.
Guess which one is really useful.
The weapon system cost is a function of the flyaway cost. Its useful for an analysis of a country’s or an air force’s spending/budget. But if you’re comparing the cost of acquisition of two aircraft, the flyaway cost is still the only metric to go by, for a like comparison.
VnomadWho needs production cost figures? Except for LMA, they are completely useless, IMHO.
The unit recurring flyaway cost will be very close to that number. Hardly a useless figure.
VnomadProbably ASRAAM in the future , IAF was planning to buy ASRAAM as part of Jag upgrade ……. although the possibility of using Python variant cant be ruled out if LUSH can use Derby BVR
At this point, there’s not really a lot of future to it. The Sea Harrier will be in service for another five years maximum. Given the Sea Harrier’s limited payload as well as limited numbers, its not really worth the cost of integration. While not as maneuverable as the ASRAAM, Derby’s short range performance is more than adequate. Its capable of LOBL operation, has a wide angle seeker and can still be mated to the DASH helmet.
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