thobbesThe FMS/MAP giveaway F-84/-86/-100/-102/-104/-5 had a great side effect of creating a near monopoly for the USA.
This was probably unintentional but it meant that as soon as they could afford to stand on their own, many NATO and nearly all allied Asian countries opted to buy US fighters and this hasn’t changed since.
thobbesThe total number is 80% of the budget to pay pensions and salaries.
Not really surprising.
Salaries and wages are usually the vast majority of expenditure in any human resource intensive industry. I work in health and 80% of our costs are salaries and wages.
thobbesHowever, Welsh said the A-10 finds itself on the chopping block because “it’s a single-mission airplane, essentially,” and would struggle in more contested airspaces.
Curious as to definition of “more contested airspace.”
No A-10s were lost in more contested airspace of Kosovo in 1999.
Only 1 was lost in 2003 over Iraq and that was to a French Roland SAM in day time conditions and from memory at reasonably low altitude. In that case an F-15/-16/-18/-35 is also probably dead.
In fact the pilot who got shot down said “”I was very fortunate to be flying this mission in an A-10, because had I not, I would have bailed out right there.”
Instead the rugged A-10 kept flying until one of the engines completely packed it in.
http://warthognews.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/from-archives-warthog-down-in-iraq.html
thobbesOh don’t get me started on these stupid Patrol Boats!! What a pathetic political and naval joke the purchase of these were!! The Navy knew better than anyone else that what was needed was and is corvetts-sized and ocean-going capable vessels. Yes we need inshore patrol boat (as we need inshoe MCMV’s). ‘What do you get when you send a ‘patrol boat’ out into the Pacific Ocean again and again to stop scary assylam seekers/refugees? Answer – ineffective capability and cracked hulls!!
I think the patrol boats are fine for their main job – intercepting illegal migrants, illegal fishing vessels and other police actions.
They shouldn’t be part of the Navy though but rather part of Customs or AFP.
However when a proposal was made to switch the patrol boats to a civilian ministry, the RAN chucked up a big stink and stated they needed patrol boats because they were useful in training junior officers!
In government we call this “protecting one’s empire.”
Border protection in Australia’s a badly organised joke – you have numerous agencies involved including RAN, RAAF, Customs, AFP, civilian contractors, the various intelligence services and a whole heap of departments (apparently 14-15 in whole).
And now the Mad Monk has “improved” border protection by putting an Army general in charge. Apparently commanding troops in Afghanistan is same as trying to control flow of people into the country (which is a policing, diplomatic and legislative issue).
thobbesHow does that conflict with what I said?
Those aren’t the buyers of F-35s today.
Merely pointing out preference for American over anything else.
Romania has openly stated it wants F-35s but it can only afford 12 F-16AM/BM. Given their economy collapsed in 2009-ish after a big growth spurt, it’ll be a long time that they can afford anything new though.
And by collapse I mean the kind of collapse where over 7% of GDP is wiped out in a single year.
Those are good reasons, but hardly something the European manufacturers couldn’t provide.
Manufacturing capability is irrelevant here. USA has better flying weather and less restricted airspace and thus better facilities (e.g. low level flying, bombing ranges etc).
Sure, the European defense industry has been weakening for a long time now… but again… that hardly means that it was somehow pre-ordained that European buyers would buy American in general or the F-35 in particular.
As stated Euro jets didn’t sell well in Europe when their defence industry was strong.
The political and military compatibility issues ensure most chose American by default. And current American is F-35. Politics and US compatibility trump performance.
The only way F-35 might not be chosen is if something else American was available on offer. E.g. F-16 v F/A-18.
A full spec Rafale in 1990 would have offered incredible capabilities and would certainly have drawn a lot of interest. Of course that didn’t happen… but I don’t see how you get from that to “it is impossible for the French to sell a fighter because of politics.”
As stated Mirage III/V, Mirage F1, Mirage 2000, J-35 and JAS-37 all offered good capabilities either on par of in some exception exceeding American products (F-5A/B) yet they did not sell well (or at all) to Europe or NATO.
American sells by default and both past history and current events show this to be true.
thobbesagain I agree but one way the US maybe able to push this is by offering the KC-10’s free of charge and stating they are pulling there tanker fleet from Europe to support US and PACAF ops
and this may happen anyway if they drop KC-10 as they will need adjust there requirements
There is only 1 US air refuelling squadron based permanently in Europe – 351st of 100ARW at RAF Middenhall in UK.
Already in place for existing tankers in France, Spain & Turkey, & outside NATO, Israel. What’s not financed yet are replacement aircraft for old 707s & C-135s.
The talk was for new NATO air refuelling squadrons.
French are going MRTT route.
thobbesInterception demand a level of acceleration and speed
And for this USA has F-15 and F-22 as well as F-16 right now.
For NORAD purposes, F-16 is actually a better air policing tool than F-35 simply due to speed.
The amount of firepower and support that US brings to a fight also mean F-35 won’t have to fight any air battles
save the unlucky unsupported straggler, so A2A performance isn’t actually an issue either,
but again, in what way does that do any good for the rest of the world ?
This is true.
And the US relies on a lot more than just stealth. There’s a vast electronic warfare capability and unmanned strike capability (aka massed cruise missile strikes) there to that no-one on the planet can match.
And then there’s tactical considerations such as US usually trying to have as many attack ingress/egress points which makes planning defence difficult.
A great example of US not even firing a round to confuse an IADS point was the launch of several chaff filled BQM-34 Firebee drones over Iraq in 2003 (or UAV as today’s abbreviation obsessed people prefer)
The Israelis are rumoured to be using network based hacking to shut down Syrian IADS – that’s far better than SEAD or stealth as you don’t even have to risk lives to shut down a system.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/22/israel_air_raid_syria_hack_network_vuln_intrusion/
Stealth is just one of many tools in the toolbox.
thobbesIt asks the question of how the F-22s stayed stealthy?
Well the Iranian radar network is not exactly advanced nor was it ever 100% able to cover the whole country.
The Iraqis used to be able to fly non-stealthy Tu-16 and Tu-22s over Iran in 1980s without being detected a lot of the time. The reason is lack of 100% coverage as well as as EW.
Also if the F-4s wer busy trying to focus on drone, they probably weren’t focusing much on their old fashioned radar scopes.
And whose to say that Iranian F-4 radars were even on?
And even if they were, it seems the F-22s got in on the rear in the radar’s blind spot.
As for Iranians not noticing F-22 whilst within visual range. remember most pilots shot down in WVR never even saw their shooter and that’s with non-stealthy jets ala Mirage III, MiG-17 etc etc.
And F-22 is a stealth jet so Iranian ground based AD radars wouldn’t have picked them up at all, assuming Iran’s AD radar network even has coverage in that area.
thobbesNone today. But then again there was a time when the Iran used to be one of closest non-NATO allies to the US, fielding a fighter fleet in 1979 comparable (superior?) to those of the RAF and AdlA. Times change. Who can predict how long the royals in the current ME will hold power and what will follow.
And if those ME royals go and intervention is “required” it’ll be the US kicking the door down, not the Belgians or even the French.
How many European countries supplied jets in 1991? 2 (UK and France). And the French ones were used for support functions not combat.
Only UK offered any sort of assistance in 2003.
And in ops over Kosovo, most critical missions were peformed by USA even when Europe had capability. The reason is NATO command structure is inflexible and many countries put significant restrictions on how their forces are used. And nearly all strikes required political approval.
Hence the USA placed important missions out of NATO and did it themselves without resorting to NATO.
The same applied in Libya – lots of the jets were assigned to air policing and weren’t allowed to engage in combat. NATO command structure proved too rigid and most people seem to think it was a better run operation before NATO offiically got involved.
And this is assuming that the Europeans will never commit forces to the Pacific.
The Europeans only ever deployed forces to Pacific when they had colonies there.
Those colonies are gone and Euro jets seldom go further East than ME. When they do it’s for marketing opportunities!
And this isn’t going to change – what sort of meaningful Pacific deployments would a 225 strong AdlA or RAF be able to undertake? Let alone a 37 strong Dutch or Belgian AF.
thobbesBecause its entirely impossible to do any meaningfull 24/7 QRA with three airframes, thats why…
You need at least a full sqn of combat jets to cover a small airspace 24/7, plus training, plus maintenance.
MSphere made a very good point, with 37 jets, the entire KLu will be able to field two small sqn´s, trying to do QRA and expeditionary detach´s will be stretching things almost to the absurd.
Totally agree.
The statement by the Dutch is that 37 airframes would allow a 4 aircraft deployment ala those done in Afghanistan.
So 37 aircraft allow a 4 aircraft deployment in a near zero risk environment.
And Sintra is totally right in that to maintain an air policing capability over small airspace you need at least 12-14 aircraft.
This is what Austrians, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Croats and Bulgarians are doing and what Romania is planning to operate.
thobbesMy belief is that tactics are more important than gadets.
THIS!
On paper MiG-17 was a piece of crap compared to an American Century series fighter. But used well the North Vietnamese MiG-17 was lethal.
On paper an IDF/AD S-199 (a Bf109 with basically the wrong engine bolted in) was not comparable to an Egyptian Spitfire, But used well the Israeli S-199s scored victories against Egyptian Spitfires.
The other one is the MiG-19. Again used well it did well.
Technology is extremely important but using it well is even more important
thobbesYou don’t necessarily have to run a big expensive formal competition if you already know that there is only one jet that will fit your requirements. If you are choosing between one of several 4th generation jets then it makes sense to run a competition. If you want a 5th generation fighter then the F-35 is pretty much the only game in town.
Actually many Europeans signed up to F-104 and F-16 without formal comps, even though there were other “games in town” – Mirage III, Mirage F1. JAS-37 Viggen etc.
The US has out-sold France… what is your point? That that is some kind of law of nature? That European buyers will inevitably buy American jets because they did 30 years earlier?
What 30 years – F-16s were still selling to Europe up to recently (Poland, Greece, Turkey).
And Romanians are buying ancient F-16A/Bs over JAS-39s. Bulgarians are the same with a preference for older F-16s over JAS-39.
The reason for this is inter-compability with US systems, access to US maintenance and logistics and upgrades as well as access to US training.
In fact many European pilots are trained in the US as they got rid of their own training programs.
Sorry, that doesn’t even come close to holding up, especially when you look at how much European equipment these forces buy in general. The US is a big supplier, but it is hardly the only one.
Europeans do buy European – usually if it’s indigenous to that country (e.g. Italian Ariette tanks, various ships, small arms) or if the system is part of a joint program the country is participating in (e.g. NH90, A400M).
French gear is a poor seller in Europe in general. Land gear such as Leclercs, FAMAS, CEASAR, VBCI has generally not sold to Europe at all.
French do get sales in helos but even these were dwindling in numbers prior to creation of Fanco-German Eurocopter – e.g. compare sales of Allouete II and III with that of SA-341/2 Gazelle and AS350/550/555 series. By 1970s and 1980s Bo-105 and A109 were making big inroads here. The lighter Eurocopter helos that have sold in Europe or to US were basically derived from German BK-117 and not French helos.
The Puma was not adopted in Europe in anywhere near the numbers the UH-1/B204/205 series was.
Subs and tanks in Europe tend to come from Germany. Rifles are either based on US Armalite AR-15 or German H&K G3/-36 series. Machine guns are usually Belgian – Minimi and MAG-58 or German – MG3 (aka MG42 Hitler’s Buzzsaw) and now MG4). Warships are generally indigenous.
French gear is usually joint-production stuff ala Milan, Horizon frigate, NH90, Tigre.
There is absolutely no chance a French 5th generation fighter would’ve sold to European users if an American option was there.
The politics and compatibility issues just wouldn’t allow it just like they ultimately resulted in failure of French (and also Swedish) aircraft to get anything more than a toe hold in market.
Even if Rafale was available at full spec in 1990, F-16s still would’ve sold to NATO and Rafale would not have. Just like M2000, F1 and III/V never really sold much to NATO either.
thobbesIsrael is currently slashing it’s defence force, so any money left is going to go to maintain high end capability.
thobbesF-111 was brought as a deterrent against Sukarno’s Indonesia (late delivery meant they were never used in this role).
But F-111 was a superb choice for Australia as it was a long range strike aircraft.
In an ideal world, I think an ideal Australian fleet would be 72 F-35 + 24-36 FB-22. Alas FB-22 is gone.
As stated I’d rather spend the money assigned for token tank force on more F-35s or CH-47s or patrol boats or frigates or whatever.
thobbesThis is awfully awfully weak reasoning.
Europe was going to buy American no matter what, and that meant the F-35 no matter what… because Europe has mostly bought American in the past?
It’s not weak reasoning. It’s fact borne out by history.
The real reason for it is not aircraft performance – it’s political, diplomatic as well as overall military compatibility with the premier NATO partner.
The F-35 is actually a great example – most F-35 countries haven’t even bothered to evaluate anything else and have just signed on to F-35.
I suspect if France or anyone else in Europe produced a 5th generation aircraft of their own they would be able to find buyers in short order
France had a 4th generation fighter comparable to American “Teen series” jets in the form of Mirage 2000.
Mirage 2000 was exported to only 1 European country (Greece) who brought it as part of a diversification program that started in the 1970s with Mirage F1CG.
F-16 on the other hand has sold to 8 NATO countries (Belgium, Denmark, Poland, Netherlands, Norway, Greece, Turkey, Portugal )and was leased to a ninth (Italy).
F/A-18 sold to 3 European countries (Finland, Spain, Switzerland) including 1 NATO.
Or look at Mirage III/V versus F-104 and F-5:
Mirage III/V – 3 Europe exports (Switzerland, Spain, Belgium) including two NATO.
F-5A/B – 4 NATO (Turkey, Greece, Norway, Netherlands)
F-104G – 8 European NATO (Belgium, Spain, Norway, Netherlands, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Turkey).
And then throw into mix:
F-100 – 3 NATO users (France, Denmark, Turkey) – 2nd hand
F-102 – 2 NATO users (Greece, Turkey) – 2nd hand
J-35 – 2 European including 1 NATO (Denmark, Finland). Austria brought their J-35 in 1980s.
The French have never really had a foot in the door into European jet fighter sales. A French 5th generation would’ve done no better than French 2/3/4 generation fighters.
The joint programs also struggle exporting to NATO/Europe:
G-91 – sold only to Portugal and Germany. Other orders for Greece and Turkey cancelled.
Jaguar – never exported to European operators
Tornado – never exported to European operators.
Eurofighter – 1 export only – Austria with 15 airframes.
USA has dominated European fighter sales since they started giving away F-84Gs for free in early 1950s.
The Brits used to do ok in 1940s and 1950s with Vampire/Venom, Meteor, Sea Hawk and Hunter. But 1957 gutted British aerospace capability – EE Lightning was so badly supported by British Government, not many export customers would touch it and certainly no European country.
Why not more F-16s, or maybe some F-15s?
Too old you say? Fine… why not Super Hornets
Super Hornet is still 4th generation – how much capability are you truly getting over an F-16AM/BM?
If Super Hornet was a true 5th generation jet, then it probably would sell better in Europe and Asia.
If Rafale was a true 5th generation jet, it would still not sell any jets to Europe and it’s Asian prospects wouldn’t be much better either (limited to Malaysia).
Sign In
