Spitfire9F-35 spending will be minor in his term, & overall is pretty small beer in comparison to overhauling the tax collection system, the absurdly generous pensions of state employees (you could save more than the entire military budget there), selling off mismanaged state firms such as Alitalia, abolishing the restrictive practices & monopolies which hold back the economy, etc. – i.e. what he says he thinks need to be done.
I once worked briefly in Italy and reading the paper saw that it was estimated that perhaps 50% of VAT (sales tax) due was not being collected! Agreed, a lot needs to change in Italy to get its finances to be run realistically. Britain, whose position is nowhere as bad (government debt which was about 40% of GBP rose to about 60% of GDB due to rescuing the British banking sector), axed its naval fixed wing capability, Nimrod and reduced planned F-35 orders. Italy (with government debt at about 120% of GBP) can be expected to wield the axe too IMO. Buying 60+ F-35A does not seem a priority when the country has Typhoon and Tornado in service. Just extend the time the Tornados are used. Easy way of saving $US 7/8/9 billion.
Spitfire9I think what you want to say is F-35 numbers cut (or entire program is cut).. AF meets needs by updating F-15s right?
I see it as a manoeuvre to give the US the option to cut F-35 numbers without reducing USAF fighter numbers as severely as they would have been. Look what happened to F-22 numbers.
The last para in the article:
Preserving and upgrading the F-15 fleet would mark a sharp departure in USAF plans. Less than two years ago, Lockheed Martin officials talked openly of replacing the F-15E with the F-35A Lightning II.
It was the politicians who cut F-22 to pieces, wasn’t it? They don’t like programs that spiral out of control.
There is another angle – it might be old but F-15 is still a formidable fighter. If upgrades made it significantly better, it might be a better fighter than F-35.
Spitfire9Maybe instead of writing “one hour” he could write “two hours”? Can’t see the plot falling apart because a journey takes 2 people 120 minutes rather than 60 minutes.
Then he could choose what suited best – F-15, F-16, F-18.
Spitfire9Hahahahahahaha. Obama won’t commit political suicide.
I wasn’t thinking of the good ol’ US of A´s F-35’s being cancelled by the Italian government. 😀 Just thinking that Italy might cancel its own F-35’s. The new administration – there to get Italy out of a desperate national debt hole – may well take the view that Italy already has a fighter/bomber and can therefore cancel any planned procurement of F-35’s.
Spitfire9Actually, local assemby and some TOT has been granted to some of the partners(like the UK). Basically the more funding and orders you contribute to the project, the more you get. India stood to get a fair bit bit had it committed to the programme.
Some have argued that the MMRCA circus was pointless when we can just buy a fifth-generation medium fighter that will join us in nearly the same timeframe.
Well, if AMCA gets delayed some 10-15 years down the line we may see an F-MRCA between the F-35, the Silent Eagle and whatever South Korea manages to put on the table.:D
TOT – don’t make me laugh. The Brits had an admiral stand up in the USA Congress and threaten to pull out of F-35 because of US refusal to co-operate on TOT. And Britain is the only Tier 1 partner, building more or less the rear half of the aircraft, so what hope would India have of getting TOT?
By the way, I believe that Italy is to be the second F-35 line, not the UK.
Spitfire9Thanks Twinblade and EELightning.
Sounds like if Typhoon is selected the HAL line will be running to 2022+ so India would end up having the world’s only Typhoon production line, all others having shut down. That would be quite interesting eg Spain decides to order more Typhoons in 2019 and they have to come from India! Or in 2021 Blablaland in BAE’s marketing area orders 50 with assembly in India rather than UK. 🙂
Spitfire9Berlusconi spending a few million of his personal billions (he was the richest man in Italy before he went into politics) is irrelevant.
Italy has budgeted for F-35B, & plans to buy over 50, plus >70 F-35A. The numbers may be reduced, or purchases delayed.
Neither Spain nor Italy has cut military procurement to zero because of the economic crisis, nor will they.
IIRC Italy has to redeem a lot of bonds next year (don’t recall if it was $100 billion or $200 billion) and at the moment (I hear there is likely only $90 billion available to borrow from the European fund) the only way they could do this would be to offer more bonds which would be bought at a suicidally high notional interest rate. If there is a financial meltdown in Italy, anything and everything could happen to defence procurement programs. F-35 could be cancelled altogether.
Bear in mind also that Italy is now being run not by politicians who need to get re-elected but by technocrats. They will do whatever they consider to be best in Italy’s financial interests. Should they procure extra funding, the lenders may impose draconian conditions re: government spending. Defence is a prime target, I imagine.
Spitfire9Out of curiosity, anyone have any idea over how many years India would want the 126 MMRCA’s to be delivered?
Eurofighter should be able to deliver the initial 18 quite quickly (diversion from partner countries).
If Dassault’s line is capable of producing 30 per annum – 19 more than the current level, they should be able to increase production to deliver the initial 18 without great problems.
How long would it take HAL to set up a line and start assembling frames 19 onwards? With the experience gained through Tejas, would it take long?
Would we see 18 frames being delivered from Europe then a pause until the first HAL-built aircraft emerged from their line?
Spitfire9I don’t understand why they even try – with MMRCA selection soon to be announced, FGFA already selected, AMCA. F-35 brings no local assembly or TOT and nobody knows what it will cost.
Spitfire9There is still a question mark behind every planned capability. Maybe you should look at the roadmap for Tiffy development/weapons integration from 2001.
All vaporware ! I don’t believe in the marketing bullsh!t from Eurofighter anymore.
Remember the Sigaporean competition ? Now compare what Eurofighter promised, and what actually materialized.
With that non-performance in mind, I don’t share your optimism.
Yes I remember the Singapore competition. It was a few years ago and IIRC Typhoon’s A2G capability was restricted to dumb bombs. A few years later, things have changed – now it’s not just dumb bombs, it’s a heavy LGB bomb, too! 🙂 And one you cannot use in some situations due to the the blast it creates.:mad:
Typhoon’s current A2G capability is pathetic compared with Rafale, Gripen, F/A-18 etc. The so called austere A2G capability is just that to me – almost as close as you can get to nothing as is possible.
But… that is being addressed now. Years too late, agreed, but it is happening. If India wanted to form squadrons of MMRCA next year, Typhoon would be seriously inadequate but India does not want aircraft next year. 2015 is still more than 1000 days away so it does not seem unlikely that Brimstone, smaller Paveways and Storm Shadow can be integrated in that time.
Spitfire9well all the business talk is nice, but what I’ve said was what apparently came out in this situation: dassault having a contract with the french state for the development of the aircraft (back in the ’80s) which required them “dassault” to finance 25% of development on their own, investment they’d be able to recover from exports (no extra charging the french forces to get that money back, basically)
that is what seems to be their point over the price of their last proposal (150 million per airframe) and under which they don’t seem to be willing to go (obviously estimating that getting less money back isn’t worth it
are they right or wrong?
I guess that they still have some competence to judge whether it is worth or not, with all the data at their disposal. one shouldn’t forget that until now, dassault’s benefits come from falcon assebly line, not rafales or mirages’ support. Unless you sell several thousand fighters (like the f-16for example), you’ll have hard time getting billions of dollars of benefit over spares and maintainance
OK, Dassault have the data. It does not mean they know best what to do though.
UAE: to me, it sounds finished.
India: supposing Dassault have raised the MMRCA bid price to allow for Rafale development cost recovery but do not win, will they then raise the price to Brazil to try to recover a large proportion of development costs?
Brazil: if price makes them uncompetitive against eg F/A-18 and they lose Brazil for that reason, do they then try to recover a large proportion of development costs with the next possible buyer?
If they price too high and as a consequence lose each time, they recover none of the Rafale development costs and will additionally lose all the profit they would have made on the deals they could have gained.
Spitfire9Please, does anyone know when the integration of the following is scheduled for completion?
Brimstone
Storm Shadow
Smaller Paveways
Taurus
Meteor
Thanks for any info.
Spitfire9As for the local assembly will they be able to ramp up their production to deliver the first 18 planes in time then setup production facilities in india etc.
A year or so ago someone French told me on this forum that Dassault had quite a few staff cross trained on assembling Falcon (I presume) and Rafale, so increasing the assembly rate was not so difficult. I understand that the current line is operating below capacity as it is, so perhaps they can increase the rate fairly easily (component supply allowing) to assemble 18 extra aircraft 2012-2015.
Spitfire9Apparently, the UAE is expecting the French Gov. and dassault to pay 2 billion euros for upgrades the French air force most likely will not use on their airplanes, on top of that they expect the Dassault to pay allot of money for the Mirages which so far has not managed to attract any buyers due to a stiff price, the French are clear that that’s not going to happen…
I seriously doubt that anybody outside of the US can give a better offer at the moment. I believe that there would be better to keep the Mirages then to buy the Typhoon…
A buyer has a maximum price he will accept; a seller has a minimum price he is prepared to accept. The perfect salesman negotiates the highest price the buyer is prepared to accept; the perfect buyer negotiates the lowest price the seller is prepared to accept. In this case it looks like there is no room for negotiation leading to a deal.
If Eurofighter’s minimum price is above the maximum UAE is prepared to pay, the RFP is just a waste of time for all concerned. No deal there either. However, if Eurofighter does do a deal, that would suggest that they are prepared to accept a lower profit margin than Dassault.
Spitfire9am more worried about Dassault and their ability to meet offsets, local assembly etc. if the Rafale gets selected.
Why are offsets a problem for Dassault if they do not appear to be a problem for Eurofighter? I ask because I have no idea.
I forget how many more Rafales are outstanding for French forces but I think it is less than 100, so winning MMRCA would mean more than doubling the amount of production work currently available. In simple terms, handing the equivalent of 50% of Rafale production work to India + assembly of all but the first 18 frames would leave Dassault with much more work than now.
Again, what problem would a local assembly line cause Dassault?
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