This is merely a skills preservation program, an exercise intended to give European fighter jet engineers something to do.

I don’t think you will see NEURON in production.

I think we will; there is no manned program in the offing for at least another decade (to be fielded a decade after that) and France and the UK, at least, are not yet ready to relinquish the last vestiges of imperial power.

…and I like how you want to insist Europe has developed capabilities that it has not.

I’ve insisted on no such thing. But thanks for proving my point. /ignore

The attack helicopter will still have its place on the battle field like seahawk pointed out. But I think helicopters like Lynx wildcat are the way forward as it will be able to carry two 7 round launchers of the new Thales LMM plus up to 8 troops it could also take under slung load giving the battle field commander more options.

Indeed; as much as I think the Tiger ARH was the best attack helicopter for Australia, I’m not convinced that something like the ‘Armed Aerial Scout’ version of the UH-72/EC145 wouldn’t have been a better choice, offering the same needed capabilities with greatly improved flexibility.

My comment was about how people perceive China, not about nEUROn. Obviously vague similarity does not equate to copying (else Typhoon/Rafale/Gripen/J-10 would all be copies of one another) yet when its a Chinese platform that’s vaguely similar to something fielded in the west, watch the accusations fly. 😉

But yes as such the comment was somewhat off-topic. My apologies.

Four of the far away biggest militaries investing in the type is a seal of approval as far as I am concerned.

“Of course battleships are still king: everyone is building them!”

No comment on this specific question, but this line of argument vexes me. Truth is, we’re in all-but-unknown waters when it comes to modern peer conflict scenarios. Come the next major conflict, about the only thing we can be sure of is that certain assumptions — no telling which ones — around which much is presently invested will turn out to be wrong.

The SH has one win with Australia […]
It is absolutely a win.

Rubbish. The reasons Super Hornet was chosen have absolutely nothing to do with its capability relative to its contemporaries, including its American contemporaries. Super Hornet was chosen because it was —

1. The only aircraft in production for the US military at the time, thereby allowing a quick/simple order siphoned directly from the American production stream, much as the C-17s were.

2. The cheapest aircraft available that could even half stand in for the F-111. And the emphasis is on cheap — it’s no coincidence that Super Hornet arrives just as Australian defence spending hits its lowest ebb (1.6% GDP) since pre-WW2.

3. An American aircraft, where the requirement for an ‘interim’ platform was necessitated by delays in JSF; going elsewhere might’ve been seen to indicate Australian displeasure with the situation. Given that Australia’s relationship to Washington is that of a prostrate vassal, this is the last thing Canberra would’ve wanted.

4. An easy transition from the in-service Hornet platform.

And of course, given that it was intended as a merely interim replacement for a purely A2G aircraft, its shortcomings in the A2A regime were irrelevant — which is not the case in a more generalist assessment, as the Indian MMRCA result clearly demonstrates, and which all future competitive evaluations will continue to demonstrate.

It is a combination of a misunderstanding of how air combat works, and just general anti-American sentiment.

Ah yes, the US military with its vast experience of modern air combat. :rolleyes:

Meanwhile everyone else (Russia, China, India) — and the American Raptor office — seems to have different ideas, based on exactly the same amount of real-world experience. Why is it that we should credit this newfound American scorn for kinematic performance over these others, exactly? Particularly when we know that the reasons SH/JSF turned out as they did had nothing to do with an active disregard for such qualities but rather were constraints imposed by broader circumstances in which the platforms were developed?

Also, I love how advocating F-15AU over Super Hornet = anti-American sentiment.

OK then I’ll bite, why didn’t they buy anything else? There were plenty of other options available at relatively short notice from multiple sources. They could of had F-15E, F-16 Block 50/52, Rafale and Typhoon yet when it came to the crunch they went for Super Hornet.

Super Hornet was the cheapest aircraft available that could even vaguely gesture at being a replacement for the F-111. Should they have gone for an advanced F-15E variant instead as Singapore did? Yes. But then Singapore wasn’t buying ‘interim’ aircraft or searching for the cheapest possible option.

Nobody can look at how and why Australia came to operate Super Hornet and conclude that the acquisition is a roaring endorsement of the capabilities of the platform relative to its contemporaries.