Wrong argument. It’s not whether they relied on us, but whether we relied on them. Consider Ireland & its trade flows . . .

Continent-spanning pipelines cross our neighbours. Air freight is economically viable only for lightweight, high-value items, & that isn’t going to change.

The balance between long-distance waterborne freight & short distance overland freight is less favourable to the former than ever before. We no longer rely on horses hauling carts over unmade roads from the nearest port, or even railway. Nor do we rely on transhipping by hand at every interchange. Containerisation, ro-ro ferries, & the Channel tunnel have vastly reduced the cost & time of getting goods from other European countries. How many US-registered lorries do you see on our roads?

And yet 95% of our trade still comes in by sea, as is so often quoted in the arguments for a strong Navy. 1 container ship is the equivalent of hundreds, if not thousands, of lorries. I personally see a move away from road transport good as well as these climate change policies and oil prices begin to hit home.

And just because pipes cross our neighbours doesn’t mean we should be forced to trade with them any more than a ship crossing their territorial waters should. But again, i’m not arguing against trading with our neighbours, i’m saying it’s not essential and more importantly, that they shouldn’t be forcing external government on us.

Oh indeed. I reckon it could be a way out for several nations juggling budgets, the UK and Dutch could expand on their Amphib but allow other capabilities to whither and while other nations will maintain ISTAR the UK could maintain and expand its gold standard. No-one else has ASTOR, our ELINT is seen as a leader. We are good at Comms and signals in general so we could provide that service to an EU force. The idea is that UK forces are the specialists you have to have on board in order to ‘ensure’ victory. The UK provides the ‘entry’ force with 3Cdo and then supports the bulk continental armies with recce, SF etc. Gives the UK a big say in events.

Also means we get to have all the cool toys…:D

So what capabilities would you propose Britain lets wither for budget’s sake? And what then happens if we need them to fight a war our EU peers don’t approve of or at least feel they don’t need to contribute to themselves? We go without the capability or worse we have to alter our foreign policy and concede.

And that deperately unfair advantage of proximity…..’Europe’ has been our chief trading partner since the end of the last ice age, not sure EU trade laws have changed much about where most of our trade comes and goes to and from. To be sure its helped, but Europe is our natural business partner.

Actually the empire was much more significant for a large proportion of the last couple of hundred years. Right up until 1973 Australia and NZ both relied on the UK almost totally for trade.

And you’ll find that in the modern world a nation 23 miles away and a nation 2300 miles away makes little difference when it comes to trade. We have air freight, supertankers and pipelines spanning continents. If anything, we could be less tied to Europe now if we wanted than almost any other time in history. I’m not suggesting we should, trade with Europe is a good thing, but why should we have to tie ourselves in to other aspects of cooperation to achieve that. My main gripe with the EU is that it demands this subservience in almost all aspects of government that should be the sole preserve of the nation state in order to get into the trade club. No other trade bloc tries that.

To the USA, we are, & always will be, an auxiliary. That is, a subordinate, a useful assistant.

We have choices in how we structure our forces. We can build the forces the USA would like us to have, i.e. optimised to assist the US forces, but capable of very little independent action. We can build forces capable of a full range of action, but scaled to our budget. Or we can build forces designed to complement those of more or less equal allies, with any dependence on them balanced by their dependence on us.

The first is to permanently accept a considerable loss of independence. The second is my preferred option, but I fear that there is no longer the political will in this country to spend enough for independent action on the scale our politicians wish to act. i.e., politicians want to be able to do things, but not pay the price of being able to do them independently. They’re also unwilling to seek to build complementary capabilities with allies, leaving us dependent on the US for some capabilities. This is OK as long as the USA wants to do the same things as our politicians . . . .

So, what do you prefer? Obedient servants? Proud but expensive independence? Or a fractious, but equal, alliance of peers? I put ‘obedient servants’ last, by a long way.

BTW, in economic terms, our interests are very closely tied to our immediate neighbours, & far less to the USA.

A fair point, and i’d agree option 2 is the best.

I would argue that an alliance of peers shouldn’t really be used to describe our European neighbours though. The French are the only ones in that group i’d suggest. The Germans are lacking many of the most important high end capabilities and will not seek them for itself, nor does it have anywhere near the political will of France and the UK to deploy and fight. Italy and perhaps Spain are a little better and maybe deserve to be in the peer or near peer section, as does Sweden perhaps if it expands its expeditionary capabilities. The larger Eastern members like Poland show promise, but their forces need considerable modernisation and expansion in certain capabilities. Most of the smaller nations like Belgium, Luxembourg don’t really care, they have no need to worry about defence. There are one or 2 anomalies like Denmark and possibly the Dutch, small but scrappy. The smaller and poorer Eastern members have massive defence issues and have to think about any possible issues with their overbearing ex to the East before any other defence commitments. Then you have the point-blank neutral attitudes of Ireland

I know it’s a sweeping generalisation, but let’s be honest, the EU is not a military alliance and I wouldn’t want to commit Britain to relying on it for defence issues. I’d much rather see bilateral, or multilateral pacts and co-ordination with France and maybe a few of the others I mentioned, but with the ability to act independently wherever we need to, such as defending our overseas territories.

If the budget isn’t enough to do that, then the argument shouldn’t be about what we cut, it should be either what foreign policy changes does the government need to make or how much we’re going to raise the budget by. Defence of the Realm is meant to be the number one priority of a government, when did the UK forget that?

/rant.

it occurs to me that there is a requirement to replace the GR4 in this timeframe (FOAS as was), for which a lot of work has already been done.

Please remind me though (i’ve been out things for a year or two), is this manned, unmanned, a mix of types or on ice at the moment?

Replica was optimised for a2g wasn’t it? afterall it drew on work for the failed BAE MDD JAST/JSF bid.

Adding an excellent avionics and engine package (Typhoon) into a stealthy frame may already have been done…?

Update me please…:o

The current plan I think is for a Taranis derivative to take the GR4’s place. They made the progression from FOAS (mix of manned and unmanned systems, (non)/penetrating) to the US J-UCAS program which also got cancelled, then to Taranis being given the go.

Well, I wasn’t actually thinking about partnership when I made that post. What I meant is to merge all european aircraft companies under airbus military. In that case it will be more efficient and competitive. Joint projects, even if there are only 2 partners, are doomed to delay.

Airbus military hasn’t exactly been a model for efficiency and competitiveness has it? It also means certain national governments have too much influence (and too much invested in, so they themselves can be pushed about by the company). What we don’t need is a defence monopoly, it’d give all the power to EADS. That is one of the basic principles of capitalism.

Not if requirements are put by a NATO-like organisation. It is what EU needs, military alliance independent of NATO.

the eu benifits as a whole with decent defense, it seems reasonable they all put in an equal share of gdp to defense and in particular, a 5/6 gen plane and it be run by an eu team rather than a couple of countries trying to keep everything in their backyard

That is not what most people in the EU want. But then most people don’t even want to be in the EU (in my country at least), but then we don’t have a choice, the EU doesn’t believe in democracy. And can an EU team decide what is best for national defence? No, because the EU is not a single nation.

It has one, & it’s existed longer than NATO – the WEU. It has now more or less been subsumed into the EU organisationally.

http://www.weu.int/

From the treaty –

NATO could be dissolved tomorrow. We’d still be in a military alliance with France, Germany, Italy etc.

I wouldn’t mind something like that for collective defence, several relative peers all contributing equally to security and defence. If it was EU wide their would be a lot of “make France and the UK do it, they’re the military powers” I think. Expeditionary ops are where it falls apart, just as NATO is cracking under the pressure of Afghanistan. Certain European countries are happy to play ball when their defence is directly threatened, but when it isn’t, that joint solidarity can melt away.

i think a united eu is needed and a pool of money collected with profit offsets from those doing the work back to observers
one or 2 countries arent going to be able to generate the funds needed to develop a decent 5/6 gen plane

As I said, in a time of need they would be able to make the money available. If for example the UK and France went together, you’re talking about countries with larger economies than Russia on their own, let alone together.

With the whole EU involved lots of nations will want specific things and workshares. It doesn’t work very efficiently. I think the absolute limit should be 4 nations who decide on very similar aims before the start of the project.

The whole EU pool would only work if nations agreed to one set of aims and to let work go to the most experienced and ready to do the work. That wouldn’t happen. EU-wide projects usually only work well if one nations puts forward a requirement and aim they think others might want then go into the project together, signing up for a stated set of goals, rather than allowing new partners to add requirements.

Does Europe need 5th gen fighter? Yes thats why some of them buy F-35 but developing a european 5th gen fighter is harder than it seem. First problem is France in many cases they dont want to be part of big european arm projects e.g. eurofighter. When they are part of a project, that project is somehow messed up e.g. A400M. (I am not saying it is because of France but it is interesting that it happens when they are part of a project)

Hey, could you put the parts of this post I didn’t quote into PM, that’s where the off topic discussions have moved (hopefully).

You make an interesting point. France does collaborate, there are plenty of joint projects out their with French involvement, but they’re mainly 1 or 2 partners (CT40 turret, FREMM etc). Avoiding the large projects is sensible because they end up with too many cooks spoiling the broth. They also like to protect bits of their industry so they go it alone (e.g Rafale).

If Europe, or bits of it, did need a 5th gen solution, i’d like to see it developed by one or 2 nations, such as the UK and Sweden, or France. All have considerable skills that could be useful

It’s not just these three aircraft. Check your sources before accusing other people of ignorance. There is also the F-117, the PAK-FA and all stealth oriented UCAVs: X-47B, Scat…

So, no stealth fighters, bombers and UCAVs till this day have canards. You say it’s a coincidence, I say it’s a fact.

That still doesn’t make it fact. Imagine if in the early days of aviation someone had looked at all currently flying aircraft and realised they all had propellers, thus meaning all must always have propellers and that the idea of any other idea by that reasoning was impossible. I guess the jet engine wouldn’t have happened.

Geeez, I was not aware that the B-2 or the PAK FA were built by Lockheed. Thank you so much for bringing that to this forum’s attention.

Feel free to continue asking for facts after this, it’s very funny 😀

I was taking the mick, making a light hearted summing up of what you did. I didn’t seriously mean that LM is the only stealth aircraft manufacturer.

Is it? Do you have a pic to prove it? A real pic not an artist’s impression. I mean start backing your views with facts instead of fantasies.

No I don’t, but all the impressions and models have shown it as such, which suggests it will be designed with Canards. To argue that it won’t because I cant produce a flying prototype with them on doesn’t make it untrue, especially since the design has been set and models brought out based on the finalised design.

I see you are yet to produce any source to show that Canards make an aircraft inherently unstealthy. I doubt you can. It may also be or have been true in the past, but isn’t necessarily the case now. Again, electronics, materials and techniques are still progressing.

Don’t argue for the sake of it, you believe that Canards are unstealthy, I think you may be mistaken, but really replied to point out that some of your arguments didn’t back up what you were saying or can’t be claimed as fact.