I have never been a fan of the US involvement in Syria. I am pretty sure I have said that over the years.

Apologies then.

I get the sense from some of the French contributors that Rafale is too good to need replacing within the next 20years.

Surely if the older airframes are not worth upgrading by 2030, something else must replace them? I dont want to get into a debate over whether Rafale can cut it in 20 years time,

I wonder what will be left to defend in 20 years time. Might as well save the money and spend it on even more socialism. After all there are still 44% of the GDP that aren’t siphoned by the leviathan.

but I am confused why there is always a lack of enthusiasm from you guys when it comes to future projects?

I had the same reaction to questions about how FCAS was viewed in France (excepting halloweene here), but it seems there is now a grudging acceptance that FCAS might have a role to play…

Lack of enthusiasm for projects in cooperation which are aimed at killing the local industry? How is that surprising exactly? The fact that European countries couldn’t develop a fighter or a drone alone (which is completely false as evidenced by the example of the Rafale, which turned out cheaper than the 4 partners’ Typhoon) would only mean that we are broke and that we need to fix our economic & political system, not that we need to find other ways to develop weapons that always force you to cut into your independence & sovereignty, & which lowers your industry base.

The logical step when your politicians ruin your country is NOT to attack your industrial base even more by forcing them to compromise with others, share knowledge and lose key competences, but oust the criminals & install someone who could adopt coherent economics policies instead.

Nic

So in other words the russians won’t shoot down a US fighter because they aren’t dumb enough, while the americans are definitely stupid enough to shoot down Syrian/Russian jets?

Those argentinian birds are very very interesting, I wasn’t aware of this revolution and google isn’t helping. It sounds very much like the war of the Cristeiros in Mexico.

Nic

Airbus -> Deutschland/España, Dassault -> France, Saab -> Sverige.

European defence industry should consolidate. They should arrange a 3-way competition between Airbus, Saab and Dassault for the future fighter; and do similar competition for other main weapons systems, e.g., future main battle tank. Europe is not big enough to support so many independent vendors.

Complete ********.

If you do that you kill the other two bidders that don’t get chosen and the corresponding skill set in the corresponding countries. Each of those firms should develop their design and compete to sell them to different countries. Anything else is pure communism.

Nice Mig28U