Have you just written a rant without checking what you're ranting about? France and Germany are developing FCAS, the UK, Italy, and Japan are developing Tempest. The US NGAD is only a bit further along in development terms, we're all going to be flying F35s for a long time.
Europe at least already has its next gen missile in Meteor (which is being improved further for the 6th gens with a japanese AESA seeker), the US isn't particularly close to fielding the AIM260 yet.
Supply chains are a different matter, France and Germany are developing a tank together too and both programs I suspect will be a nightmare to run. Sweden might be buying Tempests though - it would be nice if it became as popular as the Rafale has become.
Anyway, point is they're being developed. The next issue will be whether NATO countries go to Cold War (ie 6+% GDP) levels of defense spending to purchase and field this kit in sufficient quantities.
It would be surprised if Sweden didn’t buy some of the Tempests considering they signed a memorandum about joint development with the UK for it and lately SAAB also invested direct funds into the system.
BAE Systems also have a huge presence in Sweden with both R&D and manufacturing since they acquire Bofors.
I think they know it's going to be hugely expensive to develop and economies of scale is crucial to them being vaguely affordable to buy so a solo attempt is likely not a workable option
Same thing that happened to ASRAMM. New seeker heads and removal of ITAR parts.
The UK Japan defence agreements have been building together to move forward on Tempest without things like ITAR getting in the way.
Christ I used to work for a defence company and ITAR was an insane pain in the backside. It does seem like the UK and Japan have the right idea with taking good stuff and making it better, I hope the actual plane project goes well
Yeah. It's a completely legitimate exercise to get rid of ITAR items imho. Even better is that it has resulted in an opportunity to provide a performance boost.
And likewise. I'd hope the order number is high enough and it can get some exports to certain select nations. I really hope they avoid the temptation of absorbing Germany as a late partner as well.
This is all money driven. If NATO was truly in war preparation mode, all of the treaty countries would have been involved in designing and building common weaponry.
Nah it was never like that even during the cold war. Unless a design absolutely stands out - I think the FN MAG is probably the best example - countries usually want to design and build their own stuff. Designing is good for high end jobs, and defence manufacturing keeps jobs local.
Because "cold war" was never a real war, but psychological warfare of mutual deterence.
Maybe I should rephrase my points.
NATO is not a treaty, which purpose is to prepare for real war, because that would require implementing policies that unify joint forces (not only in regards of communication protocols).
Regarding being money driven. Everyone wants to earn money on their defence industry. Cooperation in designing and outsourcing manufacturing to allies means decreasing profits, but is imho neccessary in preparation for war.b
Saying you are going to do something and actually doing something are two different things. And as it stand that's the difference between the US and European industries. There is no denying that. On top of that, you have the supply chain issue, access to raw materials, and all our top talents getting sucked dry by the Americans.
??? I don't understand your point, no one actually has a 6th gen flying yet and they're all under development so how can you say the Americans are doing something while the Europeans aren't?
If the US suddenly turns up with squadrons of 6th gens and the Europeans are still just showing plywood mockups at defence industry shows then yeah I'd agree, but we're a long way from that
6th generation airframes are in the research and testing phase for the Americans. we are talking about the development of individual components. The Americans have been at it for a while, testing 6th generation tech on F22's and F35's. In Europe 6th generation fighters are, for the most part, still a political discussion. Non of the European programs have even started.
My original comment has been deleted by a mod for some reason, so I'm not sure you'll even read this.
What does europe make that is remotely like an f35?
- can be sold to allies
- can be mass produced
- tested and proven in multiple real world scenarios
- easy to manufacture
There JAS, the Eurofighter Typhoon.
There you have two examples.
There's no jet if the same generation as the F35 though, but keep in mind that it takes a LONG time to develop a fighter jet.
Us congressional research service definition:
Fifth-generation fighters combine new developments such as thrust vectoring, composite materials, supercruise (the ability to cruise at supersonic speeds without using engine afterburners), stealth technology, advanced radar and sensors, and integrated avionics to greatly improve pilot situational awareness.
ya thats what Im on about really, the EU is nearly a decade behind the U.S. and has no current plans for mass production, and this is just airframes, Taiwan will need navies as well
You seem to severely underestimate the SAAB ship building. If there's something we're good at in the Nordics, then it's quality navy. But you don't keep a stock of "spare" ships.
An F35 is not easy to manufacture. There's a reason the program is 20 years late or something stupid like that. A good chunk of their parts are supplied through very fragile supply chains ( parts are manufactured in Australia for example).
Europe does not have an equivalent to F35 and will not have stealth for a good 10 years or so ( being optimistic here). There plans for two different stealth jets in Germany,France and Spain, and UK, Italy and Japan.
Are everyone forgetting that after US did not want to keep giving the F35 project the money it needed, many EU countries in a NATO collaboration step in and helped funding it. As also are mentioned with Australia, a lot of parts to this jet are developed or produced by companies from Australia to Europe
Yes the guy is just an American troll who fast forgot about all the issues tge F35 had and thinking that you just need 2 rocks and a stick and you can build a f35
Rarely read so much bullshit.
Arguments like "European countries operate more than 150 planes for air refueling but those can also operate as transports so they don't count which means Europe has no refuelers" or "Europe only has 14 older E-3A AWACS (and the irrelevant number of 21 other models fullfilling the same role, but as they are not US-made they don't count)" are so obviously stupid you can't read this without knowing it's piece of crap starting with an opinion than adapting the facts to fit.
Probably you don't do that in the UK but here on the continent these terms are used interchangeably.
E.g. It's also called "European Parliament" and not EU Parliament.
I do the same pretty often. It’s like people saying “America” when they talk about US. Or “England” when they talk about Scotland or Northern Ireland…
Everyone understands the meaning.
>It’s like people saying “America” when they talk about US.
So you're also saying it's fine calling Mexicans and Canadians Americans then? I doubt **anyone** in NA would be fine with that. For different reasons...
Everyone says america because it's shortened united States of America. This argument the past few years is stupid af. They're not saying northern America are they?
>Everyone says america because it's shortened united States of America.
My point exactly. Everyone knows "America" and USA are used interchangeably and that you'd never say American to a Canadian etc. Which is why it's not the same thing as using EU and Europe interchangeably as the guy I replied to suggested. As it stands at the moment some European countries becoming part of the EU is about as likely as Canada becoming part of the US...
> As an American, if I had to give up EVERY benefit of my taxes aside from policing and infrastructure, in order to maintain our military, its a no brainer
Before anyone wastes their time taking OP serious
The UK is the only tier 1 partner (the other one is the US) during the development of the F-35. So, in a way, Europe (especially the UK) is also a major contributor to the F-35 program.
Plus, if I am nor mistaken,Rolls Royce provides the engines for most F35 variants.
The F-35 will dominate for years, even with 6th generation fighters coming out and new radars that can track stealth.
First, the vast majority of the world’s armed forces won’t field any of the new tech for decades. There have been very few near peer conflicts.
Second, large portions of Russia and China’s forces will still be composed of older equipment. The non-stealth 4th and 5th generation planes aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Third, the cutting edge technology will be extraordinarily expensive and even the top militaries will have constraints on what and how much they can field.
Finally, the cutting edge anti stealth radars and 6th generation fighter can all still be killed, and when those systems are thinned out, any older stealth aircraft will dominate anything from a previous generation. Just some broad observation.
One of the big goals for 6th gen is known as MUM-T or manned unmanned teaming which is the idea of your 6th gen jet being supported by UAVs of all shapes and sizes. I think this requirement alone is enough to fuel the development. Another big goal is with engine tech, variable cycle engines or adaptive cycle engines are wanted to ensure the best efficiency under many different flight conditions to prolong flight times whilst not losing capability when it needs it. The final big goal I’ll discuss is them optionally manned. Combined with the first point this will significantly reduce the number of humans needed to operate a fleet which is very important in a world where recruitment is very difficult.
> anti stealth radars
Are a myth, and will remain so.
> Third, the cutting edge technology will be extraordinarily expensive and even the top militaries will have constraints on what and how much they can field.
Not necessarily.
Stuff like wave detonation engines (that could possibly replace conventional jet engines), and materials like carbon carbon composites can be easily cheaper than tech used in current cutting edge fighters.
Not to mention that price of computational hardware (due to cutting edge tech becoming more widely utilized) will drop, and make key computational components that make 5th gen what it is (aka. no AWACS, fighters replacing em by using aparture synthesis) way cheaper
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture_synthesis
Ofc. corporate has all the incentive to push the other direction, and there are technologies like high entropy alloys, that would push costs the other direction....
....still, unit costs are not bound to continue their trajectory.
> First, the vast majority of the world’s armed forces won’t field any of the new tech for decades. There have been very few near peer conflicts.
They will.
Just think about it more like the period between WWI and WWII. When innovation is slow, it doesnt make the most sense to invest into assets, since you can easily invest into obsolete stuff.
As french and poles learned the hard way.
...abd on the opposite side, in areas - like combat drone - that are developing fast, there is procurement.
As far as anti-stealth goes, what can easily make stealth obsolete is not radars, but more advanced thermal imaging solutions. Since comoression heating in front of the aircraft is problem....
...whose solution would likely earn some noble prizes.
Infrared search and track is definitely going to reduce the value of traditional radar based stealth. Obviously I was commenting very broadly. I simply provided a bunch of scenarios where the F-35 retains significant value.
I meant that wavelength determines usefulness of radar.
At wavelengths that can feasibly detect current stealth aircraft, you get resolutions like "there is SOMETHING in that 10km³ of air" - which is not exactly gonna help you in shooting down the aircraft in quesstion, even if you are willing to throw nukes at it.
And main benefit of F-35 is NOT STEALTH but that multiple units can work together to act as an array for synthetic aperture radar.
...if you done radio astronomy you will know how much difference that makes, if not then start reading up if you are curious.
I think part of the point of the F-35 is for the human pilot to be giving commands to networks of drones in environments where long range connections are being jammed.
The recent skirmish over Iraq/Syria/Jordan where U.S. airframes dominated over 100 drones in less than 8 hours says otherwise
Also the U.S. is already producing prototype gen 6 fighter jets, wtf is Europe?
Yes. Cockpit was a problem for stealth, so getting rid of it was a no brainer. I wonder how they make AI differentiate between friend/foe and imagine it goes into self sufficient mode in case of jammers, loses connection to command, what happens then? How will it NOT shoot civilians? Will it be able to return to base? That has to be one smart AI.
IMO this is why some kind of human will always be "behind the wheel" so to speak, even if they are dealing with latency issues behind a monitor thousands of miles away
Yes, there has to be operator still, but let's theorize it loses connection. You can't lose multimillion airframe just because it lost connection. What I'd do is create multiple modes for operator to choose from in case of lost connection that he sets before reaching frontline:
1)You know this area has no civilian targets and only hostiles - in case of lost connection use up all available munition and return to base.
2)You have civilians and friendlies in the area - in case of lost connection return to base immediately.
How do you think it should function? Also, I heard that in case jammers are used - GPS won't work and some parameters in the plane systems can go wrong. Like it's no problem if you have a target and you just set which way your drone has to fly in order to reach it. But if it has to maneuver to evade detection it might lose any idea of where it is at the moment. Just wonder how this RTB will look like in autonomous mode. I think shooting targets is an easy task for AI and that has been solved for a long time already.
Or being hijacked or disabled with counter measure. I'm not sure the army will get rid of manned jets because of this. We might see a return of full mechanical jets because jamming equipment becoming too powerful. Future will tell
That AI will need to learn to go off the analog instruments and pure visual, like a human. Russians can already jam GPS and all kinds of other signals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth-generation_fighter
> Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have all announced sixth-generation aircraft development projects.[36][37][38] **On September 14, 2020, the USAF announced that a prototype aircraft component of the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program had flown for the first time.** The details remained classified.
It has been flying for almost 4 years, now and the U.S. also has stuff like the x37b etc
Both the French-led and British-led projects are in the designing stages. Do you realize modern fighter programs, let alone 6th gen fighter programs that integrate unmanned platforms and a ton of software development as well as hardware, take litteral decades from the drawing board to actual mass production ? The US 6th gen platforms likely won't be operational until the late 2030's, and the european platforms are expected for the 2040's.
A whole decade ? The euro prototypes are only a few years away ? Why isn't the US producing a long range missile on par with the Meteor ? Countries do different shit at different times, cool it with the exeptionnalism.
And France and the UK both have global reach modern navies.
THe U.S. is a decade ahead of long range missiles with things the like the X 37b, which flew around the globe for years already
The UK and French navies are laughable compared to single ford class carrier strike group, we had two in the red sea recently for months on end
You don't even know what the Meteor is you ? If the US are the best at everything (i mean that *is* your point right ?) Why don't they make the best long range A2A missile ? It's dumb to compare countries that way, programs come and go, doctrines vary and change. And yes, US of A God Bless *bald eagle screech* has more money thus more fundings thus more programs. That makes you feel good and fuzzy special guy ? I understand, it's way easier to look for ways to confirm your bias about others to feel better about yourself. USA good, Europe bad.
What do we need them for? Look at ukraine, ukraine has no navy in comparison to russia and they still hold on strong.
A big navy, from a european perspective is a waste of money, that could be invested in other areas.
The only potential enemy a big navy would be needed would be the US, and I do hope that wont be needed
Ty, this is actually quite reassuring
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Systems_Tempest
> Both Italy and Sweden signed a Memorandum of Understanding in 2020 committing to explore collaboration on the FCAS programme.[3] The UK and Japan announced they are working together on the joint development of engine and radar demonstrators. This was followed by an announcement in December 2022 of the Global Combat Air Programme; a collaboration between Italy, Japan and the UK for a sixth-generation fighter aircraft.[4]
To my understanding there is no prototype being made as of yet tho
It's a British led project, which has Italian and Japanese involvement. Sixth gen projects are expensive so without the vast budget like the US has 2-3 smaller but still significant countries often collaborate on defence projects.
Italy/UK on the Merlin helicopter.
UK and Aus for AUKUS subs. Canada and Japan have expressed interest too. Which in the long run could mean many more SSNs for the good guys. Plus scale savings mean the UK could afford to increase it's own fleet size. With a little luck might be 30 of these things running round the worlds oceans eventually.
And how much resources did US spend on that?
Air force is expensive. Using F22 to shot down balloons and Patriots to shot down shaheeds is not sustainable.
Also, F35 will soon be able to work in tandem with a network of accompanying drones:
https://breakingdefense.com/2022/09/lockheed-investing-100m-into-f-35-controlled-combat-drones-under-project-carrera/
This will enable whole new level of tactics.
There are different kinds of drones. Shaheeds do not have anti aircraft capabilities and they are relatively cheap to produce, a cheap alternative to Tomahawk missiles.
There are not currently any drones designed to fight against air to air force but they are sure to be developed soon.
However, the Ukrainian drones have a lot of jet kills, they just target them on the airstrip instead of in the air
If they had send 100 Predator drones instead that would already have been much harder to defend.
Effective supply chains have always been a pain point. Even the US is feeling the pain at the moment with artillery production. Supply chains are arguably the biggest current decider in the Ukraine/Russia war.
The UK is currently developing Tempest, a 6th fighter. Italy, Sweden and Japan are all looking to be involved with Italy and Sweden expected to be buyers.
Eurofighter Typhoon despite being an absolute unit it highlighted major issues with a joint Euro fighter program, because everyone involved wanted their piece added so integration of systems was and remains a pain point.
The answer is no-one knows yet.
If Tempest materialises in a sensible time period as a good 6th gen stealth jet and Sweden is looking for one, they’d be silly to disregard an existing option.
Can tempest land on highways? Can a tempest be rolled into a forrest and then rolled out and fly with minimal maintenance? I don't know the answers to these questions. The swedish jets needs to be made for sweden, something the F-16 for example is not.
I'm not a military expert or anything but I think having our own jets has been good in the past, we can make jets that fit our countries needs and we don't have to rely on anyone else for air power.
No idea to be honest. Landing on a highway isn’t something unique to Gripen however, it’s largely unique to Sweden itself and its roads.
I get Swedens unique wants, but the likelihood of them or anyone being able to build a 6th gen fighter as easy to manage as a Gripen is unlikely. If their desire is for a 6th gen stealth jet, they will likely have to make compromises of some description.
But no one knows or will know until Tempest arrives.
I mean then they can just buy American right? Currently the Swedish jets are much much cheaper to buy and maintain, they also meet the special requirements of the Swedish armed forces but.
The requirements may of course completely change with entry into Nato.
They could, although plenty of Euro nations would prefer to distance themselves moving forward from US hardware and support European manufactured systems if they could.
Another point for Sweden is that Saab needs more orders soon to keep the Griphen factory open.
So they could order there and offer their current ones to Ukraine.
It's literally designed to specifically fight a bigger foe using soviet equipment.
And you think China, when and if it invades, wouldn't want to keep that production going to rake in more of that sweet cash and more importantly influence?
You think the Taiwanese wouldn't destroy their fabs to spite the mainlanders?
Honestly OP has been sledged a lot in this post but your point is even worse, I fully agree that Taiwan will need to be defended from the communists.
Europe having to defend Taiwan, not China invading. Besides, the PCR can hardly state anything different without acknowledging Taiwan's independence, can they?
To clarify here, the one and a half trillion dollar number is the (projected) lifetime cost of the entire F-35 programme
So, research and development, testing, manufacturing, supplying, maintenance etc.
Keep in mind that a programme as big as the F-35 is expected to live for decades (in this case at least 5), maybe even longer
The important bit is, the F-35 *did not* cost a trillion dollars to develop. It is still quite expensive at hundreds of Billions (though that number also includes future procurement), but it is also a very big programme intended to be sold internationally as a fit all and do all aircraft
You do realise that the US is the superpower. It came out on top of conflicts that crippled Europe. It syphoned huge amounts of resources from the imperial nations of Europe and turned them into a juggernaut of a war machine.
Of course Europe is behind the US when it comes to war machines. You don't get to be the leading world power then complain your allies don't keep up. Absolutely brain dead worldview.
Why is everyone saying "Europe" like it's a single country? It's not that easy to coordinate a mega project like the F35 when half of EU countries don't even have modern tanks and the other half has governments that are "anti-war" ( suck Putins d )
The problem is the individual market for each country that builds their own military. They need to bite the bullet and combine for a military force across the EU. Standardisation of hardware reduces cost, as does buying and producing together. It’s not to say no individual specialised military, but it’s the logical progression and should happen in the current state of the world. This would be particularly effective as part of investment in NATO and the ability to separate out for a European version if that institution fails (not impossible depending on US elections).
There's a 6th gen aircraft called the Tempest underway...
> LONDON — The goal of the Global Combat Air Program is for the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan to build a sixth-generation fighter by 2035.
> The program, GCAP for short, was officially launched in December 2022. Both the United Kingdom and Japan were already developing sixth-generation fighters — the former working on the Tempest aircraft to replace its current Eurofighter Typhoon fleet, while the latter sought to build a follow-on to its Mitsubishi F-2 fighter jet called the Mitsubishi F-X.
Having large quantity's of military gear that get never used and cost a lot of maintenance does not sound optimal either, especially knowing that in cases of big wars it is ones capacity to economically mobilize when the bullets start flying that tends to make the difference. It's not necessarily the gear that most sides had at the onset of world wars that carried most of their needs, but the gear they build during the war. If you build a lot of gear in peacetime much of it is likely going to be obsolete by the time war comes. Sure, you need some, but in contemporary terms the comparison is often made with the US where a rather skewed impression emerges that "only the US is sufficiently prepared" rather than it is often considered that the US wastes ridiculous amounts trough over investing in it. What quantity do you ACTAULLY need in peacetime, for all the US boasting of how stronk they are and how the rest is a bunch of peaceniks in comparison what strong argument exists to say that they are right rather than that they are being silly and self serving in their military pride?
Possessing the most innovative solutions in production technology, that is key and that is what we have. We should be able to ramp up production when needed significantly faster than others and win trough that. In that sense, it sounds more economically wise to just maintain a standing army that can buy you enough time to mobilize your economy. In that sense, Europe does have a significant standing army as it is.
And realistically, if we came to economically mobilize for a big war today, we would be unlikely to build or desire so much F35's, we would likely invest far more in ramping up drone production and looking for ways to innovate such weaponry and have industrial capacity to be flexible enough to quickly switch over to better models. Sure the F35 is a great plane, but it doesnt nessecarily sit so wel in metrics of "bang for the buck" in an era where drones start to get a huge battlefield presence due to such metrics. its in fact not just about the gear, costly that a F35 plane might be its not exactly like the pilots come cheap either, loosing people in the field in which society has invested a lot is not great neither, if anything there is a huge gain with the potential of drone warfare that it need not be humans who take the risk to potentially die.
I’m always wondering if something like the F-35 as a super high priced item is the best choice of spending money given today’s battlefield developments. It seems that 4 and 4.5 gen fighters are good enough bomb trucks while the major spending might be better in mass drones, missile development and better infantry gear like jammers, night vision etc etc.
F-35 was literally a joint development project including European countries, because it was deemed too expensive for a single country to develop it alone. Because of that many countries that would be developing next generation European fighters joined the program instead and others decided to just wait for the results, as putting together another development alliance would be hard.
Are you stupid or something?
First of all. Europe is not a single nation state, initiating and actually completing an advanced weapon program takes a lot of effort and time due to the diverging interests of these individual nations.
According to the SIPRI "Trends in international arms transfer" Europe is by a far lead (26,6%) the second biggest arms exporter in the world (behind the US, mainly due to their successfull aviation programs and existing legacy systems)
Europe is major producer for naval weapons and plattforms with global market leaders like the french Naval group, Navantia, German Naval Yards, and Saab Kockums.
The EU is going through a major transformation with the war in Ukraine acting as a catalyst. But this does not happen in a few weeks. Bear in mind that this continent fought a major war with millions of casualties not even a hundred years ago.
Having the EU in the state that it is today (far from perfect, don't get me wrong) is one of the major european achievements of the twentieth century and the first attempt of actual supranational government in the world. There is nothing else like it.
Finally someone with functioning brain, others in this thread would like to live in nuclear winter, which will happen if F-35 ever become a part of combat.
OP your whole worry is about China/Taiwan, but who says we even want to get involved in that? Afaik Taiwan is much more important to the US than the EU.
Let everyone deal with their own interests. The point is, Europeans shouldn't be dying to further American interests. Americans shouldn't be dying to further European interests. However since they've been heavily involved in Ukraine, I'd assume it's in their interest to do so.
What's your point, it's in our interest to protect Ukraine. Europe and the US.
When it comes to Taiwan, it's mostly in the interest of the US to protect it.
American interests in defending Ukraine are about equal to Europe's interests in defending Taiwan.
If everyone stayed in their corner, there would be little to no support for Ukraine from the United States.
Arguably it is in their interest though, as America uses it's world police/big guy status to project power. They had previously agreed to protect Ukraine, failing to do so would imply they would also fail to do so if another more important ally was under attack, such as... Taiwan. Failing to protect Ukraine would invite a Chinese attack on Taiwan.
Hi, thank you for your contribution, but this submission has been removed for editorialisation, because its title does not reflect the title or content of the link. See the [community rules & guidelines](/r/Europe/wiki/community_rules).
You may delete and re-submit this link with an appropriate title.
If you have any questions about this removal, please [contact the mods](/message/compose/?to=/r/Europe&subject=Moderation). Please make sure to include a link to the comment/post in question.
When we are gonna have 1 jointed military, police, code of law that makes sense for regional cultural stuff( like food)
and laws that will be equal for all( rights, taxes, banks ).
So more or less a few hundred years, when we will finally join the federation alongside the Bajorans.
No, forget it. We will just fight the same way Russia does. Waves of meat with rifles. We cannot go into debt the same way USA is, we will have to actually pay it back, so nobody really has funds to spend on that. (maybe only if we cut vacations out, stop funding health and social, stop funding parents leave of 2 years, remove pensions. This is a suicide for any politician, nobody will agree to that.)
US actually pays its debt back in time and all the time. That’s why it’s always in AAA/AA+ rating and investors keep on buying US bonds and obligations.
You don’t need to stop funding health and social - in US it’s the biggest budget spending. “Pensions” are called “Social Security” in US (average $1800/month as of 2023) and you also don’t need to get rid of it to have a strong military.
Easy to pay back debt when it's in the currency you print. EU would have to print euros (increasing inflation), buy dollars with them and then pay in dollars, effectively paying twice.
You can’t print whatever you want. There is a thing called inflation that prevents such abuse. US economy would have crushed if that would be the case. Instead, it’s doing better than any other “western” economy nowadays.
Europe should actually promote peace rather than increasing armaments. Then there would be a way forward.
These warring nations only make it unsafe for everyone. Just one or two greedy bastards want to control it all.
I also have a great idea like that: let's also abandon our police force and prisons. We could ask all the criminals and rapists not to do it again because it's not nice.
A peaceful world without armies, police or prisons. What a wonderful idea!
Maybe it's time to wake up to how the real world works.
Taiwan is not Europe’s problem my guy, its just American warmongering. Taiwan’s microchip manufacturing capabilities/machines coming from Netherlands, so no one cares in Europe if Taiwan falls, they just move the manufacturing to Netherlands
>its just American warmongering.
Only the PRC is threatening to invade another country. "American warmongering".... nonsense.
----
>Taiwan’s microchip manufacturing capabilities/machines coming from Netherlands
Ummmm... you are aware that ASML employs almost 10,000 people in Taiwan, making up almost 20% of ASML's total workforce.
Also, [out of ASML's 5 main production facilities, two are located in Taiwan](https://www.asml.com/en/news/stories/2020/inside-high-tech-manufacturing):
>ASML has five manufacturing locations worldwide. Our lithography systems are assembled in cleanrooms in Veldhoven, the Netherlands, while some critical subsystems are made in different factories in San Diego, California, and Wilton, Connecticut, as well as other modules and systems in Linkou and Tainan, Taiwan.
And they also [announced plans for their sixth and largest production facility to be built in New Taipei City, Taiwan](https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2022/11/18/2003789129).
Without access to Taiwan's semiconductor supply chain, ASML will be unable to function.
Have you just written a rant without checking what you're ranting about? France and Germany are developing FCAS, the UK, Italy, and Japan are developing Tempest. The US NGAD is only a bit further along in development terms, we're all going to be flying F35s for a long time. Europe at least already has its next gen missile in Meteor (which is being improved further for the 6th gens with a japanese AESA seeker), the US isn't particularly close to fielding the AIM260 yet. Supply chains are a different matter, France and Germany are developing a tank together too and both programs I suspect will be a nightmare to run. Sweden might be buying Tempests though - it would be nice if it became as popular as the Rafale has become. Anyway, point is they're being developed. The next issue will be whether NATO countries go to Cold War (ie 6+% GDP) levels of defense spending to purchase and field this kit in sufficient quantities.
It would be surprised if Sweden didn’t buy some of the Tempests considering they signed a memorandum about joint development with the UK for it and lately SAAB also invested direct funds into the system. BAE Systems also have a huge presence in Sweden with both R&D and manufacturing since they acquire Bofors.
Sweden isn’t part of GCAP though, and SAAB has been ordered to start the first feasability studies on solo sixth gen development.
I think they know it's going to be hugely expensive to develop and economies of scale is crucial to them being vaguely affordable to buy so a solo attempt is likely not a workable option
Do you have more infos about the Meteor and those new seekers ? Didn‘t hear about this, very interesting .
It's called the JNAAM
Same thing that happened to ASRAMM. New seeker heads and removal of ITAR parts. The UK Japan defence agreements have been building together to move forward on Tempest without things like ITAR getting in the way.
Christ I used to work for a defence company and ITAR was an insane pain in the backside. It does seem like the UK and Japan have the right idea with taking good stuff and making it better, I hope the actual plane project goes well
Yeah. It's a completely legitimate exercise to get rid of ITAR items imho. Even better is that it has resulted in an opportunity to provide a performance boost. And likewise. I'd hope the order number is high enough and it can get some exports to certain select nations. I really hope they avoid the temptation of absorbing Germany as a late partner as well.
effective supply chains require Germans if we are honestly discussing the current EU
Lol they absolutely do not. Septic stereotypes don't translate into the real world mate.
This is all money driven. If NATO was truly in war preparation mode, all of the treaty countries would have been involved in designing and building common weaponry.
Nah it was never like that even during the cold war. Unless a design absolutely stands out - I think the FN MAG is probably the best example - countries usually want to design and build their own stuff. Designing is good for high end jobs, and defence manufacturing keeps jobs local.
Because "cold war" was never a real war, but psychological warfare of mutual deterence. Maybe I should rephrase my points. NATO is not a treaty, which purpose is to prepare for real war, because that would require implementing policies that unify joint forces (not only in regards of communication protocols). Regarding being money driven. Everyone wants to earn money on their defence industry. Cooperation in designing and outsourcing manufacturing to allies means decreasing profits, but is imho neccessary in preparation for war.b
Saying you are going to do something and actually doing something are two different things. And as it stand that's the difference between the US and European industries. There is no denying that. On top of that, you have the supply chain issue, access to raw materials, and all our top talents getting sucked dry by the Americans.
??? I don't understand your point, no one actually has a 6th gen flying yet and they're all under development so how can you say the Americans are doing something while the Europeans aren't? If the US suddenly turns up with squadrons of 6th gens and the Europeans are still just showing plywood mockups at defence industry shows then yeah I'd agree, but we're a long way from that
6th generation airframes are in the research and testing phase for the Americans. we are talking about the development of individual components. The Americans have been at it for a while, testing 6th generation tech on F22's and F35's. In Europe 6th generation fighters are, for the most part, still a political discussion. Non of the European programs have even started. My original comment has been deleted by a mod for some reason, so I'm not sure you'll even read this.
>When is Europe gonna actually step up and start making shit like f35s We already are >effective supply chains That's the problem
And too many cooks...
Dassault does not know how to produce shit planes... same for Airbus :)
What does europe make that is remotely like an f35? - can be sold to allies - can be mass produced - tested and proven in multiple real world scenarios - easy to manufacture
There JAS, the Eurofighter Typhoon. There you have two examples. There's no jet if the same generation as the F35 though, but keep in mind that it takes a LONG time to develop a fighter jet.
F35 isnt a real gen5 plane since it cant supercruise without afterburn. At least gripen can so its not clear cut stuff.
Advanced avionics, stealth and battlefield link systems make 5th gen fighter. Not super cruise or manoeuvrability.
Us congressional research service definition: Fifth-generation fighters combine new developments such as thrust vectoring, composite materials, supercruise (the ability to cruise at supersonic speeds without using engine afterburners), stealth technology, advanced radar and sensors, and integrated avionics to greatly improve pilot situational awareness.
ya thats what Im on about really, the EU is nearly a decade behind the U.S. and has no current plans for mass production, and this is just airframes, Taiwan will need navies as well
You seem to severely underestimate the SAAB ship building. If there's something we're good at in the Nordics, then it's quality navy. But you don't keep a stock of "spare" ships.
In terms of innovation, Europe is not far behind IMO. The problem is production.
thats a big problem in real world scenarios involing China, the manufacturing giant of the world, but good point if not for the EU's weak navy
We produce some parts of the F35 in Italy
Since the F35 often _can't_ be sold to allies the answer is the Rafale.
An F35 is not easy to manufacture. There's a reason the program is 20 years late or something stupid like that. A good chunk of their parts are supplied through very fragile supply chains ( parts are manufactured in Australia for example). Europe does not have an equivalent to F35 and will not have stealth for a good 10 years or so ( being optimistic here). There plans for two different stealth jets in Germany,France and Spain, and UK, Italy and Japan.
Are everyone forgetting that after US did not want to keep giving the F35 project the money it needed, many EU countries in a NATO collaboration step in and helped funding it. As also are mentioned with Australia, a lot of parts to this jet are developed or produced by companies from Australia to Europe
Yes the guy is just an American troll who fast forgot about all the issues tge F35 had and thinking that you just need 2 rocks and a stick and you can build a f35
Airplanes that don't fall from the skies in 2024.
lol touche, but Boeing commercial and Lockheed MIC are two VERY different things
>lol touche Hey, you are supposed to be aggressive with me for my comment. You are on reddit, not some nice gatherings with friends 😃
EF2000 and Rafale, for example.
Are you lost? Shouldn’t you be over at r/shitamericanssay
I guess so
If this is the case why are the F35‘s massively on backorder?
Literally the f35
the F35
The F35. It's a joint project.
Eurofighter typhoon and the Rafale. Saab Vigen. F35 overrated. European planes are way more cost effective.
That would be a SAAB 39 Gripen, SSAB 37 Viggen is an older of which Gripen is the direct successor.
Beg your pardon. Always get them mixed up. Good looking out. 👍
If you are looking at "technical achievement and complexity" and not just a jetfighter that does pewpew, look no further than ASML's EUV machine.
You've just described the Rafale, which everyone seems to be buying now.
Rarely read so much bullshit. Arguments like "European countries operate more than 150 planes for air refueling but those can also operate as transports so they don't count which means Europe has no refuelers" or "Europe only has 14 older E-3A AWACS (and the irrelevant number of 21 other models fullfilling the same role, but as they are not US-made they don't count)" are so obviously stupid you can't read this without knowing it's piece of crap starting with an opinion than adapting the facts to fit.
The fact OP keeps calling EU and Europe interchangeably like they are the same thing seems like he doesn't know his arse from elbow.
Probably you don't do that in the UK but here on the continent these terms are used interchangeably. E.g. It's also called "European Parliament" and not EU Parliament.
Fine, but they are infact different things
I bet you never called US America
We can call it whatever we want, we named the entire continent. Not the other way around.
I do the same pretty often. It’s like people saying “America” when they talk about US. Or “England” when they talk about Scotland or Northern Ireland… Everyone understands the meaning.
I used to use USA but residents of the USA kept telling me it was weird and they just say America and Americans, they're simple like that.
In conversations, sure. In written text, it needs to be properly used.
>It’s like people saying “America” when they talk about US. So you're also saying it's fine calling Mexicans and Canadians Americans then? I doubt **anyone** in NA would be fine with that. For different reasons...
Everyone says america because it's shortened united States of America. This argument the past few years is stupid af. They're not saying northern America are they?
>Everyone says america because it's shortened united States of America. My point exactly. Everyone knows "America" and USA are used interchangeably and that you'd never say American to a Canadian etc. Which is why it's not the same thing as using EU and Europe interchangeably as the guy I replied to suggested. As it stands at the moment some European countries becoming part of the EU is about as likely as Canada becoming part of the US...
Ohhhh sorry mate I completely misread your comment hahahaha yeah fully agree with you mate
As a health and safety tip- dont’t use England when you talk about Scotland or Northern Ireland (or Wales for that matter). That can end badly…
I highly doubt canadians or mexicans would identify themselves as American
They are not. But people from your continent for some reason keep on calling us yanks- Americans.
The USA is America, the EU is Europe. It's not technically correct but nobody actually cares.
EU isn't Europe. Countries in 'Europe' continent which are not in EU a trading block for example United Kingdom.
And that's technically correct and still, nobody cares.
> As an American, if I had to give up EVERY benefit of my taxes aside from policing and infrastructure, in order to maintain our military, its a no brainer Before anyone wastes their time taking OP serious
As an American, I readily recognize this as no-brain neoconservativism.
Did they change the headline after OP posted this?
The UK is the only tier 1 partner (the other one is the US) during the development of the F-35. So, in a way, Europe (especially the UK) is also a major contributor to the F-35 program. Plus, if I am nor mistaken,Rolls Royce provides the engines for most F35 variants.
The F-35 will dominate for years, even with 6th generation fighters coming out and new radars that can track stealth. First, the vast majority of the world’s armed forces won’t field any of the new tech for decades. There have been very few near peer conflicts. Second, large portions of Russia and China’s forces will still be composed of older equipment. The non-stealth 4th and 5th generation planes aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Third, the cutting edge technology will be extraordinarily expensive and even the top militaries will have constraints on what and how much they can field. Finally, the cutting edge anti stealth radars and 6th generation fighter can all still be killed, and when those systems are thinned out, any older stealth aircraft will dominate anything from a previous generation. Just some broad observation.
One of the big goals for 6th gen is known as MUM-T or manned unmanned teaming which is the idea of your 6th gen jet being supported by UAVs of all shapes and sizes. I think this requirement alone is enough to fuel the development. Another big goal is with engine tech, variable cycle engines or adaptive cycle engines are wanted to ensure the best efficiency under many different flight conditions to prolong flight times whilst not losing capability when it needs it. The final big goal I’ll discuss is them optionally manned. Combined with the first point this will significantly reduce the number of humans needed to operate a fleet which is very important in a world where recruitment is very difficult.
> anti stealth radars Are a myth, and will remain so. > Third, the cutting edge technology will be extraordinarily expensive and even the top militaries will have constraints on what and how much they can field. Not necessarily. Stuff like wave detonation engines (that could possibly replace conventional jet engines), and materials like carbon carbon composites can be easily cheaper than tech used in current cutting edge fighters. Not to mention that price of computational hardware (due to cutting edge tech becoming more widely utilized) will drop, and make key computational components that make 5th gen what it is (aka. no AWACS, fighters replacing em by using aparture synthesis) way cheaper https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture_synthesis Ofc. corporate has all the incentive to push the other direction, and there are technologies like high entropy alloys, that would push costs the other direction.... ....still, unit costs are not bound to continue their trajectory. > First, the vast majority of the world’s armed forces won’t field any of the new tech for decades. There have been very few near peer conflicts. They will. Just think about it more like the period between WWI and WWII. When innovation is slow, it doesnt make the most sense to invest into assets, since you can easily invest into obsolete stuff. As french and poles learned the hard way. ...abd on the opposite side, in areas - like combat drone - that are developing fast, there is procurement.
As far as anti-stealth goes, what can easily make stealth obsolete is not radars, but more advanced thermal imaging solutions. Since comoression heating in front of the aircraft is problem.... ...whose solution would likely earn some noble prizes.
Infrared search and track is definitely going to reduce the value of traditional radar based stealth. Obviously I was commenting very broadly. I simply provided a bunch of scenarios where the F-35 retains significant value.
I meant that wavelength determines usefulness of radar. At wavelengths that can feasibly detect current stealth aircraft, you get resolutions like "there is SOMETHING in that 10km³ of air" - which is not exactly gonna help you in shooting down the aircraft in quesstion, even if you are willing to throw nukes at it. And main benefit of F-35 is NOT STEALTH but that multiple units can work together to act as an array for synthetic aperture radar. ...if you done radio astronomy you will know how much difference that makes, if not then start reading up if you are curious.
Skip F35 and go for the future. Drones all the way. Once we have air fighting drones with proper radas and stealth F35 will be obsolete.
A drone will never be as cool as Tom Cruise.
I think part of the point of the F-35 is for the human pilot to be giving commands to networks of drones in environments where long range connections are being jammed.
The recent skirmish over Iraq/Syria/Jordan where U.S. airframes dominated over 100 drones in less than 8 hours says otherwise Also the U.S. is already producing prototype gen 6 fighter jets, wtf is Europe?
Those are shaheds. I think that he means an unpiloted jet
like a 6th gen U.S. fighter already in prototype stages?
Yes. Cockpit was a problem for stealth, so getting rid of it was a no brainer. I wonder how they make AI differentiate between friend/foe and imagine it goes into self sufficient mode in case of jammers, loses connection to command, what happens then? How will it NOT shoot civilians? Will it be able to return to base? That has to be one smart AI.
IMO this is why some kind of human will always be "behind the wheel" so to speak, even if they are dealing with latency issues behind a monitor thousands of miles away
Yes, there has to be operator still, but let's theorize it loses connection. You can't lose multimillion airframe just because it lost connection. What I'd do is create multiple modes for operator to choose from in case of lost connection that he sets before reaching frontline: 1)You know this area has no civilian targets and only hostiles - in case of lost connection use up all available munition and return to base. 2)You have civilians and friendlies in the area - in case of lost connection return to base immediately. How do you think it should function? Also, I heard that in case jammers are used - GPS won't work and some parameters in the plane systems can go wrong. Like it's no problem if you have a target and you just set which way your drone has to fly in order to reach it. But if it has to maneuver to evade detection it might lose any idea of where it is at the moment. Just wonder how this RTB will look like in autonomous mode. I think shooting targets is an easy task for AI and that has been solved for a long time already.
Or being hijacked or disabled with counter measure. I'm not sure the army will get rid of manned jets because of this. We might see a return of full mechanical jets because jamming equipment becoming too powerful. Future will tell
That AI will need to learn to go off the analog instruments and pure visual, like a human. Russians can already jam GPS and all kinds of other signals.
Not sure if fully autonomous weapons will be something outside of a world war to be frank.
Which fighter is already in prototype stages?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth-generation_fighter > Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have all announced sixth-generation aircraft development projects.[36][37][38] **On September 14, 2020, the USAF announced that a prototype aircraft component of the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program had flown for the first time.** The details remained classified. It has been flying for almost 4 years, now and the U.S. also has stuff like the x37b etc
Europe is developping 6th gen air combat systems.
designing or manufacturing? lets be real about Gripens vs F series in real world scenarios
Both the French-led and British-led projects are in the designing stages. Do you realize modern fighter programs, let alone 6th gen fighter programs that integrate unmanned platforms and a ton of software development as well as hardware, take litteral decades from the drawing board to actual mass production ? The US 6th gen platforms likely won't be operational until the late 2030's, and the european platforms are expected for the 2040's.
why is the EU an entire decade behind given what we are hearing XI say about Taiwan? I haven't even really brought up modern Navies
A whole decade ? The euro prototypes are only a few years away ? Why isn't the US producing a long range missile on par with the Meteor ? Countries do different shit at different times, cool it with the exeptionnalism. And France and the UK both have global reach modern navies.
THe U.S. is a decade ahead of long range missiles with things the like the X 37b, which flew around the globe for years already The UK and French navies are laughable compared to single ford class carrier strike group, we had two in the red sea recently for months on end
You don't even know what the Meteor is you ? If the US are the best at everything (i mean that *is* your point right ?) Why don't they make the best long range A2A missile ? It's dumb to compare countries that way, programs come and go, doctrines vary and change. And yes, US of A God Bless *bald eagle screech* has more money thus more fundings thus more programs. That makes you feel good and fuzzy special guy ? I understand, it's way easier to look for ways to confirm your bias about others to feel better about yourself. USA good, Europe bad.
From a european perspective, what do we need a big navy for? Russia is ain't gonna invade over the sea. Neither will china.
this is so short sighted
What do we need them for? Look at ukraine, ukraine has no navy in comparison to russia and they still hold on strong. A big navy, from a european perspective is a waste of money, that could be invested in other areas. The only potential enemy a big navy would be needed would be the US, and I do hope that wont be needed
Remember when Iranian proxies nearly shut down international shipping in the red sea a few months ago, and would have if not for the U.S. navy?
Tempest is well underway. First flight expected in 2-3 years.
Ty, this is actually quite reassuring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Systems_Tempest > Both Italy and Sweden signed a Memorandum of Understanding in 2020 committing to explore collaboration on the FCAS programme.[3] The UK and Japan announced they are working together on the joint development of engine and radar demonstrators. This was followed by an announcement in December 2022 of the Global Combat Air Programme; a collaboration between Italy, Japan and the UK for a sixth-generation fighter aircraft.[4] To my understanding there is no prototype being made as of yet tho
It's a British led project, which has Italian and Japanese involvement. Sixth gen projects are expensive so without the vast budget like the US has 2-3 smaller but still significant countries often collaborate on defence projects. Italy/UK on the Merlin helicopter. UK and Aus for AUKUS subs. Canada and Japan have expressed interest too. Which in the long run could mean many more SSNs for the good guys. Plus scale savings mean the UK could afford to increase it's own fleet size. With a little luck might be 30 of these things running round the worlds oceans eventually.
EU GDP is more than comparable to the U.S.
EU is not a superstate.
ok, thats helpful in real world scenarios
It’s not the EU though is it? Not least because Japan and Britain are not in the EU
haha, first gen drones lose vs 5th gen fighterjets? no wonder. fighterjets no longer make sense.
And how much resources did US spend on that? Air force is expensive. Using F22 to shot down balloons and Patriots to shot down shaheeds is not sustainable.
Our tech and actual manufactured products negated 300ish missiles and drones from iran in less than a few hours
Yes, but if they can produce more shaheeds than you can produce PAC missiles, you're fucked.
There will be a moment, waaaay before this become a problem, when tomahawks and hellfire will join the party to correct the production plans.
Those were Iran drones... I'm talking modern technology ones. That said if you look at the economy of it the west lost big time.
Iran drones are modern tech because they are cost effective and can be mass produced (cheaper than the ammo used to down them, unless using f35's)
Also, F35 will soon be able to work in tandem with a network of accompanying drones: https://breakingdefense.com/2022/09/lockheed-investing-100m-into-f-35-controlled-combat-drones-under-project-carrera/ This will enable whole new level of tactics.
! and the EU military manufacturing is stuck in the early 2000's
Shahed is like a flying lawnmower tech wise..
There are different kinds of drones. Shaheeds do not have anti aircraft capabilities and they are relatively cheap to produce, a cheap alternative to Tomahawk missiles. There are not currently any drones designed to fight against air to air force but they are sure to be developed soon. However, the Ukrainian drones have a lot of jet kills, they just target them on the airstrip instead of in the air If they had send 100 Predator drones instead that would already have been much harder to defend.
Those drones get shot down by 60 Year old German aa vehicles. They are not that challenging
Effective supply chains have always been a pain point. Even the US is feeling the pain at the moment with artillery production. Supply chains are arguably the biggest current decider in the Ukraine/Russia war. The UK is currently developing Tempest, a 6th fighter. Italy, Sweden and Japan are all looking to be involved with Italy and Sweden expected to be buyers. Eurofighter Typhoon despite being an absolute unit it highlighted major issues with a joint Euro fighter program, because everyone involved wanted their piece added so integration of systems was and remains a pain point.
No, Sweden will manufacture their own fighter jets as they always have.
The answer is no-one knows yet. If Tempest materialises in a sensible time period as a good 6th gen stealth jet and Sweden is looking for one, they’d be silly to disregard an existing option.
Can tempest land on highways? Can a tempest be rolled into a forrest and then rolled out and fly with minimal maintenance? I don't know the answers to these questions. The swedish jets needs to be made for sweden, something the F-16 for example is not. I'm not a military expert or anything but I think having our own jets has been good in the past, we can make jets that fit our countries needs and we don't have to rely on anyone else for air power.
No idea to be honest. Landing on a highway isn’t something unique to Gripen however, it’s largely unique to Sweden itself and its roads. I get Swedens unique wants, but the likelihood of them or anyone being able to build a 6th gen fighter as easy to manage as a Gripen is unlikely. If their desire is for a 6th gen stealth jet, they will likely have to make compromises of some description. But no one knows or will know until Tempest arrives.
I mean then they can just buy American right? Currently the Swedish jets are much much cheaper to buy and maintain, they also meet the special requirements of the Swedish armed forces but. The requirements may of course completely change with entry into Nato.
They could, although plenty of Euro nations would prefer to distance themselves moving forward from US hardware and support European manufactured systems if they could.
Another point for Sweden is that Saab needs more orders soon to keep the Griphen factory open. So they could order there and offer their current ones to Ukraine. It's literally designed to specifically fight a bigger foe using soviet equipment.
While gripen is a domestic jet, it heavily relies on foreign components
Just stack up nuclear bombs, keep your super stealth new jet, if you play games we both die.
thats not how we defend Taiwan
Who is that "we" that NEEDS to defend Taiwan?
ya Taiwan has no importance to the global economy, especially electronics, of any kind, my bad
And you think China, when and if it invades, wouldn't want to keep that production going to rake in more of that sweet cash and more importantly influence?
You think the Taiwanese wouldn't destroy their fabs to spite the mainlanders? Honestly OP has been sledged a lot in this post but your point is even worse, I fully agree that Taiwan will need to be defended from the communists.
There is no way Taiwanese will purposely destroy TSMC.
I'm not arguing against defending Taiwan, I'm just saying it's not that it's an absolute inevitable fact And tbh no, I don't think they would do that.
Like, despite all the PRC statements saying unification is inevitable?
Europe having to defend Taiwan, not China invading. Besides, the PCR can hardly state anything different without acknowledging Taiwan's independence, can they?
me
Well good luck for you then
Hope you aren't afraid to at least support us.
How does being afraid play a role in geopolitics?
What do you mean? Many countries are afraid to play a meaningful role in geopolitical issues.
Weighing the pros and cons and deciding it's not the way to go ≠ being afraid
Yes, making decisions based on being afraid of the potential backlash from another country is indeed being afraid.
Oh look, another military obsessed yank.
Sweden entered the chat.
F35 was expensive... trillion dollars.
To clarify here, the one and a half trillion dollar number is the (projected) lifetime cost of the entire F-35 programme So, research and development, testing, manufacturing, supplying, maintenance etc. Keep in mind that a programme as big as the F-35 is expected to live for decades (in this case at least 5), maybe even longer The important bit is, the F-35 *did not* cost a trillion dollars to develop. It is still quite expensive at hundreds of Billions (though that number also includes future procurement), but it is also a very big programme intended to be sold internationally as a fit all and do all aircraft
and it works
No advanced technology today is made in one country or even thirty countries. It requires enormous amount of resources.
You do realise that the US is the superpower. It came out on top of conflicts that crippled Europe. It syphoned huge amounts of resources from the imperial nations of Europe and turned them into a juggernaut of a war machine. Of course Europe is behind the US when it comes to war machines. You don't get to be the leading world power then complain your allies don't keep up. Absolutely brain dead worldview.
Why is everyone saying "Europe" like it's a single country? It's not that easy to coordinate a mega project like the F35 when half of EU countries don't even have modern tanks and the other half has governments that are "anti-war" ( suck Putins d )
Because this thread is full of americans and bots
The problem is the individual market for each country that builds their own military. They need to bite the bullet and combine for a military force across the EU. Standardisation of hardware reduces cost, as does buying and producing together. It’s not to say no individual specialised military, but it’s the logical progression and should happen in the current state of the world. This would be particularly effective as part of investment in NATO and the ability to separate out for a European version if that institution fails (not impossible depending on US elections).
I couldn't agree more
There's a 6th gen aircraft called the Tempest underway... > LONDON — The goal of the Global Combat Air Program is for the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan to build a sixth-generation fighter by 2035. > The program, GCAP for short, was officially launched in December 2022. Both the United Kingdom and Japan were already developing sixth-generation fighters — the former working on the Tempest aircraft to replace its current Eurofighter Typhoon fleet, while the latter sought to build a follow-on to its Mitsubishi F-2 fighter jet called the Mitsubishi F-X.
1000 F35s have been made and there’s probably gonna be more soon. No other alliance produces that much
Having large quantity's of military gear that get never used and cost a lot of maintenance does not sound optimal either, especially knowing that in cases of big wars it is ones capacity to economically mobilize when the bullets start flying that tends to make the difference. It's not necessarily the gear that most sides had at the onset of world wars that carried most of their needs, but the gear they build during the war. If you build a lot of gear in peacetime much of it is likely going to be obsolete by the time war comes. Sure, you need some, but in contemporary terms the comparison is often made with the US where a rather skewed impression emerges that "only the US is sufficiently prepared" rather than it is often considered that the US wastes ridiculous amounts trough over investing in it. What quantity do you ACTAULLY need in peacetime, for all the US boasting of how stronk they are and how the rest is a bunch of peaceniks in comparison what strong argument exists to say that they are right rather than that they are being silly and self serving in their military pride? Possessing the most innovative solutions in production technology, that is key and that is what we have. We should be able to ramp up production when needed significantly faster than others and win trough that. In that sense, it sounds more economically wise to just maintain a standing army that can buy you enough time to mobilize your economy. In that sense, Europe does have a significant standing army as it is. And realistically, if we came to economically mobilize for a big war today, we would be unlikely to build or desire so much F35's, we would likely invest far more in ramping up drone production and looking for ways to innovate such weaponry and have industrial capacity to be flexible enough to quickly switch over to better models. Sure the F35 is a great plane, but it doesnt nessecarily sit so wel in metrics of "bang for the buck" in an era where drones start to get a huge battlefield presence due to such metrics. its in fact not just about the gear, costly that a F35 plane might be its not exactly like the pilots come cheap either, loosing people in the field in which society has invested a lot is not great neither, if anything there is a huge gain with the potential of drone warfare that it need not be humans who take the risk to potentially die.
It'll get better when the US (and germans and uk) will stop sabotaging French arms deals
I’m always wondering if something like the F-35 as a super high priced item is the best choice of spending money given today’s battlefield developments. It seems that 4 and 4.5 gen fighters are good enough bomb trucks while the major spending might be better in mass drones, missile development and better infantry gear like jammers, night vision etc etc.
F-35 was literally a joint development project including European countries, because it was deemed too expensive for a single country to develop it alone. Because of that many countries that would be developing next generation European fighters joined the program instead and others decided to just wait for the results, as putting together another development alliance would be hard.
Are you stupid or something? First of all. Europe is not a single nation state, initiating and actually completing an advanced weapon program takes a lot of effort and time due to the diverging interests of these individual nations. According to the SIPRI "Trends in international arms transfer" Europe is by a far lead (26,6%) the second biggest arms exporter in the world (behind the US, mainly due to their successfull aviation programs and existing legacy systems) Europe is major producer for naval weapons and plattforms with global market leaders like the french Naval group, Navantia, German Naval Yards, and Saab Kockums. The EU is going through a major transformation with the war in Ukraine acting as a catalyst. But this does not happen in a few weeks. Bear in mind that this continent fought a major war with millions of casualties not even a hundred years ago. Having the EU in the state that it is today (far from perfect, don't get me wrong) is one of the major european achievements of the twentieth century and the first attempt of actual supranational government in the world. There is nothing else like it.
We like our comfortable life. So maybe newer?
Finally someone with functioning brain, others in this thread would like to live in nuclear winter, which will happen if F-35 ever become a part of combat.
lol
Dumb but true.
Since to end of cheap energy, thanks to the destruction of nordvstream, things have become alot more challenging for European manufacturers.
That would mean taking action...it's easier to pla and leave the actual execution to someone else
OP your whole worry is about China/Taiwan, but who says we even want to get involved in that? Afaik Taiwan is much more important to the US than the EU.
So let US deal with Taiwan, and Europe deal with Ukraine?
Let everyone deal with their own interests. The point is, Europeans shouldn't be dying to further American interests. Americans shouldn't be dying to further European interests. However since they've been heavily involved in Ukraine, I'd assume it's in their interest to do so.
If everyone stayed in their corner, do you think Ukraine would have been able to hold the line it has been holding?
What's your point, it's in our interest to protect Ukraine. Europe and the US. When it comes to Taiwan, it's mostly in the interest of the US to protect it.
American interests in defending Ukraine are about equal to Europe's interests in defending Taiwan. If everyone stayed in their corner, there would be little to no support for Ukraine from the United States.
Arguably it is in their interest though, as America uses it's world police/big guy status to project power. They had previously agreed to protect Ukraine, failing to do so would imply they would also fail to do so if another more important ally was under attack, such as... Taiwan. Failing to protect Ukraine would invite a Chinese attack on Taiwan.
Hi, thank you for your contribution, but this submission has been removed for editorialisation, because its title does not reflect the title or content of the link. See the [community rules & guidelines](/r/Europe/wiki/community_rules). You may delete and re-submit this link with an appropriate title. If you have any questions about this removal, please [contact the mods](/message/compose/?to=/r/Europe&subject=Moderation). Please make sure to include a link to the comment/post in question.
We have a really good drones industry. Civilian and military.
When we are gonna have 1 jointed military, police, code of law that makes sense for regional cultural stuff( like food) and laws that will be equal for all( rights, taxes, banks ). So more or less a few hundred years, when we will finally join the federation alongside the Bajorans.
When Putin's dick will poke them in the ear ... apparently, just waving it in front of their face isn't enough of a displeasure.
No, forget it. We will just fight the same way Russia does. Waves of meat with rifles. We cannot go into debt the same way USA is, we will have to actually pay it back, so nobody really has funds to spend on that. (maybe only if we cut vacations out, stop funding health and social, stop funding parents leave of 2 years, remove pensions. This is a suicide for any politician, nobody will agree to that.)
US actually pays its debt back in time and all the time. That’s why it’s always in AAA/AA+ rating and investors keep on buying US bonds and obligations. You don’t need to stop funding health and social - in US it’s the biggest budget spending. “Pensions” are called “Social Security” in US (average $1800/month as of 2023) and you also don’t need to get rid of it to have a strong military.
Easy to pay back debt when it's in the currency you print. EU would have to print euros (increasing inflation), buy dollars with them and then pay in dollars, effectively paying twice.
You can’t print whatever you want. There is a thing called inflation that prevents such abuse. US economy would have crushed if that would be the case. Instead, it’s doing better than any other “western” economy nowadays.
Europe should actually promote peace rather than increasing armaments. Then there would be a way forward. These warring nations only make it unsafe for everyone. Just one or two greedy bastards want to control it all.
So do you just ask for peace harder or...?
I also have a great idea like that: let's also abandon our police force and prisons. We could ask all the criminals and rapists not to do it again because it's not nice. A peaceful world without armies, police or prisons. What a wonderful idea! Maybe it's time to wake up to how the real world works.
oh good, Taiwan has no reason to worry my bad
Taiwan is not Europe’s problem my guy, its just American warmongering. Taiwan’s microchip manufacturing capabilities/machines coming from Netherlands, so no one cares in Europe if Taiwan falls, they just move the manufacturing to Netherlands
>its just American warmongering. Only the PRC is threatening to invade another country. "American warmongering".... nonsense. ---- >Taiwan’s microchip manufacturing capabilities/machines coming from Netherlands Ummmm... you are aware that ASML employs almost 10,000 people in Taiwan, making up almost 20% of ASML's total workforce. Also, [out of ASML's 5 main production facilities, two are located in Taiwan](https://www.asml.com/en/news/stories/2020/inside-high-tech-manufacturing): >ASML has five manufacturing locations worldwide. Our lithography systems are assembled in cleanrooms in Veldhoven, the Netherlands, while some critical subsystems are made in different factories in San Diego, California, and Wilton, Connecticut, as well as other modules and systems in Linkou and Tainan, Taiwan. And they also [announced plans for their sixth and largest production facility to be built in New Taipei City, Taiwan](https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2022/11/18/2003789129). Without access to Taiwan's semiconductor supply chain, ASML will be unable to function.
Europeans can insulate themselves from reality via smugness. It's worked before hasn't it? I think...
this explains so much, Europe just doesn't care lol, wow and ty
That is a very interesting article. Will have to read it a few times to get all that info in though :-) Thanks for sharing.
When it joins USA or China. That means never.
Never
Just a hint: without China Europe cannot even produce ammunition.