The Germans are coming!

[hornetfinn]

I really doubt that going Eurofighter route will result in any dedicated jammer system that was anywhere near capabilities of Growler or F-35. Just hanging couple of jamming pods under Eurofighter would not be very effective method. Doing EuroGrowler would cost a lot (at least couple of billions) as they would need to develop all the systems from scratch.

See I think they're probably going to leverage French efforts on the Rafale like SPECTRA and other platforms. This would fit in with their capability development policy they espoused a few years ago and fits neatly as a lead-in to FCAS due to industrial cooperation.

If they go down a pure Eurofighter route, they would probably look less at broad area jamming, and focus more on improving the organic self protection of their Eurofighter aircraft. Is it as effective as F-35? nobody is arguing that, but they're not going to scrap 140+ Eurofighters either, the majority of which are less than five years old. Another option is that they develop some sort of more dedicated system with the French, perhaps focused on NEURON and some other platform.

Growler development was several billion US$ while using existing jamming pods and procurement cost was significantly higher than for regular SH. Many statements have been made that F-35 is equal or superior to current purpose built EW aircraft and far exceeding any other fighter aircraft. Growler is powerful system, but it also needs to sit back much further away than F-35 which can improve EA/EW effectiveness simply by going close to threat radar. Of course F-35 is likely more limited in frequency coverage and is limited to higher frequency radars. But naturally those are also by far the most threatening systems.

That's not their concept of operation however. They're not going to rely on the F-35 to do everything and leave the rest of their fleet to be useless behind them. They're wedded to their systems of systems approach, and they want to keep Eurofighters viable for as long as possible

Besides, Tornado ECR has rather modest EW capabilties and is very much like F-16CJ or F-4G Wild Weasels. It uses EW pretty much only for self protection and HARMs to shut down enemy radars. In that role F-35 is extremely effective due to SA and stealth giving ability to get much closer to enemy radars. They have proven extremely effective for S/DEAD in excercises already using just JDAMs.

Sure but they're looking to significantly improve the EW capabilities, thats part of their roadmap.

But F-35 would provide all those EW/EA and support capabilities today and without added costs.

http://www.codeonemagazine.com/f35_arti ... tem_id=182

“This jet isn’t just about the weapons — it’s a game-changing capability. The Tornado GR.4 can't just stroll into a double digit SAM MEZ [Missile Engagement Zone]. In the F-35 I can generate a wormhole in the airspace and lead everyone through it. There isn’t another platform around that can do that. This isn’t all about height and supercruise speed — it’s the ability to not be seen,” added Beck.

or this:
viewtopic.php?t=54012

To make this happen, we planned to initially use electronic attack against the adversary F-16s, see if we could avoid having them detect friendly fighters and datalink the location of the hostile aircraft to our F-16s. This way we could use the F-16s on our side to shoot down the initial wave of enemy fighters and keep our own missiles available once the ‘Blue Air’ F-16s had to focus on their target attack. The plan worked flawlessly.

‘In the debrief ‘Niki’ told us it was one of the most memorable sorties he had ever flown. Having previously worked in the F-35 program office he was elated to find out how effective the F-35 was, but at the same time he was frustrated by not getting a single shot off the rail against us, while getting killed multiple times. After that sortie it really hit us that the F-35 was going to make a big difference in how we operate fighters and other assets in the Royal Netherlands Air Force.’...

This sound a lot like F-35 would be a real force multiplier even for Luftwaffe with their Eurofighters. Sure improving self protection systems would help them survive, but not in the same way using F-35 would. This is because F-35 can get a lot closer to enemy radars and jam/spoof them instead of relying on self-protection system which has a lot lower effective radiated power on enemy radars.

Sure they will have to use different methods when they choose to buy more Eurofighters (or Super Hornets) and those methods are likely less effective in more demanding situations than combination of F-35s and Eurofighters. Of course Eurofighter would be fine in many missions, since I doubt Germans are going to use them for much besides air policing and DCA missions. In more demanding situations they probably will get the support they need from the Dutch, Belgians and Italians...

[ricnunes]

- Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Netherlands, Norway and the UK are all European countries but they chose the F-35 and as such don't follow that "Franco-German" mindset.

They just lack ambition.

LoL

Of course Eurofighter would be fine in many missions, since I doubt Germans are going to use them for much besides air policing and DCA missions. In more demanding situations they probably will get the support they need from the Dutch, Belgians and Italians...

I also think that's exactly the point. The fact is that (if I'm not mistaken) the Germans never deployed combat aircraft abroad into actual combat areas/zones (which the NATO Baltic Air Policing missions are not) with the exception of a "one-time" deployment of Tornado ECRs over Syria which only performed recon missions (with no actual weapons being fired from these aircraft).

I also think that all this is rigged in favor of the Typhoon with the Super Hornet now being a "smokescreen".

[Corsair1963]

"COLOGNE, Germany ― Germany’s Ministry of Defence has officially ruled out the F-35 joint strike fighter as a choice to replace its aging Tornado fleet, Defense News has learned. An official from the ministry confirmed that the F-35 is not a finalist in the competition, which seeks a replacement for the 90-jet fleet. The news was first reported by German site AugenGeradeaus.

Clearly, Germany has no attention of holding a "open and transparent fighter competition". Something many of her Allies won't be to happy to hear.

[mixelflick]

Quite disappointing, I expected more from the Germans...

They're going to put Eurofighter pilots into harms way, and more than a few might possibly die because a decision was made on national pride vs. the facts. The F-35 with nukes is a terrifying prospect - for Russia/the enemy, and now they're going to have an opportunity to deny NATO's ability to employ tactical nukes.

Sad, sad day for the Luftwaffe.

[hythelday]

Quite disappointing, I expected more from the Germans...

They're going to put Eurofighter pilots into harms way

When and where?

The first and last time Luftwaffe employed weapons in combat since WWII was in 1999 - ECR Tornadoes shooting HARMs.

Gulf War - nothing.
1995 Yugoslavia - nothing.
Afghanistan - no EFs, only recce flights by Tornadoes, occasionally.
Iraq - nothing.
Libya - nothing.
CJTF-OIR - they tried to deploy recce Tornadoes once again, but found out they are not NVG compatible. I am not sure they made any more than a handful of token missions.

Baltic Air Police is the closest German Typhoons have come to a military deployment to date, if one fancies to call BAP a military mission.

German civilian leadership is not interested in deploying military forces anywhere, and when they do, they manage to half a$$ that one also.

[ricnunes]

Baltic Air Police is the closest German Typhoons have come to a military deployment to date, if one fancies to call BAP a military mission.

German civilian leadership is not interested in deploying military forces anywhere, and when they do, they manage to half a$$ that one also.

Absolutely.
And again, the "Baltic Air Police" mission is a peacetime operation (and not a wartime one).

Moreover, I remembered of something which I don't know if you'll agree or not regarding this (IMO very stupid) German decision which is:
- The biggest perceived threat to Germany which IMO, comes from Russia.
However as we all know, things are "going south" regarding Russia's more recent and advanced fighter project, the Su-57. So perhaps this was a reason why not long ago Germany seemed quite interested in the F-35 but now apparently is not.
Could this be a reason for it? Could it be that if Russia managed to successfully pull out their Su-57 program that Germany would indeed select the F-35 instead by now?
But I guess that we all know the state of the Russian Su-57 program which means that for Germany the biggest threat from Russia could/would come from Su-35 and Heavy Bombers which means the German (politicians) seem to deem their Typhoon's enough for such task.
Of course that there's also the Russian Air Defense Systems (such as the S-400) but then again Germany doesn't deploy into warzones abroad - so if their stance would be limited to defending their home (Germany) in a case of a conflict with Russia then the threat from Russian Air Defense Systems would basically be nonexistent.
In the process they (Germans) may feel that all of this will give them time to procure a future 5th gen fighter aircraft, namely developing that thing with France which already changed acronyms a few time by now

Of course that Germany's decision behind all this is stupid and politically driven but I guess that this is the "logic" behind it.

[f4u7_corsair]

a future 5th gen fighter aircraft, namely developing that thing with France which already changed acronyms a few time by now

It hasn't.

Also, it is quite savory to see all of you showing remarkably harsh disdain for an otherwise perfectly sovereign and sound decision.

Here is by the way a very instructive account of FCAS SOS implications and projects for existing aircraft (Rafale), the next generation fighter, and associated systems.

https://therestlesstechnophile.com/2019 ... designers/

[hythelday]

@Ric,

FCAS/SCAF is akin to NATO/OTAN. "English" words such as future, combat and system aren't exactly "English" in origin, so there's little surprise French words begin with same letters, but the acronym is in reverse roman language group order. Of all the things you could attack, this is the least justified. After all, we are using "PAK FA", a Russian term, not english translation of it. I think that it's quite clear that France would be the lead nation and main advocate of SCAF, it is only right that we adopt this name as well.

Regarding F-35 - even if Luftwaffe were to get F-35, they'd still use it a "strike fighter"/Tornado replacement, not air superiority fighter (cause then EF would be out of job). It was a German pilot who coined "Raptor salad" - now do you really think they'd give up Eurofighter's perceived air combat top spot for an F-35? Su-57 had nothing to do with that decision.

[marsavian]

It's a numbers game, they figure a lot less Growlers can protect a lot more Typhoons electronically, and in future SCAF, plus it can be the nuclear delivery platform, plus the French won't have kittens plus Trump gets pleased for Boeing again, win-win-win-win except for the LMT F-35 and its fans. I suspect given the time scales they will go straight to the new NGJ AESA pods when they come online.

[milosh]

- The biggest perceived threat to Germany which IMO, comes from Russ

What Russia have to gain in that war? Nothing. In fact Russia need Germany more then Germany need Russia. I wouldn't be surprised to see Merkel in board of nord stream 2 as Schröder is in board of Nord Stream.

[ricnunes]

@Ric,

FCAS/SCAF is akin to NATO/OTAN. "English" words such as future, combat and system aren't exactly "English" in origin, so there's little surprise French words begin with same letters, but the acronym is in reverse roman language group order.

Ok, thanks for the correction about FCAS/SCAF (they really mean the same but in different languages).

But what about NGF? This is also an English language acronym and NGF (New Generation Fighter) also represents the acronym for the same thing/project (FCAS), right?

Regarding F-35 - even if Luftwaffe were to get F-35, they'd still use it a "strike fighter"/Tornado replacement, not air superiority fighter (cause then EF would be out of job). It was a German pilot who coined "Raptor salad" - now do you really think they'd give up Eurofighter's perceived air combat top spot for an F-35? Su-57 had nothing to do with that decision.

Perhaps yes, perhaps not.
Anyways my perception was because the Germany really seemed interested in the F-35 at some point which was not really long ago, basically months ago (at least the Luftwaffe).
Yes, the main reasons are indeed keeping up the Typhoon production line opened and of course the participation in that NGF/FCAS/whatever project. But couldn't the lack of a/the threat (Su-57) which could surpass the Typhoon be another reason?
Whatever, it doesn't matter much...

[ricnunes]

What Russia have to gain in that war? Nothing. In fact Russia need Germany more then Germany need Russia. I wouldn't be surprised to see Merkel in board of nord stream 2 as Schröder is in board of Nord Stream.

I'm not saying that there will be necessarily a war and I obviously hope not!

However if a conflict between NATO and Russia happens (again I hope not) don't you think that Germany wouldn't be dragged into it??
And unfortunately there's plenty of situations which could trigger such conflict. Let me give you a hint regarding one of such potential reasons:
It starts with a "U" it ends with "raine" and has a "k" in the middle.

[ricnunes]

Also, it is quite savory to see all of you showing remarkably harsh disdain for an otherwise perfectly sovereign and sound decision.

And it's funny that when the F-35 wins an actual competition that French guys like yourself claim that the same competition was rigged in favor of the F-35 (like it happened for example in Belgium) but now that the F-35 was removed solely on political basis on Germany (it wasn't even allowed to compete on a technical basis), this is a "perfectly sovereign and sound decision".

Yeah, you guys are indeed a piece of work.

Here is by the way a very instructive account of FCAS SOS implications and projects for existing aircraft (Rafale), the next generation fighter, and associated systems.

https://therestlesstechnophile.com/2019 ... designers/

Jezz, I'm now so very instructed with the FCAS program that I even noticed that the FCAS is currently made of the same material of that brochure: Paper
Heck, to be accurate it's not even made of paper - it's composed by a bunch of bytes that composes a .png (or any other format) computer image file...

[milosh]

What Russia have to gain in that war? Nothing. In fact Russia need Germany more then Germany need Russia. I wouldn't be surprised to see Merkel in board of nord stream 2 as Schröder is in board of Nord Stream.

I'm not saying that there will be necessarily a war and I obviously hope not!

However if a conflict between NATO and Russia happens (again I hope not) don't you think that Germany wouldn't be dragged into it??
And unfortunately there's plenty of situations which could trigger such conflict. Let me give you a hint regarding one of such potential reasons:
It starts with a "U" it ends with "raine" and has a "k" in the middle.

Modern politicians don't bother with "what if" especially if that is more fiction then real.

[f4u7_corsair]

@Ric,

FCAS/SCAF is akin to NATO/OTAN. "English" words such as future, combat and system aren't exactly "English" in origin, so there's little surprise French words begin with same letters, but the acronym is in reverse roman language group order.

Ok, thanks for the correction about FCAS/SCAF (they really mean the same but in different languages).

But what about NGF? This is also an English language acronym and NGF (New Generation Fighter) also represents the acronym for the same thing/project (FCAS), right?

FCAS is the SoS, NGF is the manned aircraft that is part of it.

Jezz, I'm now so very instructed with the FCAS program that I even noticed that the FCAS is currently made of the same material of that brochure: Paper
Heck, to be accurate it's not even made of paper - it's composed by a bunch of bytes that composes a .png (or any other format) computer image file...

You're right about the bytes part, since the NGF, like any modern day project, largely relies on simulation.