Germany's preferred replacement for the Tornado

a reply to: RadioRobert

Yeah but it's not about just replicating the capability of the ECR.

Germany promised NATO to build up an advanced airborne electronic attack capability. They've been pushing this very hard, it's unlikely they could fold on this.
The program is called LUWES - Luftgestützte Wirkung im Elektromangetischen Spektrum, loosely translated airborne capability in the EW realm.
It consists of multiple elements, a stand-off jammer platform, an escort jammer aircraft and a stand-in jamming capability utilizing airborne launched decoys.

They are looking at a Gulfstream analog for the stand-off platform, but they'd like a pod-based solution if it can meet the capability requirements.
In any case, the Growler could obviously cover most of these requirements without much hassle while developing a Growler analog of the Typhoon would be a challenging project both in terms of time and financial resources.

About the nuclear side, you think the US would ultimately care if Germany relinquishes nuclear sharing and starts funding the force de dissuasion? I don't.

a reply to: mightmight

I think we would prefer they didn't, to be honest. Institutionally and as a policy -matter, we want it, and we'd probably reluctantly drop opposition to arming the Tiffs after grousing about it. Personally, I don't much care either way.

I'd like to see Europe pay the bills in proportion to the voice they'd like to have in affairs. That's basically 100% haha They quite understandably don't like the US throwing our weight around, but the reality is they've given us most of the weight by subscribing to what amounts to massive subsidies. A more independent Europe might be a pain in our ass, but it'd probably be less dysfunctional in other ways.

a reply to: RadioRobert

I'll bring up the elephant in the room - next generation weapons platforms for just about every nation, whether it be the USA, Russia, China or any EU state, will have been set back at least 5 years by the COVID-19 bailouts.

a reply to: Borys

Not really. They're still working, albeit at a reduced pace. Design and engineering work can still go on, and even some testing is going on. Things will be set back, but not as far as you think.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Let's put it this way, it will either be less than five years or never.

Id look at a sensor pallet if its going into a Stealth platform.Keep it all internal..

a reply to: Blackfinger
A la the bomb bay recce pods and Pave Tack on the F-111C's you mean?

a reply to: thebozeian
Yep why reinvent the wheel just for the sake of change?

a reply to: Zaphod58

At the moment yes, but we are only a few weeks into events: trillions of dollars are yet to be poured into the system, but they will be over the next ~4-26 weeks, with the likelihood of more to come. And it's not just the US: the EU, Japan and Australia are doing the same. Russia will of course pretend for a few weeks they don't need to...and then they turn on the taps. China will also do the same at some point, but their coffers are still somewhat scarce given their actions during the GFC over a decade ago.

My guess? At least 5 years added to current estimated timelines - and perhaps closer to double that - and that is even with less ambitious technical targets.

a reply to: Borys

And defense activity is still rolling full speed ahead, with a few exceptions, such as the KC-46.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Sorry, man, but this is going to go one of two ways. Increased wartime emergency spending because the world goes to #, or austerity budgets. We're going to be spending trillions feeding and housing people we dehomed and impoverished with bad policy. For projects that aren't near fruition, this is going to wind up pushing timelines back. Significantly. This year's money is already allocated. Next year will be a giant question mark. If a project is mature, it won't have much effect, maybe relatively small cuts and delays. For longer-term projects and studies this is probably a virtual death sentence. They'll be on limited life-support if lucky.
Unless there's a shooting war because someone ( or multiple someones) have an economy that goes to pot coupled with growing unrest and they figure, why not now. Then, the money will flow like a river, but still focus on short-term, mature programs.

Looks like Germanys going to go for stopgap Hornets..
Germany to order 45 Hornets

a reply to: Blackfinger
Well what else were they going to do if they wanted an EA capable aircraft inside of 10 years from Eurofighter? There only other candidate might have been a Gripen variant.

a reply to: RadioRobert

To revisit the full-speed ahead status:

We continue to carefully and methodically track the state of the defense industrial base through DCMA for prime companies, top 10 defense contractors, and DLA for vendors. Out of 10,509 major prime companies, 106 are closed, with 68 companies having closed and reopened. Out of 11,413 vendor-based companies, 427 are closed, with 147 having closed and reopened.

Domestically, we are seeing the greatest impacts in the aviation supply chain, ship-building, and small space launch. We are seeing impacts on the industrial base by several pockets of closure internationally. Particularly of note is Mexico, where we have a group of companies that are impacting many of our major primes.
...
So, right now there isn't any specific COVID penalty that we see for a specific program, however, we do anticipate about a three-month slowdown at slower rates in terms of execution than we saw before. And we are just now looking at key milestones that might be impacted.
...
Question: "Hi, ma'am. Thank you.

In terms of the Section 3610 authorities that were put out, that would reimburse contractors for COVID-related delays or facility closures, do you need new money from Congress to pay for that? And how much do you think something like that's going to cost the department ultimately, if you're looking at three-month delays on things? "

Lord: "We believe it will cost us something and that what's part of our ask for this new package that we're talking about, the CARES Act 2. So we're talking billions and billions on that one."

theaviationist.com...

a reply to: anzha

Well some good news for Boeing - Commercial may be going down the drain at warp speed, but at least the Defense side can keep a few dollars rolling in...or at least the promise of dollars tomorrow to make the banks a bit happier about a loan today...

Just as an aside, I am absolutely stunned that this situation we are in now (most likely) started because of some random sequencing of RNA of a virus in an animal somewhere in China occured and that it just jumped over to humans via some sequence of events, and then spread throughout the world likely because of a combination of a desire for secrecy, incompetence, uncertainty, miscommunication and bureaucracy. And here we are now.

And I may have to take another view of spending issues: keeping defense spending up, even at risk of an even more insane blowout in deficits, will be an easy and fast way to ensure jobs maintained and perhaps even increased across the value chain. I guess the short to medium terms impact will be minimal, maybe even positive.

But longer term...money doesn't grow on trees. The Fed doesn't just snap its fingers and it appears from the Quantum Vacuum or something...

This gentleman provides a reasonably well argued rebuttal to those of us saying that it's a done deal. He gives insight on the political situation in Germany which is valuable to those of us who don't really understand how parliamentary politics works.

www.youtube.com...

a reply to: hawkguy

It's not a done deal until the contract is signed. All they've done so far is send an LOI for an FMS sale.

a reply to: Zaphod58

That's what the guy says in the video. It's really not much more than an email at the moment

a reply to: hawkguy

That email is a very important step however.