Germany's preferred replacement for the Tornado

Surely if a new ground attack aircraft is required it makes more sense to team up with the USA to develop a next generation A10? Britain also operates the Tornado, so a multinational consortium would reduce the costs?

a reply to: Br34kingp01nt

Or possibly inflate costs. Them arms dealers dont put their kids through college by being all economical. At least not in my day

a reply to: Br34kingp01nt

Or possibly inflate costs. Them arms dealers dont put their kids through college by being all economical. At least not in my day

So sorry...duplicate post. Not a trolling excercise in air to ground assault.

I've looked hard at Falcon BMS 4.33 relative to DCS World and it's Falcon, hands down, with the exception of no VR capability, surely to be resolved within the next few years via the next iterations of BMS.

I'll be starting completely from scratch and probably won't be in a position to fly live in a combat squadron for God only knows how long, but I'm a pretty quick study, and I love to drill down into the finer detail of things. This has endless complexity and a rather steep and long learning curve, but I like the challenge.

So all I need, and praise God I made some money today, will be a gaming PC (any recommendations?), a HOTAS joystick, and I'm going to get one of those curved TV screens to use as a monitor. Then all I'll need will be about a 1000 hours working through the 700 page manuel, for starters.

Never too late to get back in the pit, but it was those old days flying the Tornado sim that gave me an appreciation for combat flight sims and what they're capable of.

I'm both excited and a little freaked out about what I'm getting myself into with this commitment but like all things, it's a work in progress and it takes time to master any thing.

It will be quite something though to one day become an integral member of a squadron in theater.

There's probably areas where rookies can train and learn I'm sure.

What an adventure!

I'm so excited! lol

a reply to: AnkhMorpork


Changed my mind.

Falcon BMS has reached the zenith of its community-based development, setup is complex and learning curve too longggg, ground based objects rendered on the old school platform are not realistic.

Whereas DCS is just getting rolling and will finally be releasing the Hornet soon, like spring of 2018.

DCS already has VR support.

Therefore, beginning with the end in mind, I have to go with DCS, and then wait for them to catch up with BMS' dynamic campaign capabilities in coming years.

It's absurd that they would create their platform and simpy focus on different airframes, without takling the creation of a sumulated dynamic campaign, which will probably come out in a couple of years.

The graphics in DCS 2.0 are absolutely stunning.

Since it will likely take me a year to come up to speed, I want to pick something that will continue to be developed for years to come.

The Falcon BMS platform is just too old now, and will soon be outdated and upstaged by DCS in every way, except perhaps dynamic campaign modelling.

Eagle Dynamics should figure out a way to acquire Benchmark Sims and start working on development of the Viper (F-16), while somehow integrating BMS' dynamic campaign (with AI) capabilities.

DCS in the coming years is certain to leave BMS in the dustbin of combat flight sim history.

Aside from Tornados, I wonder who's Germany's preference to replace Merkel and Schulz after the grosse koalition in a few years!

a reply to: Flanker86
Rumor is Merkel favors Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. The remnant of the conservative wing in the Union favors Jens Spahn. He's probably the frontrunner at this point for 2021. von der Leyen didnt do well in the Ministry of Defense and has probably fallen from grace... de Maizière just doesnt have it.
SPD will be a sad joke after four more years under Merkels thumb, probably finish third behind Lindners FDP if the coalition lasts till 2021. Or even AFD if things really go south.

Any Tornado replacement projects should do better with a Grand Coalition. The Greens hate the military, SPD just doesnt care (just as Merkels CDU).

As far as mission requirement, the F35 should do nicely as a replacement for the Tornado.

We do a lot of LAN parties and use Wings Over Europe but Strike Fighters 2 should be a bit nicer. I use TrackIR and CH products stick, throttle and rudder. They fly accurate enough and it doesn't have the steep learning curve of a lot of the others plus there is a lot of mod support. CH has a utility to program scripts if you need as well plus lots of buttons. I can fly the whole combat mission and don't have to touch the keyboard until it is time to lower the gear.

So how many "working" F-35 will the EU receive ? Any guess ?

Any hope for German F-35 just died. Unsurprisingly the German Debuty Defense Minister came out in favoring the Eurofighter replacing the Tornado in an official answer to an inquiry of the Bundestag. No matter what the current Chief of the Air Force wants, it wont be happening. Politics all the way, again.

Germany favors Eurofighter as it seeks to replace Tornado

BERLIN (Reuters) - The German Defence Ministry said on Monday that the European fighter jet was the leading candidate to replace its Tornado jets, which it wants to start phasing out in 2025.

The ministry’s position appears to contradict that of the German air force, whose chief indicated last month that he preferred Lockheed Martin’s F-35, which meets the military’s requirements of stealth and long-distance operational capabilities. In a letter to a Greens lawmaker who had inquired about the deliberations, the ministry said the F-35 and Boeing’s F-15 and F-18 fighters were secondary options.
[...]

www.reuters.com...

It's all politics. The reason they don't want the F-35 is they're afraid it will damage the new fighter program that they announced.

www.defensenews.com...

originally posted by: Zaphod58
It's all politics. The reason they don't want the F-35 is they're afraid it will damage the new fighter program that they announced.

www.defensenews.com...

Most aircraft programs are. I'm really not that surprised. EU countries will mostly want to keep the $$$ and development local. And we can can go back and forth but EU government exercise considerable influence over the EU based defense contractors

Id buy a singular F35 and use it as a testbed to make sure the new platform worked with all the tech..

The Luftwaffe may also be looking at F-15's and F/A-18's. Not sure if its serious or more for negotiating position

www.thedrive.com...

originally posted by: FredT
The Luftwaffe may also be looking at F-15's and F/A-18's. Not sure if its serious or more for negotiating position

www.thedrive.com...

The Luftwaffe is looking at them, but doesnt mean anything. The wishes of the Luftwaffe are irrelevant, the political leadership of Ministry of Defense already made their positions clear.
It will be the Eurofighter, due to political considerations (jobs / european partnership). Everything else is just the current Chief of the Luftwaffe sticking his head too far out. Karl Müllner 61 years old, looking at retirement in the near future...

Purchasing more (upgraded) Eurofighters instead of F-35s would be a popular move btw. The F-35 has a particular bad reputation in Germany because of biased and/or clueless media reporting while the Eurofighter enjoys great popularity - also mostly due to biasd and/ or clueless media reporting. As far as weapon systems are popular in Germany anyway, which they are not. A significant minority in Germany will actually oppose purchasing any new fighter jets and most wont care anyway. But more jobs is always good, so it will sail thrrough on that.

A quick look at the military side, compared to the Eurofighter (especially the sad German version), the F-35 is obviously the better aircraft. But that doesnt mean it would necessarily be the better option for the Luftwaffe.
Lets get real hear for a second, Germany wont bomb anyone in the near future.

Germany has not bombed anyone since 1999 when Luftwaffe Tornado ECR flew SEAD missions in the Kosovo War. The political climate has changed dramatically since then, Germany would not commit to a similiar campaign today. It was only possible back then because a newly formed Red / Green coalition was in power, they had to sort of bend the constitution and take extreme political risks anyway (the Goverment would have collapsed if the Greeens had not voted in facvor of joining the war) to join the war effort. Since then, all relevant political parties in Germany have gone to great lengths to not get caught up in another bombing campaign. An US airstrike in Afghanistan ordered by a German Colonel which killed over 100 civilians in 2009 further solidified this position.
In consequence Germany didnt send any fighter aircraft to Afghanistan, participated in the Lybian aerial campaign and even refrained from bombing ISIS.
So the point is, who cares if the Luftwaffe gets F-35 or Eurofighters. They wont use them to bomb someone anyway. Let alone using stealth aircraft in a first hour / first day scenario against a near peer opponent.

On top of that, looking at the logistical side, a one type fighter fleet has its benefits. Readiness rates of the Luftwaffe are disasterous atm, purchasing another fighter jet in rather low numbers wont change that. Focussing entirely on the Eurofighter might. Plus there are older Flight 1 Eurofighters in service which need to be replaced too, so maybe it wont be so bad after all.

Yep, I concur. The Germans will go for Typhoon. They just want something to sit on the tarmac and give the illusion that they care about defence. Having more Typhoons will just provide a bigger bucket of spare parts to keep the air shows amused.

Germany is now waiting on the UK to leave the EU so that the political elite in Europe (read France and Germany) can start to dictate the terms of a new defence future. We have already seen some of that through future industrial collaborations, but give it five years and I think we'll see military structures coalescing.

Anyway, to add to the knowledge base. Seems it's all getting political in Germany. Wir dürfen die F35 nicht kaufen, weil die Franzosen sich ärgern werden.

Defence Journal

Well, now Germany is helping the Turks in invading areas of Syria, hoping for the Turks to go full retard against Syria so that Merkel and EU royals can overthrow Erdogan and replace him with a NATO puppet, who would then buy more EU planes, such as a possible but highly improbably Tornado replacement.

www.reuters.com...

“A possible purchase of the Eurofighter would ensure the retention of military aircraft expertise in Germany and Europe, and value creation in our own country,” he said in the letter. “The weapons system has already been introduced to the Bundeswehr (armed forces) and is being successfully used.”

They want the 'expertise' to stay in Europe, but are unwilling to fund a new fighter's development.

Sigh.