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Germany and France drop joint fighter jet project (www.reuters.com)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/world
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[–] 12 points 5 months ago (2 children)

For his part, Merz has openly questioned whether developing a manned sixth-generation fighter jet still made sense for his country's air force, and said Germany did not need a nuclear-capable jet that could ​land on an aircraft carrier.

He's pretty right about that. France wants something able to project power, which is not the main interest of Germany. There are two differing objectives, which need two different platforms.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    But the military requirements are only half the issue, the other half is building up and retaining institutional knowledge in building auch planes. Otherwise Germany could probably solve their problem easily by just buying whatever gcap ends up producing.

    What I find quite fascinating is that on one hand 100 billion is a fuck ton of money, on the other hand it's like 2 quarters of profit for Google or less than what Meta is planning to spend on data centers in 2026 (they also spend like 70billion on the Meta verse). I guess money wasn't the direct issue right now, but France (a large nation) will have trouble with funding when they decide to do it by themselves

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    I agree on that even if they need two different platforms, they should cooperate regarding infrastructure - The french fighter is not worth much if it isn't supplemented by unmanned support these days. A drone strike force able to support/protect a french nuclear capable fighter that is also able to do it's own thing is probably the way to go.

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    • [–] 9 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    France and Germany seem to have very different use cases for their fighter. If France wants something that can be launched from carriers, can carry nuclear weapons and otherwise serves to support claims to world-power status, the UK may be a more suitable partner. Meanwhile, Germany may do well to talk to Saab (especially now that Sweden is in NATO).

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago

    (all this is just based on what I've read, I have no qualifications on this topic)

    My understanding is that french and British aircraft carriers differ in the way they launch planes. France uses a catapult, which requires the frame of the aircraft to be reinforced, the UK does not.

    The UK also is already part of a separate program called gcap to develop their next gen fighters together with Japan and Italy. This is already well underway and work share has been decided on.

    As I've already mentioned in this thread, the whole thing about the next gen programs is not just about having the aircraft at the end, but also retaining/building up the domestic industry and know-how.

    Sweden might be interested to team up (although theyd probably prefer a lighter/cheaper aircraft than Germany), but my understanding is that Germany and Sweden both have similar gaps in their know-how. I think it has to do with some hot parts of the engine, which in Europe France or the UK would be the experts in. You can ofc develop them yourself from scratch, but that is costly and more importantly likely takes too long.

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    • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    What kind of busywork were they doing for almost a decade when they couldn’t even agree on a foundational issue like can we use it on a carrier or not?

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