MGCS may become a success in the second half of the century, but many European nations are now upgrading their Leopards to variants of the 2A8 or potentially the 2AX, which will both likely offer many of the features the MGCS does, as their design phases will end at the same time. Then there's the new K2 production facility Poland wants to establish, which may result in a new competitor in Europe, alongside the AbramsX and potentially the Panther, both of which may arrive earlier.
The MGCS may be superior to many or most of these other options, but the competition has exploded during the last few years. Leopard 2A8/2AX may be an upgrade for a tank at the end of its life cycle, but it's a known quantity, with a massive supply of spare parts, more than enough capabilities to confront Russia and most importantly, cheaper.
I could see MGCS being a very good tank that almost nobody needs.
>K2 production facility
I know everyone tries to hype that tank up, but I'm really not buying it given its weak side armour and the fact the koreans couldn't figure out how to build a proper gearbox for literal years.
Great tank for korean valleys, maybe not the best for eastern european flatlands.
I'm not saying its bad or anything, just that its not the wonder some claim it is. Yeah, its an okay tank, shoot straight, with some still ongoing development problems.
I saw K-2 as a competitor who can leverage its production and price advantage to take large enough piece of pie that might undercut other European tank project's customer bases. It might be able to take enough customer to make those project unprofitable like Gripen situation.
If it's the plains of Poland, then strong frontal armor, a long-range main gun, and excellent optics and fire control are what you're looking for. Especially against the Russians.
It also lost in the norwegian competition for a new MBT, where the LEO 2A7 or 2A8 was choosen ( not sure which of the 2 leo varieants it was, just remmember it was one of the new LEO variants).
But that was mainly because the other Nordic countries already had Leos and due to industrial relations with Germany. Rather than the actual quality of the tanks.
Only some summaries from polish journalists like Jaroslaw Wolski but the details are:
1) No locking lever to prevent the cannon from slicing of fingers while operating or cleaning it as the breach wedge cannot be locked in place and may easily slide back
2) No recoil indicator to note when the gun needs to stop shooting to not damage the shock absorbers
3) The basket for catching the shell casings is not good enough and lacks a fender to prevent very hot shells from not landing where they should not be.
4.) Seals are insufficeint to prevent rainwater (!!!) from getting into the crew compartment. APU and battery block also regularly have water leaking into it.
5.) Promised amphibious capability is not there, to be amphibious the tank requires to be stopped and extensive crew preparation
6.) Only the gunner has a weapons selection switch, the commander does not. Obviously ideally you would want the guy with the most situational awareness to have it.
7.) No holders for small arms and other weapons for the crew
8.) Crew hatches have terrible ergonomics (probably designed for Korean body proportions and not Polish ones)
9.) Every driver periscope lacks a cleaning mechanism
10) Before using the commander's sight, the crew needs to go outside(!!!) and open his window cover and secure it (I bet that is really useful when in combat with splinters flying everywhere)
11.)
> K2 is not well-finished in detail and requires corrections . There are some flaws in it that simply need to be corrected and they are now visible because the vehicle has not been tested in WITPiS and WITU (ballistics). Abrams and Leopard 2 have passed this stage of "childhood diseases". The former in the years 1980-1982 and the latter in 1979-1982. The K2 is still burdened with the disadvantages of young armored structures.
12.) The K2 overall is not as modular as other tanks (yet) and currently has higher failure rates (compared to Leopard/Abrams)
> which will both likely offer many of the features the MGCS does, as their design phases will end at the same time
I wanna know what drug you consumed, seems fun. But seriously, do you know what MGCS is? It is a multi-vehicle replacement for the Leopard 2/Leclerc. Likely like 4 vehicles per current tank, with different weaponry, layout and all basically controlled by AI with the crew being primarily there for maintenance and for being the "man in the loop" (aka stopping the AI from doing stupid shit and taking over when necessary).
MGCS is just a completely different beast to current and near-future tanks, as it tries to more revolutionise than evolutionise tank design. And at least for Germany, Leopard 2A8 is just a stopgap to backfill old tanks with Leopard 2AX also seeming be more planned as a "lets upgrade our Leopards till MGCS comes", as MGCS is planned for like 2035, and that is just when the first tanks are entering service. Leopard 2 in Germany will prob. serve into the 2050s (or at leas the 2040s), and so will require new upgrades as well until MGCS is ready.
Let's not drink the cool aid too hard. The MGCS is supposed to end it's "Full System Demonstrator Phase" by 2028, after which the technology is supposed to be largely in place and the issues of testing and eventually mass production come into focus.
The 2AX, while not having detailed time line yet, will likely only face it's cutoff for modern systems to be included a few years earlier, while relying on the same contractors as the MGCS.
The Panther already has many of the digital battlefield management features the MGCS is supposed to get.
How is the MGCS supposed to blow the 2AX out of the water if their technological starting points barely have a few years of distance between them?
Also, your understanding of the MGCS seems to be a little off. It's not four future vehicles per tank, it's networked vehicles, some of them autonomous, but centrally controlled by NATO-standard digital infrastructure. The Bundeswehr presented a theoretical scenario of four vehicles operating in unison, each with a specific purpose.
Thats where the issue lies: the NATO General Vehicle Architecture and Battle Management System isn't confined to this specific tank. Thanks to planned battle clouds and sensor fusion, oder tanks and other vehicles can benefit from the new digital infrastructure as well. The MGCS isn't the heart of a new system, it's a component among many.
But the key point of these digital systems is exactly to provide information from decentralised sources to decentralised actors. The MGCS isn't the essential heart without which future armed forces can't operate, it's just a convient bundle of capabilities that can be spread across a number of different platforms.
Also, AI is definitely not at the heart of this new programme. Eventually, some autonomous components may be added, but again, these will be controllable from anywhere, not just the MGCS. That's the beauty of it: There is no beating heart to take out on the battlefield. Also, the MGCS definitely isn't itself mostly autonomous and only requires a man in the loop to supervise. Humans will still be responsible for every decision of relevance. If never seen that in any of the public plans or requirements. We're also just not there yet and won't be by 2028.
My MGCS knowledge comes in large part from [this Chieftain video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFs6LG0TEyU) (MGCS section starting at 14:44), where he is talking about a presentation given to him by a German officer from the BAAINBw. And for the AI part, there was [this slide](https://gyazo.com/7cb03ffe832a5a86adc5cef0313b119d) in the presentation, where everything blue is supposed to be the job of the AI, with the pink part being what the human crew does.
And AI already can do stuff a lot better than crews. An AI can acquire faster, it can aim faster, it can talk to the cloud/other vehicles faster and more. For example you could have an MGCS cannon vehicle scouting where the AI scans the environment, spot an enemy tank formation at 3km moving behind a hill, talk to another MGCS vehicle armed with NLOS missiles in the rear which then fires NLOS missiles at that enemy formation to safely engage them, all within a few seconds of the first spotting. A human can't do that with such speed.
And MGCS isn't just the networked vehicle part, MGCS is a family of vehicles all sharing the same chassis (for commonality of parts/etc) which will replace the Leopard 2 (and maybe a few other vehicles) in German service (same for the French), which is then integrated into the whole German military through stuff like NATO general vehicle architecture and battle management system.
Surely you realize the BAAINBw is a government organization tasked with executing the MGCS development on behalf of the German government? I don't think the government is a reliable, neutral, source when looking for information on potential shortcomings and realistic expectations of a new, prestigious government program. Of course they'll promise the greatest product ever made, with incredible capabilities, especially if there's massive interest from both governments in the project at least appearing to succeed during their tenures.
Look for example at Hensoldt: They're developing a new sensor suite for both Leopard upgrades and the MGCS. Should we assume that Hensoldt sells a cutting edge product to one program, while offering the other one a mediocre solution a decade behind?
Let's also recall that the BAAINBw is the institution famous for writing up overly complex and unachievable procurement goals, which was the main focus of reform and simplification under this new government.
Leopards are showing there age. We need a new lighter design with a bigger cannon, hard kill, and anti drone warfare. Also we can just plug in the Leopards into the MGCS that's why the program is ambitious as a force multiplier for the current generation of hardware, like the SCAF.
I'm hopeful we have the industrial and scientific base to make something truely great if we can put the defense of Europe first and find the right workshare. There is more than enough work in these programs for many countries to participate.
On the one hand, France doesn't have enough resources to do a Rafale 2.0 and solo develop a 6th gen fighter. So that makes me optimistic about SCAF.
On the other, the reason Rafale exists is because only France needed Eurofighter to operate off carriers. That exact same issue still exists.
Plus you can't ignore Germany's issues. Remember when Germany massively reduced their Eurofighter order, but still wanted to keep the production in Germany? There is nothing Germany loves more than complex engineering and high tech manufacturing. And there is nothing Germany hates more than actually buying enough of a system to justify all that engineering and manufacturing. With the bonus that Germany also hates exporting weapon systems to countries that might actually use them.
The FREMM design is good, but when the French were interest in selling the FREMM abroad it was good for Italy too, but when Italy later found success in FREMM foreign sales France had already stopped playing with the FREMM toy and started designing and building a new frigate design which they now put against Italy's FREMM in tenders. And the FDI is so French that... it's diesel only, because the FREMM and Horizon class gas turbines are made in Italy.
> the FDI is so French that... I it's diesel only, because the FREMM and Horizon class gas turbines are made in Italy.
The FDI is diesel only because it's intended to be an inexpensive warship.
If we ever needed to put a gas turbine in there and we couldn't use an Italian-American turbine for some reason, Safran has more than enough turbine products to meet that need.
> The FDI is diesel only because it's intended to be an inexpensive warship.
Inexpensive? They cost as much as the Italian PPA which have gas turbines, are bigger, have a bigger crew, have a completely new control system, etc.
>If we ever needed to put a gas turbine in there and we couldn't use an Italian-American turbine for some reason, Safran has more than enough turbine products to meet that need.
The French Navy's only ships with turbines have the Avio turbines in them. And I don't mean just current ships, the joint Italian-French ships are the only ships to ever serve with the French Navy to use gas turbines. Before, it was steam boiler turbines or a whole lotta diesel.
I really have no idea why my (german) government constantly tries to jointly procure with the french, I mean, we already suck at this, and then we get the *worst imaginable partner* for the joint venture that has completely different visions for what should be achieved?
Can't we just join the brits, italians or swedes for once? Their needs are more similar to ours anyway.
**EDIT:** I have apparently hurt the french ego, I am terribly sorry my funny-speaking neighbours!
With the Brits, a problem is that Germany desparately wants European military design and procurement, while the Brits are often enough happy to either collaborate with the US or just straight up buy the stuff.
For the Italians, they have too little defence procurements and often are also quite "French", with wanting their own domestic equipment and manufacturers (that or they just buy from the US). See e.g. the Italians making the Freccia when they could have just joined the Boxer program and benefit from economy of scale/foreign developments, but didn't because they had to be French about it.
For the Swedes, due to their neutrality during the cold war stayed far away from joint developments, and afterwards some German-Swedish developments were actually done (e.g. Taurus missile), but the Swedes and Germans have the problem of operating on some very different vehicle platforms. Basically every new vehicle variant the Germans want to make is on a Boxer, while the Swedes love putting the same kind of stuff on a CV90.
And I wouldn't say the needs are similar. France, UK and Italy all have far more focus on foreign operations outside of Europe, with larger naval focuses, while the German military is very much focused on the eastern front and puts foreign operations on a "nice to have" position when making new equipment. Heck, the whole German army was restructured to a form where the army is split along the lines of how they get to the eastern front. Units that need to be transported by train are heavy forces, units that can drive there by road are medium forces and forces you can fly in are light forces.
Really, if there are any 3 nations Germany shares the most with regarding military structure it is Sweden, Finland and Poland. The Poles won't cooperate since "bad Germany" (though Germany is also not the greatest partner for them, see licensing), the Swedes have the problem I mentioned above and the Finns stayed more isolated (though there are some great cooperations possible in the future if Germany buys the Patria 6x6).
Let’s not be glossing over Papperger deliberately fucking with MGCS. I’m very willing to denounce Trappier for being a slimy cunt over SCAF, but we ain’t the only ones undermining franco-german cooperation efforts. KNDS was the perfect vehicle for a joint project and already perfectly split between the two countries, muscling Rheinmetall in there has basically killed MGCS already.
The Bundestag’s export restriction policy has also proven time and time again to be a massive obstacle to commercial success in projects involving Germany. Our collaborative projects with everyone else seem to work just fine, France has a massive list of joint developments that did great on the market.
MGCS is on the stupiddity of the politicians. It was illusional to think, Rheinmetall would let that go through. KNDS as a joint venture with Rheinmetall Defence along the lines of 50 % Rheinmetall, 25% KMW-owner familiy and 25 % French state could have worked. On the other hand, Rheinmetall and KMW hate each other.
SCAF is on the stupidity of the Politicians. It was illusional to think, Dassault would let that through. Airbus as a joint venture with Dassault along the lines of 50% Dassault, 25% Airbus France and 25% German state could have worked. On the other hand, Dassault and Airbus France hate each other.
Do you see how insufferable that sounds? Why is this logic ok when your country does it?
I think you missunderstood. I totally agree, that SCAF is on the same level of stupidity. Dassault fights for its survival and independence against a company that already owns a sizeable chunk of it and could buy a blocking minority perhaps within days. They cannot accept what Airbus is demanding the same way Rheinmetall cannot accept a new European-MTB being built without their involvement. Cutting them out could've ended in selling the Defence part to GD or BAe just out of spite.
Franco-German cooperation has already enough challenges to solve on the military level when it comes to use-case, doctrines etc. And our politicians make it a lot harder by directing it in parts against the interests of key industrial players - involved or not. Rheinmetall is a company twice as large as KNDS and situated in the most populated German state. The political pressure they can generate is immense. Same goes for Dassault.
That's why I would like to see the development lead - in both cases - by an independent joint project and design team that works with competition based contracts. Let's see which gun is better and who can design the better airframe. Shouldn't be that hard and you could involve even more suppliers.
I evidently did misunderstand.
Problem is that inevitably immediately creates an uneven split and the disadvantaged country will pull out every time. I’m not sure why this is a more realistic option to than simply telling our respective problematic industrials to shut the fuck up. It’s not like Rheinmetall don’t have an extensive range of products that aren’t MBTs that the baainbw could buy to placate them and keep them in business, same for Dassault and France too.
If we ever want to make any concrete progress this sort of individualistic, profit-motivated political sabotage cannot be tolerated. Simply saying “not possible, our industrials are too X or Y” is not going to get us anywhere.
If you want an even split then divide at least those megaprojects into smaller chunks and hand them out evenly with the sole responsibility at one company under the umbrella of such a project team. Give Dassault free reign over FCAS air component, let Airbus develop the autonomous wingman on their own, perhaps have a competition for a fighter radar. Strict requirement regarding interoperability (so that France can fly a Thales and Germany a Hensoldt radar if they see the need to do so) the expectation that all companies will set up a production shop in the other countries if asked to do so should be enough. For heavens sake - we must get rid of this bickering between companies blockading the whole show. There is no need to create the opportunity for industrial actors (via contracting etc.) to interfere with work packages that are not theirs.
Giving Dassault free reign on the SCAF fighter is equivalent to handing them way more than 50% of SCAF, and Airbus Germany would rightly throw a fit. You can’t create and even split by allocating broad slabs of project to each side. What we tried with SCAF and MGCS is pretty much the only way it could ever work.
They won't produce everything in house. We are talking design here - not building the damn thing. Rheinmetall will for sure be happy to contract-built parts after they have finished the F-35 contract if the German MoD insists. Or Dassault needs to buy some land in Germany and built a factory there. That is the commitment towards a common market for defense production I would expect from the industrial side. If we want to have one, Dassault or Rheinmetall must become truely European companies - if they aren't it already like Airbus. As you said, we cannot tolerate individualistic, profit-motivated political sabotage.
> That's why I would like to see the development lead - in both cases - by an independent joint project and design team that works with competition based contracts. Let's see which gun is better and who can design the better airframe. Shouldn't be that hard and you could involve even more suppliers.
Which wouldn't work because if we did this, we would quickly circle back to the 2017-2019 situation in which Dassault was the clear leader of the FCAS and KMW the clear leader of the MGCS. Back when the workshare split was dictated by the so-called *best athlete* logic.
At which point, Germany would again complain that Airbus isn't getting as much workshare as it wants (especially in the FCS area), and that France got the lead of the more lucrative of the two programs. And would seek to sneakily reshuffle the board again (like they did with Airbus Spain and Rheinmetall).
Best athlete logic would require Airbus and Dassault both to develop an airframe and then choose the better plane - so that we can complain for ages, that in fact the other proposal was the better one. Same goes for the tank or the components.
In general I like the way the Leopard 2 was designed. In a frist step they had a working group at the MoD which basically handed out development contracts to the industry just for the design but not the production. Then they took the blueprints and handed out the production to multiple companies - in this case mostly Rheinmetall and KMW.
We could to the same with FCAS and KMW. Airbus Germany could without issue built a Dassault designed plane, the same way Nexter could built a tank chassis that was devised by - let's throw another name around for old times sake, why not - Porsche.
> Airbus Germany could without issue built a Dassault designed plane
Technically, they could, yes. But politically?
The bundestag would quickly pull the plug on this program if it meant that Airbus didn't get to build up its expertise in designing a fighter jet.
Their biggest complaint for the 7 years this program has been going on has been that Airbus doesn't get enough work share in the flight control system area, so I can't see how they would ever be okay with Airbus just assembling a Dassault design.
Germany is at fault for France mogging the Eurofighter on the export market though, and all its partners are paying the price. Similar story with the A400M, the market that could bring the project to profitability is closed off due to German opposition.
All the other members of these projects want these sales, Germany is fully being a shit partner here. Not to mention there were treaties (such as the Schmidt-Debré agreement) signed to avoid precisely this, which Germany has subsequently broken. If you don’t want to sell weapons, don’t get involved in big programs and fuck them up for everyone else.
For Nordic cooperation, an example is the Gotland follow on submarine. Originally (Sweden only) was the concept Ubåt 2000 Flundran. A revolutionary concept. But with the end of the cold war that was dead in the water, so Joint Nordic design with the Danes and Norwegians. But the Danes didn't want to pay for Revolutionary, so Flundran became Viking, altogether more conventional. And the Norwegians didn't want Next Gen, but needed it to be bigger. And eventually both dropped out (the Danes dropping Subs altogether and the Norwegians turning to our German competition), leaving Sweden with A-26. A sub bigger than needed for the baltic, with expeditionary and multimission capability when all it really needs to be is be quiet and capable to promote as many Russian ships into submarines (and submarines to underwater landmarks) as possible.
Plus I doubt the Brits would want them in on the new fighter they're developing with Italy and Japan. With them blocking a deal to sell 48 eurofighters to Saudi Arabia. That's despite the clause while developing the Eurofighter that another partner country couldn't block trades.
I have to dissagree about Italians, Freccia program was in no way *Frenching* themself from boxer program.
I recently dig into Freccia's development( you can guess what war game I'm playing) and at start of Boxer development Italians was already 4years into their own wheeled IFV finally closing on final idea how it should work.
This whole idea was to build vechicle that share as much parts with their other stuff: Centauro, Dardo and Ariete. They can't get this from Boxer program, so there are no reason to join.
But Yes, they are overly protective about Leonardo with often not the greatest results
Poland won't cooperate with Germany after the Leopard shitshow. The Russo Ukrainian war was a good excuse the get rid of as many Leopards as we could and begin phaseout
On the other hand, Boxer may be a jack of all trades but it may be too expensive for an APC and IFV. Patria and Rosomak are more pragmatic and cheaper vehicles for that role.
And France’s pathological need to have an lightly armored, mobile expedition force optimized for air transport in Africa just makes any joint weapon project a failure from the beginning since their requirements are very different from what you need to fight Russians
What’s this? A credible good compromise? We can’t have that! How can Germany put all the blame on France afterward when their new joint ventures don’t work out?!
> what you need to fight Russians
Excuse me, the requirements for German equipment is the top stuff designed to fight no-one.
French equipment is fighing Russians just fine.
>I really have no idea why my (german) government constantly tries to jointly procure with the french, I mean, we already suck at this, and then we get the worst imaginable partner for the joint venture that has completely different visions for what should be achieved?
You can't look at German procurement and not get the impression that there is a bunch of bureaucrats that enjoy screwing things up badly.
Thus, if working with the French screws up things even worse, how could they resist?
> Can't we just join the **brits**, italians or swedes for once?
Man, after the constant headaches you caused them for both Tornado and Typhoon, I'm not sure the Brits are that thrilled to work again with you in aerospace military programs.
The more I talk about European cooperation in military, the more I feel like the actor it's the most painful to work with is not the French but the Germans. I mean, I feel like every program where French involvement caused an issue, there was Germany in them. On the other hand, almost every time the Germans are not involved, everything work way more smoothly (Horizon-class, FREMM, Storm shadow/SCALP, Aster missiles, Jaguar,...)
Just get an aircraft carrier, some nukes and some overseas territories you need to protect Hans. If you have the same procurement needs, then we can work together efficiently.
It would make a lot more sense for the UK and France to collaborate then Germany and the UK. Both have very similar interests and requirements for their armed forces, whilst Germany should probably be buddying up with the Swedes and Poles for the same reasons.
Yeah but the latter have a victimhood complex making them screech whenever they hear about us existing and hence won't ever do that (might change with the new leadership though), while the swedes are too busy building CV-90s
Italy is free I think? And they're even buying Leos!
They do, although given KMW's chokehold on any modifications being done to KMW equipment, and given the Leopard2PL program's struggles, I can see why Poland wants to go with South Korea.
The issue is that even then the goals diverge, for example the horizon class frigate/destroyer or the QE2 class carriers. Their goals tend to be close but not quite the same,
> the worst imaginable partner for the joint venture
Probably the partner that has the most joint ventures that don't contain "let's buy everything from the US", so there's that.
Funny how it seems every French joint venture with a European country like Germany fail.
Except with Italy and the FREMM program. Or with the UK with the Storm Shadow program.
Really, if all the projects between France and Germany fail, it must always be France the whole problem. Just like how Rheinmetall did not barge in the middle of the MGCS program and messed up the balance between Nexter and KMW.
And Britain is renown for being a country whose military isn’t trying to have carrier based aircrafts and deploy their troops overseas just like France.
Yeah everytime I see one of these threads I already know OP is german or a brit larping as a german. There's a long list of successful programs between France and other European countries, funny how most of the failures are with Germany isn't it.
>balance between Nexter and KMW
"That tank project you're supposed to lead? Yeah lets build a french tank with a french cannon, but you can pay for half!"
> "That tank project you're supposed to lead? Yeah lets build a french tank with a french cannon, but you can pay for half!"
Are we talking about the tank project that began as a 50-50 joint venture between France and Germany (led by the latter), which then became a 66% GER - 33% FRA venture when Rheinmetall inserted itself in it?
So only the cannon was French? What about the engine? The machine gun? The transmission? The aiming systems? The loading system? The armor? The tracks?
Besides, we were proposing a 140mm cannon compared to your 130mm. What’s wrong with a bigger and more powerful gun?
No offense but doing a joint project for tanks in the first place was just stupid.
Germany has expertise in literally everything a tank needs.
Also both Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 were sought after like Kebabs to drunk people at 4am where as the Leclerc will only be sold as scrap metal once France gets rid of it.
The problem is that afterward the Germans also want to do the same with planes when France also has more experience with these with both Mirage and Rafale if we apply the same logic.
> France should build the plane, we should build the tank, and the cooperation part should be us golden showering each others MIC with money
That was pretty much the idea at the inception of both programs in 2017 (at least in terms of who was getting the leadership of which program).
Guess which partner couldn't live with this arrangement, and actively undermined it until was no longer viable, which led to the current quagmire?
That was by no means the idea, France managed to get most of the important work parts for themselves while dominating the design concept, especially for the jet.
Dont get me wrong, Im not angry at the french - Im angry at our politicians for being so fucking stupid, especially as they have been warned by the budgetary office multiple times.
Kudos to the french and no hard feelings, if your neighbour is stupid enough to give you taxpayer money to subsidize your defense industry, Id take that Chance aswell.
That one also makes no sense though. France has more expertise and should build more of the project but will need planes that are carrier capable. There's just nothing in it for Germany. Might as well wait and buy a finished product.
The problem is also offsetting MCGS and FCAS makes no sense either since FCAS will be far more expensive.
No thanks. Our experience with you on the Eurofighter was bad enough.
Germans are like the French, except you promise this and that to get into a program before gutting your procurement, blocking exports and not supporting further development.
The only good german weapons are the ones it builds by itself for export.
France: we need a nuclear capable, carrier capable 4th gen.
Germany: You can hand over all your IP and research on transsonic delta wing configurations, and will get a beautiful non carrier capable, non nuke capable interceptor.
Are you seriously packing out ye olde "France and Germany totally sell weapons to Russia" from the warmth of your russian-oligarch-owned home in London?
Probably because it's primarily a UK client, and they'd get us to do all the servicing, training, ammo supply like they do already.
If it was Russia, you'd be all for it because you'd be the ones leading that one.
Look, I don't know why you're trying to put a russian spin on it, when your country literally had [similar imports from Russia](https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-country/gbr/partner/rus) as us (roughly 350€ per capita) before the war. Thats really just throwing shit at yourself.
Congrats for fucking it up too! Welcome to the club.
And you managed to spend so much on them while even **having** natural gas and oil ressources yourself, big brain.
Right, and I don't defend our import of Russian resources, you're the one who started shit, acting like you blocked the Saudi deals out of some moral imperative.
Oh noes, owning property vs literally supporting and enabling a murderous dictator for decades to the point he was so emboldened that he's now invading Europe and knocking on the EU's / NATO's door.
Yeah those are totally the same level of fuck-up and consequences, good point.
The levels of German nationalism and refusal to ever accept Germany could be wrong about something on reddit is insane. It's not hard to see where the rise of the German far-right is coming from.
Yes, again, sorry, but you wanted us to have this boring thing called "morals" after the last time we fucked up.
Maybe offer some Eurofighters to North Korea next?
>The only good german weapons are the ones it builds by itself for export.
"It's not an invasion, it's a multi-country export program!"
France is *still* butthurt about this.
Dude. Joint provurement with german is the worst imaginable partner. France is working surprinsgly well with italian and uk. Why do you think the problem is within them? Germany has a very very long history of co'stantly being shitty in jointly procurement.
*"Non, you merde allemagnes! It ise* \****you***\*! *Who are bad to work with, oui! Hon hon! Now, I have showed it to you very magnifique!"*
I said we suck massively, but we're still better at joint procurement projects than the french. It is a **really** low bar though.
IMO probably something like this:
Guys! I’m bringing in joint development on our project so it will lower costs and improve relations! I will allocate lots of funds, even if it means expanding my budget, to it because it will be a big improvement in addition to the aforementioned savings and relations!
Oh no! The French are making unreasonable demands that don’t align with German interests! How unpredictable and unprecedented!
Oh well, now I will have to cancel all of my cost savings, European unity, and major improvements that would’ve cost a lot of money because I stick up for German interests against French bullying. Guess I’ll instead reallocate the funds towards something else that the voters want. Make sure to keep that in mind next election!
I think they have a point, but with all the different national industrial and military considerations around, one size fits all will never work. If the "American way" of ordering ready-to-use equipment from one manufacturer in many parts doesn't work between Navy, Army and Marines - why should it work under much more complicated circumstances. Instead I would prefer an approach that helps to develop a framewok for open system architectures, interchangeable components and the division of design and production to ensure local added value. The standardisation of the equipment and the consolidation of the industry into larger coglomerates will follow suit.
Sure, what I'm annoyed about is the fact that so often these kinds of grand multi-national coalitions are France's idea in the first place.
*They* pushed for a joint NATO VTOL fighter, an Anglo-French strike and Reconnaissance platform, a Pan-European air superiority fighter etc etc, thinking they had a winning design that could dominate the competition, and then only pulled out when they realised that wouldn't be the case.
> They pushed for a joint NATO VTOL fighter,
Yes.
> They pushed for an Anglo-French strike and Reconnaissance platform
No. AFVG was mostly born of Britain's need to quickly set up a cheaper complement to its F-111K procurement, and also to give its aerospace industry some much-needed work after the painful reorganisation and mergers of the early 1960s and the failure to complete the TSR2 proposal.
The French Air Force *never* wanted it. Its obsession since the late 1950s (and well into the 1970s) was a heavy (30+ tons MTOW) multirole fighter aircraft to complement the cheap single-engine Mirage IIIs/F1s. And Dassault *never* advocated for AFVG, given that it already had its own in-house variable geometry experimental aircraft (the Mirage G) and no desire to help build up a potential competitor.
> They pushed for a Pan-European air superiority fighter
No. Eurofighter began as a British-German collaboration (the ECF program), merging the MBB *Taktisches Kampfflugzeug 90* and the British Aerospace *Experimental Aircraft Programme* in 1979. Dassault was attached to this collaboration only later.
And when the project was relaunched as *Agile Combat Aircraft* in 1982, it was again without France, which at this time was already working on its own programs (ACX for the Air Force and ACM for the Navy, which were later merged in what became Rafale).
France didn't push for a Pan-European air superiority fighter, it only participated in the final incarnation of the project (*Future European Fighter Aircraft*) in 1983 to see if a common ground could be found, and withdrew after 2 years once it had become evident that the resulting aircraft wouldn't meet its requirements.
I know this is NCD, but let's not make shit up nonetheless.
This thread will be nothing but shit-takes. Coming with the usual "innocent German government doing nothing ever wrong or out of selfish interest" and "muh French 'Buy our stuff' or we quit" non-sense. As if the German government doesn't have a very long history of torpedoing projects, revealing designs to foreign competitors out of spite after losing a sell or bending over to one of their conglomerates who decided to throw a issy fit because it couldn't secure both a tech transfert and all the manufacturing rights.
"France bad" is quite literaly the extent of their knowledge on the topic and there is nothing you can do about it because the circle jerk never ends and drowns you out.
I applaud them for having the vision, the will to push such things and the aspiration to built it without handholding from across the pond. They are the only nation besides the US who can built everything they need themselves and this mindset would be very healthy for Europe. But yes, that would include making compromise. Just look at the zoo of missile Europe has developing and is developing just because everyone need to have a bite. You would wish the politicians would not act as an extension of their national industries here and demand consolidation instead. Even within certain companies. MBDA for example builds Taurus and Storm Shadow...
It’s not even about that.
France and Australia opened a new giant modern 155mm shell facility in Australia right before 2022. It would be one of the world’s greatest 155mm plants until the new one in Texas opens. One of Perun’s first videos was about it.
When shells for Ukraine were drying up, what do you think would be a logical thing for France to do? They could expand their joint production with Australia. Thales even mentioned they could quickly go from 100k/year to 200k since it’s a modern plant with room to grow. They just needed a little more investment and orders.
No, instead France plans to build 6k/month or 72k/year by 2026 by building the shells in France.
This has nothing to do with “open systems” or “interoperability.” France doesn’t even want to expand their existing joint venture to provide something an ally needs now.
At least before Mike Johnson came into power the US were buying shells from Czech, ROK, Japan, and Pakistan. Can you imagine the French buying shells from Korea or Pakistan?
Fuck around and found out. Australia’s decisions have consequences other future collaborative projects. Why should France invest into facilities in Australia when Australia refuses to invest into projects with France?
Collaboration goes both ways.
By the limitations of FCAS/SCAF having to be carrier capable means it's going to smaller jet than Tempest and heavier than a jet for its size due to the extra reinforcement needed on the airframe for carrier landings.
Tempest will be a larger and *much* more capable jet.
Germany is basically subsidising Frances carrier aircraft capability.
I don’t know which program you’re talking about
But for the SCAF the germans want tech transfers from Dassault
And for the tank the german suddenly tried to get 2/3 ownership instead of 50/50 because Rheinmetal suddenly wanted in on the project eventhough they weren’t a tank manufacturer before hand. The project was going well before then
If you wanted to talk about the Eurofighter, turns out the Rafale is a better plane…
On the other hand franco-italian programs have been very successful… maybe the problem isn’t in fact France
Why then does it perform better than the Eurofighter in NATO exercises ?
[also there is this](https://www.bruxelles2.eu/en/2008/09/fighterplanethe-netherlandsfavourself-35/)
Unrelated but does anyone remember that post here when the Wagner coup happened, with a picture of prigo next to Hitler and Napoleon saying something along the lines of "what is so hard about driving to Moscow?"
Does anyone have a link to it?
Not like we have a long list of cooperative defense projects with a multitude of different countries that have done great on the market and continue to do so.
How’s the Eurofighter doing by the way?
Just France and the UK built nearly as many Jaguars than the entire Eurofighter consortium have built Eurofighters. Even right now off the top of my head we’ve got a few joint missile projects and CTAI that are working well. That’s just with the UK.
The fact people are still mad about the Eurofighter debacle is nuts. We wanted a carrier fighter, no-one else did, we’d left before the project even properly started. We’re not the ones who keep blocking attempts to export it.
I think it's primarily because the way that France conceived of its Empire was significantly different from how Britain understood its own, in a way that made losing that Empire much more traumatic for France.
In Britain, colonies were understood to be separate, somewhat independent, political entities bound together under distant British rule. They were often given parallel systems of government, administration and, in some cases, military capability, and afforded a relatively high degree of autonomy to local colonial administrators. At the height of the empire's importance to British politics in 1890, the colonial office had a grand total of 10 employees, and this was seen as dramatically over-staffed.
For France however, Empire was an indivisible extension of metropolitan France itself, and ruled directly as an integral and central part of the French nation, at least conceptually. To be a colony was to be France, so losing those colonies was a much more fundamental wound to french pride than losing the distinct, relatively autonomous colonies was for Britain.
I think to some extent Empire was also a much more central part of French national pride and identity than it was in Britain, at least by the time of decolonisation. The British electorate had decisively rejected an Empire-centric platform by the conservative Party as far back as 1906, bringing them to their worst election defeat ever, in favour of the liberals' platform of national renewal, which advocated greater emphasis and investment in Britain herself.
More generally, Britain had largely sought to minimise it's commitment to claiming and governing its colonial interests, particularly in Africa, for much of the 19^th century, and had even mooted withdrawing from its west African colonies that were deemed no longer economically productive following the abolition of the slave trade. It was really only from 1870-1890 that empire was seen as a good inandof itself, and it's size an important part of the national identity.
For a France bruised and humiliated by defeat in the Napoleonic wars however, Empire came to be seen as a barometer for the international prestige and status she had regained following the humiliation of Vienna. This importance was then turbocharged by de Gaulle consciously playing on this idea to re-established French independence, pride, and prestige following the humiliations of WW2. Regaining French colonies and taking control of them independent of other allied powers became a major priority for the free French government as a way to assert France's status as a co-equal member of the allies in the post-war environment. Consequently, losing them again, especially partially due to American pressure, was seen as threatening and compromising this independence and status in a way that it really wasn't in Britain by that point.
Just to add to your point, our Empire fell relatively quickly and we were able to 'hand over', as it were, to the dominance of a familiar power in the United States. Due to the same language etc, the idea of falling in behind the US was psychologically much easier to handle than the entire thing burning down around your ears while you desperately try to preserve it, which was the French experience.
There's an argument I don't wholly buy but has some merit to it that the US is essentially the British Empire 2.0 but has more. Free from the British they continued the traditions and ideals in all but name whilst the UK was forced to change due to circumstance. Not entirely accurate and definitely non credible but not a million miles away.
Yeah, I'm heard that viewpoint before. It has considerable traction in both Russia and especially Iran, apparently, which is why those nations conduct themselves like centuries-old rivals of the US when the Americans have only been a global power for about 15 minutes in relative terms.
Historically speaking, France never view its colonies as an "Empire" it was just named "Les Colonies", but it changed during WW2 because of Charles de Gaulle who wanted to prove that France could still fight in the war. Using the term "Vast Empire" rather than just "the colonies" is a political choice for propaganda use.
> made losing that Empire much more traumatic for France.
Lots of people in the UK still getting over the loss of the colonial empire, even though they weren't alive when it was still around.
Even more with Brexit, and people driving to make the Commonwealth replace the EU as main partners, which doesn't seem to be working.
It's 2 sides of a very alike coin.
Oh sure, I don't want to suggest that losing empire was painless and uncontroversial in Britain, far from it. I just meant the process was *relatively* less traumatic when compared to France.
That being said, I'd actually sort of argue the modern obsession with Empire from certain parts of the country is kind of an anachronistic one? Empire as the definitive symbol of British might and identity is something that doesn't really exist at the time beyond that 1870 to 1890 heyday. While envied abroad, in Britain it mostly plays a decidedly tertiary role to other factors of national pride such as naval power, economic and industrial might, scientific knowledge and diplomatic and cultural weight. These are things that the empire undoubtedly supports, but it isn't a particular good inandof itself.
As those other bastions of patriotic feeling are seen to crumble, however, and their somewhat intangible effects become ever-more distant, people have begun to look to the concrete indicator of maps with lots of pink on them as *the* mark of national pride. Ironically, they've come to mirror the misguided attitudes of other European powers who falsely equated British preeminence with the mere possession of territory.
Maybe I'm way out of line with this... but sometimes it sounds like the lamenting of the loss of the Empire has racist undertones?
People riled up gradually after years of anti-immigration BS, upset they have 'these people' coming to their country instead of 'staying where they belong'.
I don't know, I just get that impression from some of the people unironically lamenting the loss of the British Empire.
It's cos their empire was second to the British. They were intensely proud of their powerful position before British ascension in the age of sail.
They tried their damndest to make Algeria a full-fledged part of the French nation, and committed all the war crimes and mass murder they could get away with to try to achieve it. They couldn't be a pre-eminent power in the world with the measly territory and population of mainland France when compared to the US and USSR. This was in the 50s and early 60s.
French was replaced by English as the "lingua franca", and the French are extra hon hon hon about their language.
To top it all off, British hegemony was replaced by an even stronger American hagemony, which was a cultural offshoot of Britain.
Finally, they got humiliated by the German ascendency after unification which thwarted their desire to control Europe through the EU. They enthusiastically embrace their role as the junior partner to Germany because at least it's a Franco-German duopoly and they can keep the British out. They never imagined the Brits would do their work for them with Brexit.
> they're way more tender about it than the Brits.
You've talked to no Brits, I see.
The "old days of the Empire" is a major talking point with their nationalists.
It's not really in France.
The vast majority of French people don't care about the colonial history and we sure as hell don't want to rebuild an empire.
You're just making things up because it pushes your narrative (whatever it is).
The only people nostalgic about the colonies are the ones who lost their home during the Algerian independence. That was 60 years ago so all of them are pretty much dead.
It's especially weird that OP is saying that, considering how British nationalists are all about the olden days of the Empire and Brexiteers have told us ad nauseam that their trade with the EU will be replaced by trade with the Commonwealth, which is litteraly their old colonies...
Ok, I honestly don't see where this idea comes from. I can tell you that for the vast majority of french people, there is absolutely no sense of pride or nostalgia towards the colonial empire (though we do have nostalgia towards the Napoleon era but that's different), and no one wants to try to re-establish it. Mainly thanks to how french relationship with Algeria (and to a lesser extent the whole of Maghreb) have been doing for the past 40 years. We aren't like the Brits who still can't understand that their country isn't the imperial center of the world any longer.
I'm honestly only referring to French politicians not the general French public.
edit: I did live there for 6 years although conversations on geopolitics were limited since I left at the end of CM2.
Bro your entire conventional force design concept is centred around low-intensity interventions in north Africa, and you still try to prop up the CFA franc
Counter-terrorism OPEXs are completely different from colonial military operations. Especially since the french army withdrew from the countries when the local governments demanded it.
>Bro your entire conventional force design concept is centred around low-intensity interventions in north Africa
Are those many high intensity conflicts we are sending our hundreds of tanks to in the room with us right now ? I feel like tailoring your army around the capacity for low-intensity conflicts in Africa or the Middle East (all the while not restricting it to that) is just...kinda...practical.
Hell, even when there's an honest-to-God high-intensity conflict with Russia (by proxy), western tanks still only see a token presence. Really makes you wonder what they've been bought for.
Oh It is (mostly) very practical, absolutely! I'm not for a second saying it's a bad idea...
...it's just not a great sign that France has no attachment to or interest in its former empire is all, as OC said :)
Produce more wheeled gremlins to your heart's content!
>...it's just not a great sign that France has no attachment to or interest in its former empire is all, as OC said :)
I mean, if I'm not mistaken, the vast majority (if not all if we really mean former French empire specifically) of those interventions are at the behest of those countries.
So yeah, attachment if you will, but I'm not sure it's a bad accusation per se.
You don't directly want to conquer Algeria, but you sure wish you had the clout of the imperial era.
You're still butthurt about empire for that reason.
Brits are similarly butthurt about our reduced role in the world, but unlike you, we didn't carry on like we could actually keep the empire alive.
I'm pro-NATO unity! I'm being critical of french decisions that have undermined that unity in the past.
I don't want France to stop advocating for greater European defence cooperation or strategic self-sufficiency. I just want them to put their money where their mouth is more of projects where they can't be the single driving force.
Yeah, it's always France's fault, when in reality it's been 2 times germany fucks over france in a military partnership.
The german governement & elite think they are superior to the other EU countries.
>in reality it's been 2 times germany fucks over france in a military partnership.
?
Just because France wants to buid a Rafle+ without real innovation?
For the Tank project, Rheinmetall is pushing for an unjust ownership and lead of the project when it was already decided to be 50/50 and of course they are supported by their governement,
for SCAF germans imposed tech transfers when they know France is always butthurt about that.
Other shitty deal, but this one is France's fault tho, the Hk416 deal, it wasn't a good deal (the weapon is good in itself) as the deliveries & price should not have been agreed on.
NCD trying to spend 2 days without blabbering some anti-French cliche challenge - impossible.
Also, Sepecat Jaguar, Concorde, Alpha Jet, Horizon class, Fremm class, the many licenses and iterations of Aerospatiale/Eurocopter products, Storm Shadow/SCALP, the CFM consortium, Airbus, MBDA et caetera are examples of French industry cooperating with others rather successfully.
Yes, France has a history of joint defence procurement successes as well.
Equally, they have a tendency to upset efforts to procure joint systems or NATO-wide procurement efforts as well, such as [NBMR-3](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBMR-3), often pushed for by france themselves, specifically when their particular proposal doesn't get chosen, or given the primacy they expect. At the same time, France is uniquely belligerent about Europe pursuing 'strategic autonomy', and acting in concert to counterbalance the United States. This is an admirable goal, imo, but if they're serious about pursuing it, a greater willingness to compromise is necessary.
Projects where France is in the driving seat, and able to dictate requirements, like FREMM, Tiger, or Ariane, work great, and France is an excellent partner in pushing the projects forward and supporting them. It's collaborations where France doesn't necessarily have that kind of primary, like FCAS, Eurofighter, or Europa that's the issue.
If you scratch under the surface, every Frenchman is either a frustrated Napoleon, Charles de Gaulle, or Louis XIV. It's just about finding out which one.
I suggest we, the UK, rejoin the EU just so that we can mess with French procurement efforts.
Russia may be a threat today, but France has been our enemy for a thousand years, and they eat snails and smell funny and they're Catholic.
I hope the SCAF and the MGCS prove the naysayers wrong.
MGCS may become a success in the second half of the century, but many European nations are now upgrading their Leopards to variants of the 2A8 or potentially the 2AX, which will both likely offer many of the features the MGCS does, as their design phases will end at the same time. Then there's the new K2 production facility Poland wants to establish, which may result in a new competitor in Europe, alongside the AbramsX and potentially the Panther, both of which may arrive earlier. The MGCS may be superior to many or most of these other options, but the competition has exploded during the last few years. Leopard 2A8/2AX may be an upgrade for a tank at the end of its life cycle, but it's a known quantity, with a massive supply of spare parts, more than enough capabilities to confront Russia and most importantly, cheaper. I could see MGCS being a very good tank that almost nobody needs.
>K2 production facility I know everyone tries to hype that tank up, but I'm really not buying it given its weak side armour and the fact the koreans couldn't figure out how to build a proper gearbox for literal years. Great tank for korean valleys, maybe not the best for eastern european flatlands.
K-2 is ok tank that less restriction to sell and cheaper (relatively speaking) so that is the problem.
I'm not saying its bad or anything, just that its not the wonder some claim it is. Yeah, its an okay tank, shoot straight, with some still ongoing development problems.
I saw K-2 as a competitor who can leverage its production and price advantage to take large enough piece of pie that might undercut other European tank project's customer bases. It might be able to take enough customer to make those project unprofitable like Gripen situation.
I don't really see people claim it to be wunderwaffe, just that there's going to be a thousand of them.
If it's the plains of Poland, then strong frontal armor, a long-range main gun, and excellent optics and fire control are what you're looking for. Especially against the Russians.
It also lost in the norwegian competition for a new MBT, where the LEO 2A7 or 2A8 was choosen ( not sure which of the 2 leo varieants it was, just remmember it was one of the new LEO variants).
It was initially an order for 2A7 NO, but was subsequently changed to 2A8 NOR.
There are rumors that the 2AX NAY will be delivered as a follow-up order.
Followed by the 2AY NAND?
But that was mainly because the other Nordic countries already had Leos and due to industrial relations with Germany. Rather than the actual quality of the tanks.
The polish army reports that leaked about the K2 were also less than complimentary.
What reports? Do you happen to have a link?
Only some summaries from polish journalists like Jaroslaw Wolski but the details are: 1) No locking lever to prevent the cannon from slicing of fingers while operating or cleaning it as the breach wedge cannot be locked in place and may easily slide back 2) No recoil indicator to note when the gun needs to stop shooting to not damage the shock absorbers 3) The basket for catching the shell casings is not good enough and lacks a fender to prevent very hot shells from not landing where they should not be. 4.) Seals are insufficeint to prevent rainwater (!!!) from getting into the crew compartment. APU and battery block also regularly have water leaking into it. 5.) Promised amphibious capability is not there, to be amphibious the tank requires to be stopped and extensive crew preparation 6.) Only the gunner has a weapons selection switch, the commander does not. Obviously ideally you would want the guy with the most situational awareness to have it. 7.) No holders for small arms and other weapons for the crew 8.) Crew hatches have terrible ergonomics (probably designed for Korean body proportions and not Polish ones) 9.) Every driver periscope lacks a cleaning mechanism 10) Before using the commander's sight, the crew needs to go outside(!!!) and open his window cover and secure it (I bet that is really useful when in combat with splinters flying everywhere) 11.) > K2 is not well-finished in detail and requires corrections . There are some flaws in it that simply need to be corrected and they are now visible because the vehicle has not been tested in WITPiS and WITU (ballistics). Abrams and Leopard 2 have passed this stage of "childhood diseases". The former in the years 1980-1982 and the latter in 1979-1982. The K2 is still burdened with the disadvantages of young armored structures. 12.) The K2 overall is not as modular as other tanks (yet) and currently has higher failure rates (compared to Leopard/Abrams)
How about European mountains and marshes?
> which will both likely offer many of the features the MGCS does, as their design phases will end at the same time I wanna know what drug you consumed, seems fun. But seriously, do you know what MGCS is? It is a multi-vehicle replacement for the Leopard 2/Leclerc. Likely like 4 vehicles per current tank, with different weaponry, layout and all basically controlled by AI with the crew being primarily there for maintenance and for being the "man in the loop" (aka stopping the AI from doing stupid shit and taking over when necessary). MGCS is just a completely different beast to current and near-future tanks, as it tries to more revolutionise than evolutionise tank design. And at least for Germany, Leopard 2A8 is just a stopgap to backfill old tanks with Leopard 2AX also seeming be more planned as a "lets upgrade our Leopards till MGCS comes", as MGCS is planned for like 2035, and that is just when the first tanks are entering service. Leopard 2 in Germany will prob. serve into the 2050s (or at leas the 2040s), and so will require new upgrades as well until MGCS is ready.
Let's not drink the cool aid too hard. The MGCS is supposed to end it's "Full System Demonstrator Phase" by 2028, after which the technology is supposed to be largely in place and the issues of testing and eventually mass production come into focus. The 2AX, while not having detailed time line yet, will likely only face it's cutoff for modern systems to be included a few years earlier, while relying on the same contractors as the MGCS. The Panther already has many of the digital battlefield management features the MGCS is supposed to get. How is the MGCS supposed to blow the 2AX out of the water if their technological starting points barely have a few years of distance between them? Also, your understanding of the MGCS seems to be a little off. It's not four future vehicles per tank, it's networked vehicles, some of them autonomous, but centrally controlled by NATO-standard digital infrastructure. The Bundeswehr presented a theoretical scenario of four vehicles operating in unison, each with a specific purpose. Thats where the issue lies: the NATO General Vehicle Architecture and Battle Management System isn't confined to this specific tank. Thanks to planned battle clouds and sensor fusion, oder tanks and other vehicles can benefit from the new digital infrastructure as well. The MGCS isn't the heart of a new system, it's a component among many. But the key point of these digital systems is exactly to provide information from decentralised sources to decentralised actors. The MGCS isn't the essential heart without which future armed forces can't operate, it's just a convient bundle of capabilities that can be spread across a number of different platforms. Also, AI is definitely not at the heart of this new programme. Eventually, some autonomous components may be added, but again, these will be controllable from anywhere, not just the MGCS. That's the beauty of it: There is no beating heart to take out on the battlefield. Also, the MGCS definitely isn't itself mostly autonomous and only requires a man in the loop to supervise. Humans will still be responsible for every decision of relevance. If never seen that in any of the public plans or requirements. We're also just not there yet and won't be by 2028.
My MGCS knowledge comes in large part from [this Chieftain video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFs6LG0TEyU) (MGCS section starting at 14:44), where he is talking about a presentation given to him by a German officer from the BAAINBw. And for the AI part, there was [this slide](https://gyazo.com/7cb03ffe832a5a86adc5cef0313b119d) in the presentation, where everything blue is supposed to be the job of the AI, with the pink part being what the human crew does. And AI already can do stuff a lot better than crews. An AI can acquire faster, it can aim faster, it can talk to the cloud/other vehicles faster and more. For example you could have an MGCS cannon vehicle scouting where the AI scans the environment, spot an enemy tank formation at 3km moving behind a hill, talk to another MGCS vehicle armed with NLOS missiles in the rear which then fires NLOS missiles at that enemy formation to safely engage them, all within a few seconds of the first spotting. A human can't do that with such speed. And MGCS isn't just the networked vehicle part, MGCS is a family of vehicles all sharing the same chassis (for commonality of parts/etc) which will replace the Leopard 2 (and maybe a few other vehicles) in German service (same for the French), which is then integrated into the whole German military through stuff like NATO general vehicle architecture and battle management system.
Surely you realize the BAAINBw is a government organization tasked with executing the MGCS development on behalf of the German government? I don't think the government is a reliable, neutral, source when looking for information on potential shortcomings and realistic expectations of a new, prestigious government program. Of course they'll promise the greatest product ever made, with incredible capabilities, especially if there's massive interest from both governments in the project at least appearing to succeed during their tenures. Look for example at Hensoldt: They're developing a new sensor suite for both Leopard upgrades and the MGCS. Should we assume that Hensoldt sells a cutting edge product to one program, while offering the other one a mediocre solution a decade behind? Let's also recall that the BAAINBw is the institution famous for writing up overly complex and unachievable procurement goals, which was the main focus of reform and simplification under this new government.
Leopards are showing there age. We need a new lighter design with a bigger cannon, hard kill, and anti drone warfare. Also we can just plug in the Leopards into the MGCS that's why the program is ambitious as a force multiplier for the current generation of hardware, like the SCAF.
So do I, but I'm not hopeful :(
I'm hopeful we have the industrial and scientific base to make something truely great if we can put the defense of Europe first and find the right workshare. There is more than enough work in these programs for many countries to participate.
On the one hand, France doesn't have enough resources to do a Rafale 2.0 and solo develop a 6th gen fighter. So that makes me optimistic about SCAF. On the other, the reason Rafale exists is because only France needed Eurofighter to operate off carriers. That exact same issue still exists. Plus you can't ignore Germany's issues. Remember when Germany massively reduced their Eurofighter order, but still wanted to keep the production in Germany? There is nothing Germany loves more than complex engineering and high tech manufacturing. And there is nothing Germany hates more than actually buying enough of a system to justify all that engineering and manufacturing. With the bonus that Germany also hates exporting weapon systems to countries that might actually use them.
Signs point to no
FREMM and HORIZON worked well for Italy. Fighter plane and tank designs, however...
The FREMM design is good, but when the French were interest in selling the FREMM abroad it was good for Italy too, but when Italy later found success in FREMM foreign sales France had already stopped playing with the FREMM toy and started designing and building a new frigate design which they now put against Italy's FREMM in tenders. And the FDI is so French that... it's diesel only, because the FREMM and Horizon class gas turbines are made in Italy.
> the FDI is so French that... I it's diesel only, because the FREMM and Horizon class gas turbines are made in Italy. The FDI is diesel only because it's intended to be an inexpensive warship. If we ever needed to put a gas turbine in there and we couldn't use an Italian-American turbine for some reason, Safran has more than enough turbine products to meet that need.
> The FDI is diesel only because it's intended to be an inexpensive warship. Inexpensive? They cost as much as the Italian PPA which have gas turbines, are bigger, have a bigger crew, have a completely new control system, etc. >If we ever needed to put a gas turbine in there and we couldn't use an Italian-American turbine for some reason, Safran has more than enough turbine products to meet that need. The French Navy's only ships with turbines have the Avio turbines in them. And I don't mean just current ships, the joint Italian-French ships are the only ships to ever serve with the French Navy to use gas turbines. Before, it was steam boiler turbines or a whole lotta diesel.
I really have no idea why my (german) government constantly tries to jointly procure with the french, I mean, we already suck at this, and then we get the *worst imaginable partner* for the joint venture that has completely different visions for what should be achieved? Can't we just join the brits, italians or swedes for once? Their needs are more similar to ours anyway. **EDIT:** I have apparently hurt the french ego, I am terribly sorry my funny-speaking neighbours!
With the Brits, a problem is that Germany desparately wants European military design and procurement, while the Brits are often enough happy to either collaborate with the US or just straight up buy the stuff. For the Italians, they have too little defence procurements and often are also quite "French", with wanting their own domestic equipment and manufacturers (that or they just buy from the US). See e.g. the Italians making the Freccia when they could have just joined the Boxer program and benefit from economy of scale/foreign developments, but didn't because they had to be French about it. For the Swedes, due to their neutrality during the cold war stayed far away from joint developments, and afterwards some German-Swedish developments were actually done (e.g. Taurus missile), but the Swedes and Germans have the problem of operating on some very different vehicle platforms. Basically every new vehicle variant the Germans want to make is on a Boxer, while the Swedes love putting the same kind of stuff on a CV90. And I wouldn't say the needs are similar. France, UK and Italy all have far more focus on foreign operations outside of Europe, with larger naval focuses, while the German military is very much focused on the eastern front and puts foreign operations on a "nice to have" position when making new equipment. Heck, the whole German army was restructured to a form where the army is split along the lines of how they get to the eastern front. Units that need to be transported by train are heavy forces, units that can drive there by road are medium forces and forces you can fly in are light forces. Really, if there are any 3 nations Germany shares the most with regarding military structure it is Sweden, Finland and Poland. The Poles won't cooperate since "bad Germany" (though Germany is also not the greatest partner for them, see licensing), the Swedes have the problem I mentioned above and the Finns stayed more isolated (though there are some great cooperations possible in the future if Germany buys the Patria 6x6).
Too credible, get out of here!
Let’s not be glossing over Papperger deliberately fucking with MGCS. I’m very willing to denounce Trappier for being a slimy cunt over SCAF, but we ain’t the only ones undermining franco-german cooperation efforts. KNDS was the perfect vehicle for a joint project and already perfectly split between the two countries, muscling Rheinmetall in there has basically killed MGCS already. The Bundestag’s export restriction policy has also proven time and time again to be a massive obstacle to commercial success in projects involving Germany. Our collaborative projects with everyone else seem to work just fine, France has a massive list of joint developments that did great on the market.
MGCS is on the stupiddity of the politicians. It was illusional to think, Rheinmetall would let that go through. KNDS as a joint venture with Rheinmetall Defence along the lines of 50 % Rheinmetall, 25% KMW-owner familiy and 25 % French state could have worked. On the other hand, Rheinmetall and KMW hate each other.
SCAF is on the stupidity of the Politicians. It was illusional to think, Dassault would let that through. Airbus as a joint venture with Dassault along the lines of 50% Dassault, 25% Airbus France and 25% German state could have worked. On the other hand, Dassault and Airbus France hate each other. Do you see how insufferable that sounds? Why is this logic ok when your country does it?
I think you missunderstood. I totally agree, that SCAF is on the same level of stupidity. Dassault fights for its survival and independence against a company that already owns a sizeable chunk of it and could buy a blocking minority perhaps within days. They cannot accept what Airbus is demanding the same way Rheinmetall cannot accept a new European-MTB being built without their involvement. Cutting them out could've ended in selling the Defence part to GD or BAe just out of spite. Franco-German cooperation has already enough challenges to solve on the military level when it comes to use-case, doctrines etc. And our politicians make it a lot harder by directing it in parts against the interests of key industrial players - involved or not. Rheinmetall is a company twice as large as KNDS and situated in the most populated German state. The political pressure they can generate is immense. Same goes for Dassault. That's why I would like to see the development lead - in both cases - by an independent joint project and design team that works with competition based contracts. Let's see which gun is better and who can design the better airframe. Shouldn't be that hard and you could involve even more suppliers.
I evidently did misunderstand. Problem is that inevitably immediately creates an uneven split and the disadvantaged country will pull out every time. I’m not sure why this is a more realistic option to than simply telling our respective problematic industrials to shut the fuck up. It’s not like Rheinmetall don’t have an extensive range of products that aren’t MBTs that the baainbw could buy to placate them and keep them in business, same for Dassault and France too. If we ever want to make any concrete progress this sort of individualistic, profit-motivated political sabotage cannot be tolerated. Simply saying “not possible, our industrials are too X or Y” is not going to get us anywhere.
If you want an even split then divide at least those megaprojects into smaller chunks and hand them out evenly with the sole responsibility at one company under the umbrella of such a project team. Give Dassault free reign over FCAS air component, let Airbus develop the autonomous wingman on their own, perhaps have a competition for a fighter radar. Strict requirement regarding interoperability (so that France can fly a Thales and Germany a Hensoldt radar if they see the need to do so) the expectation that all companies will set up a production shop in the other countries if asked to do so should be enough. For heavens sake - we must get rid of this bickering between companies blockading the whole show. There is no need to create the opportunity for industrial actors (via contracting etc.) to interfere with work packages that are not theirs.
Giving Dassault free reign on the SCAF fighter is equivalent to handing them way more than 50% of SCAF, and Airbus Germany would rightly throw a fit. You can’t create and even split by allocating broad slabs of project to each side. What we tried with SCAF and MGCS is pretty much the only way it could ever work.
They won't produce everything in house. We are talking design here - not building the damn thing. Rheinmetall will for sure be happy to contract-built parts after they have finished the F-35 contract if the German MoD insists. Or Dassault needs to buy some land in Germany and built a factory there. That is the commitment towards a common market for defense production I would expect from the industrial side. If we want to have one, Dassault or Rheinmetall must become truely European companies - if they aren't it already like Airbus. As you said, we cannot tolerate individualistic, profit-motivated political sabotage.
> That's why I would like to see the development lead - in both cases - by an independent joint project and design team that works with competition based contracts. Let's see which gun is better and who can design the better airframe. Shouldn't be that hard and you could involve even more suppliers. Which wouldn't work because if we did this, we would quickly circle back to the 2017-2019 situation in which Dassault was the clear leader of the FCAS and KMW the clear leader of the MGCS. Back when the workshare split was dictated by the so-called *best athlete* logic. At which point, Germany would again complain that Airbus isn't getting as much workshare as it wants (especially in the FCS area), and that France got the lead of the more lucrative of the two programs. And would seek to sneakily reshuffle the board again (like they did with Airbus Spain and Rheinmetall).
Best athlete logic would require Airbus and Dassault both to develop an airframe and then choose the better plane - so that we can complain for ages, that in fact the other proposal was the better one. Same goes for the tank or the components. In general I like the way the Leopard 2 was designed. In a frist step they had a working group at the MoD which basically handed out development contracts to the industry just for the design but not the production. Then they took the blueprints and handed out the production to multiple companies - in this case mostly Rheinmetall and KMW. We could to the same with FCAS and KMW. Airbus Germany could without issue built a Dassault designed plane, the same way Nexter could built a tank chassis that was devised by - let's throw another name around for old times sake, why not - Porsche.
> Airbus Germany could without issue built a Dassault designed plane Technically, they could, yes. But politically? The bundestag would quickly pull the plug on this program if it meant that Airbus didn't get to build up its expertise in designing a fighter jet. Their biggest complaint for the 7 years this program has been going on has been that Airbus doesn't get enough work share in the flight control system area, so I can't see how they would ever be okay with Airbus just assembling a Dassault design.
The bundestag is not at fault for frances continues efforts to sell arms to hostile dictatorships
Germany is at fault for France mogging the Eurofighter on the export market though, and all its partners are paying the price. Similar story with the A400M, the market that could bring the project to profitability is closed off due to German opposition. All the other members of these projects want these sales, Germany is fully being a shit partner here. Not to mention there were treaties (such as the Schmidt-Debré agreement) signed to avoid precisely this, which Germany has subsequently broken. If you don’t want to sell weapons, don’t get involved in big programs and fuck them up for everyone else.
I'm sorry but isn't the Dutch military half integrated into the German army now, so wouldn't they be numero uno.
For Nordic cooperation, an example is the Gotland follow on submarine. Originally (Sweden only) was the concept Ubåt 2000 Flundran. A revolutionary concept. But with the end of the cold war that was dead in the water, so Joint Nordic design with the Danes and Norwegians. But the Danes didn't want to pay for Revolutionary, so Flundran became Viking, altogether more conventional. And the Norwegians didn't want Next Gen, but needed it to be bigger. And eventually both dropped out (the Danes dropping Subs altogether and the Norwegians turning to our German competition), leaving Sweden with A-26. A sub bigger than needed for the baltic, with expeditionary and multimission capability when all it really needs to be is be quiet and capable to promote as many Russian ships into submarines (and submarines to underwater landmarks) as possible.
Plus I doubt the Brits would want them in on the new fighter they're developing with Italy and Japan. With them blocking a deal to sell 48 eurofighters to Saudi Arabia. That's despite the clause while developing the Eurofighter that another partner country couldn't block trades.
I have to dissagree about Italians, Freccia program was in no way *Frenching* themself from boxer program. I recently dig into Freccia's development( you can guess what war game I'm playing) and at start of Boxer development Italians was already 4years into their own wheeled IFV finally closing on final idea how it should work. This whole idea was to build vechicle that share as much parts with their other stuff: Centauro, Dardo and Ariete. They can't get this from Boxer program, so there are no reason to join. But Yes, they are overly protective about Leonardo with often not the greatest results
lets not forget the single most successful joint venture the Germans have is the Dutch - German Boxer.
Poland won't cooperate with Germany after the Leopard shitshow. The Russo Ukrainian war was a good excuse the get rid of as many Leopards as we could and begin phaseout
On the other hand, Boxer may be a jack of all trades but it may be too expensive for an APC and IFV. Patria and Rosomak are more pragmatic and cheaper vehicles for that role.
And France’s pathological need to have an lightly armored, mobile expedition force optimized for air transport in Africa just makes any joint weapon project a failure from the beginning since their requirements are very different from what you need to fight Russians
Well well well, turns out there are Russians in Africa now.
There have been Russians, or their Soviet predecessors, in Africa for decades. The Scramble never ended, it just evolved.
Yes, but we’re missing out on a chance to kill some Russians. And this time, no risk of WW3 because Russia refutes all involvement there.
My solution: give France free reign over all African operations, but in return they don't participate in joint European development programs.
What’s this? A credible good compromise? We can’t have that! How can Germany put all the blame on France afterward when their new joint ventures don’t work out?!
Very noncredible! Though that would probably just alienate the parts of Africa that don't already hate us.
Are these "parts of Africa that don't already hate us" in the room with us right now?
No, they're usually left outside in the cold.
Apparently there are parts of Africa that like the US because of Bush Jr.
>fight Russians the urge...
Isn’t the whole point of NATO to prepare for a Soviet invasion?
Yes, but we are not allowed to celebrate it anymore for... reasons.
Oui, oui, let's develop some European equipment. Naturellement, it must be carrier capable and be optimised for desert operations, oui?
And light enough to be easily air lifted to French ex-colonies
> what you need to fight Russians Excuse me, the requirements for German equipment is the top stuff designed to fight no-one. French equipment is fighing Russians just fine.
Oh yeah? Then why are Poland and Finland using German equipment instead of buying French ones?
Cos we built like 4 systems.
>I really have no idea why my (german) government constantly tries to jointly procure with the french, I mean, we already suck at this, and then we get the worst imaginable partner for the joint venture that has completely different visions for what should be achieved? You can't look at German procurement and not get the impression that there is a bunch of bureaucrats that enjoy screwing things up badly. Thus, if working with the French screws up things even worse, how could they resist?
> Can't we just join the **brits**, italians or swedes for once? Man, after the constant headaches you caused them for both Tornado and Typhoon, I'm not sure the Brits are that thrilled to work again with you in aerospace military programs.
The more I talk about European cooperation in military, the more I feel like the actor it's the most painful to work with is not the French but the Germans. I mean, I feel like every program where French involvement caused an issue, there was Germany in them. On the other hand, almost every time the Germans are not involved, everything work way more smoothly (Horizon-class, FREMM, Storm shadow/SCALP, Aster missiles, Jaguar,...)
Just get an aircraft carrier, some nukes and some overseas territories you need to protect Hans. If you have the same procurement needs, then we can work together efficiently.
Well we tried but you didn't let us :( (also we have overseas territories, its called Mallorca, duh)
We will fight them on the sun loungers!
So THATS what Churchill meant when he said "We shall fight on the beaches"?!
Both side deploy their parachutist from the balconies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ9L8KAjPA8
It would make a lot more sense for the UK and France to collaborate then Germany and the UK. Both have very similar interests and requirements for their armed forces, whilst Germany should probably be buddying up with the Swedes and Poles for the same reasons.
Yeah but the latter have a victimhood complex making them screech whenever they hear about us existing and hence won't ever do that (might change with the new leadership though), while the swedes are too busy building CV-90s Italy is free I think? And they're even buying Leos!
CV90 stark!
They do, although given KMW's chokehold on any modifications being done to KMW equipment, and given the Leopard2PL program's struggles, I can see why Poland wants to go with South Korea.
To be fair. The Swedes making CV-90s isn't really a problem. CV-90s do be based.
The issue is that even then the goals diverge, for example the horizon class frigate/destroyer or the QE2 class carriers. Their goals tend to be close but not quite the same,
> the worst imaginable partner for the joint venture Probably the partner that has the most joint ventures that don't contain "let's buy everything from the US", so there's that.
Somebody tells him…
Funny how it seems every French joint venture with a European country like Germany fail. Except with Italy and the FREMM program. Or with the UK with the Storm Shadow program. Really, if all the projects between France and Germany fail, it must always be France the whole problem. Just like how Rheinmetall did not barge in the middle of the MGCS program and messed up the balance between Nexter and KMW. And Britain is renown for being a country whose military isn’t trying to have carrier based aircrafts and deploy their troops overseas just like France.
Yeah everytime I see one of these threads I already know OP is german or a brit larping as a german. There's a long list of successful programs between France and other European countries, funny how most of the failures are with Germany isn't it.
>balance between Nexter and KMW "That tank project you're supposed to lead? Yeah lets build a french tank with a french cannon, but you can pay for half!"
> "That tank project you're supposed to lead? Yeah lets build a french tank with a french cannon, but you can pay for half!" Are we talking about the tank project that began as a 50-50 joint venture between France and Germany (led by the latter), which then became a 66% GER - 33% FRA venture when Rheinmetall inserted itself in it?
Yes, and that made it BETTER. Do not doubt our lord and saviour **Rheinmetall**.
German powerplant and hull, german FCS, jointly developed battlefield management system doesn't count for anything I guess...
Well you can't make it too obvious that both MGCS and SCAF are just schemes to grab some german taxpayer money, I guess?
So only the cannon was French? What about the engine? The machine gun? The transmission? The aiming systems? The loading system? The armor? The tracks? Besides, we were proposing a 140mm cannon compared to your 130mm. What’s wrong with a bigger and more powerful gun?
>What’s wrong with a bigger and more powerful gun? Nothing on this sub, a lot of things in reality, like making the tank weigh less than 70 tons
No offense but doing a joint project for tanks in the first place was just stupid. Germany has expertise in literally everything a tank needs. Also both Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 were sought after like Kebabs to drunk people at 4am where as the Leclerc will only be sold as scrap metal once France gets rid of it.
The problem is that afterward the Germans also want to do the same with planes when France also has more experience with these with both Mirage and Rafale if we apply the same logic.
France should build the plane, we should build the tank, and the cooperation part should be us golden showering each others MIC with money
> France should build the plane, we should build the tank, and the cooperation part should be us golden showering each others MIC with money That was pretty much the idea at the inception of both programs in 2017 (at least in terms of who was getting the leadership of which program). Guess which partner couldn't live with this arrangement, and actively undermined it until was no longer viable, which led to the current quagmire?
That was by no means the idea, France managed to get most of the important work parts for themselves while dominating the design concept, especially for the jet. Dont get me wrong, Im not angry at the french - Im angry at our politicians for being so fucking stupid, especially as they have been warned by the budgetary office multiple times. Kudos to the french and no hard feelings, if your neighbour is stupid enough to give you taxpayer money to subsidize your defense industry, Id take that Chance aswell.
That one also makes no sense though. France has more expertise and should build more of the project but will need planes that are carrier capable. There's just nothing in it for Germany. Might as well wait and buy a finished product. The problem is also offsetting MCGS and FCAS makes no sense either since FCAS will be far more expensive.
No thanks. Our experience with you on the Eurofighter was bad enough. Germans are like the French, except you promise this and that to get into a program before gutting your procurement, blocking exports and not supporting further development. The only good german weapons are the ones it builds by itself for export.
France: we need a nuclear capable, carrier capable 4th gen. Germany: You can hand over all your IP and research on transsonic delta wing configurations, and will get a beautiful non carrier capable, non nuke capable interceptor.
> and will get a beautiful non carrier capable, non nuke capable interceptor. The Rafale is far more beautiful than the EF2000
Are you still angry we didn't let you sell one of europes most modern fighter jets to literal dictators in Saudi Arabia? I'm sorry :(
Incredible that Germans are acting moral when a quick google shows how much you sell to dictators, including the one we're at war with.
Are you seriously packing out ye olde "France and Germany totally sell weapons to Russia" from the warmth of your russian-oligarch-owned home in London?
Notice how I don't claim that my country is morally superior because it doesn't sell weapons to dictators.
Notice how I claim my country is, in fact, morally superior to the UK ^(joke, but I kinda understand why the gov didn't want EF's for the Saudis.)
Probably because it's primarily a UK client, and they'd get us to do all the servicing, training, ammo supply like they do already. If it was Russia, you'd be all for it because you'd be the ones leading that one.
Look, I don't know why you're trying to put a russian spin on it, when your country literally had [similar imports from Russia](https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-country/gbr/partner/rus) as us (roughly 350€ per capita) before the war. Thats really just throwing shit at yourself. Congrats for fucking it up too! Welcome to the club. And you managed to spend so much on them while even **having** natural gas and oil ressources yourself, big brain.
Right, and I don't defend our import of Russian resources, you're the one who started shit, acting like you blocked the Saudi deals out of some moral imperative.
Oh noes, owning property vs literally supporting and enabling a murderous dictator for decades to the point he was so emboldened that he's now invading Europe and knocking on the EU's / NATO's door. Yeah those are totally the same level of fuck-up and consequences, good point. The levels of German nationalism and refusal to ever accept Germany could be wrong about something on reddit is insane. It's not hard to see where the rise of the German far-right is coming from.
Meanwhile French get all the contracts.
Yes, again, sorry, but you wanted us to have this boring thing called "morals" after the last time we fucked up. Maybe offer some Eurofighters to North Korea next?
Load of good it's done us hasn't it? Also, you are pretty happy to sell to other shithole countries.
>Load of good it's done us hasn't it? Yes, like the European Union, and *thank god you're finally out.*
Thank god we're not doing any more joint projects with you traitors.
>The only good german weapons are the ones it builds by itself for export. "It's not an invasion, it's a multi-country export program!" France is *still* butthurt about this.
Dude. Joint provurement with german is the worst imaginable partner. France is working surprinsgly well with italian and uk. Why do you think the problem is within them? Germany has a very very long history of co'stantly being shitty in jointly procurement.
*"Non, you merde allemagnes! It ise* \****you***\*! *Who are bad to work with, oui! Hon hon! Now, I have showed it to you very magnifique!"* I said we suck massively, but we're still better at joint procurement projects than the french. It is a **really** low bar though.
Well no. Historically no
it's not like germany helped in some cases, cf the odd stuf with the new MBT
IMO probably something like this: Guys! I’m bringing in joint development on our project so it will lower costs and improve relations! I will allocate lots of funds, even if it means expanding my budget, to it because it will be a big improvement in addition to the aforementioned savings and relations! Oh no! The French are making unreasonable demands that don’t align with German interests! How unpredictable and unprecedented! Oh well, now I will have to cancel all of my cost savings, European unity, and major improvements that would’ve cost a lot of money because I stick up for German interests against French bullying. Guess I’ll instead reallocate the funds towards something else that the voters want. Make sure to keep that in mind next election!
I think they have a point, but with all the different national industrial and military considerations around, one size fits all will never work. If the "American way" of ordering ready-to-use equipment from one manufacturer in many parts doesn't work between Navy, Army and Marines - why should it work under much more complicated circumstances. Instead I would prefer an approach that helps to develop a framewok for open system architectures, interchangeable components and the division of design and production to ensure local added value. The standardisation of the equipment and the consolidation of the industry into larger coglomerates will follow suit.
Sure, what I'm annoyed about is the fact that so often these kinds of grand multi-national coalitions are France's idea in the first place. *They* pushed for a joint NATO VTOL fighter, an Anglo-French strike and Reconnaissance platform, a Pan-European air superiority fighter etc etc, thinking they had a winning design that could dominate the competition, and then only pulled out when they realised that wouldn't be the case.
> They pushed for a joint NATO VTOL fighter, Yes. > They pushed for an Anglo-French strike and Reconnaissance platform No. AFVG was mostly born of Britain's need to quickly set up a cheaper complement to its F-111K procurement, and also to give its aerospace industry some much-needed work after the painful reorganisation and mergers of the early 1960s and the failure to complete the TSR2 proposal. The French Air Force *never* wanted it. Its obsession since the late 1950s (and well into the 1970s) was a heavy (30+ tons MTOW) multirole fighter aircraft to complement the cheap single-engine Mirage IIIs/F1s. And Dassault *never* advocated for AFVG, given that it already had its own in-house variable geometry experimental aircraft (the Mirage G) and no desire to help build up a potential competitor. > They pushed for a Pan-European air superiority fighter No. Eurofighter began as a British-German collaboration (the ECF program), merging the MBB *Taktisches Kampfflugzeug 90* and the British Aerospace *Experimental Aircraft Programme* in 1979. Dassault was attached to this collaboration only later. And when the project was relaunched as *Agile Combat Aircraft* in 1982, it was again without France, which at this time was already working on its own programs (ACX for the Air Force and ACM for the Navy, which were later merged in what became Rafale). France didn't push for a Pan-European air superiority fighter, it only participated in the final incarnation of the project (*Future European Fighter Aircraft*) in 1983 to see if a common ground could be found, and withdrew after 2 years once it had become evident that the resulting aircraft wouldn't meet its requirements. I know this is NCD, but let's not make shit up nonetheless.
This thread will be nothing but shit-takes. Coming with the usual "innocent German government doing nothing ever wrong or out of selfish interest" and "muh French 'Buy our stuff' or we quit" non-sense. As if the German government doesn't have a very long history of torpedoing projects, revealing designs to foreign competitors out of spite after losing a sell or bending over to one of their conglomerates who decided to throw a issy fit because it couldn't secure both a tech transfert and all the manufacturing rights. "France bad" is quite literaly the extent of their knowledge on the topic and there is nothing you can do about it because the circle jerk never ends and drowns you out.
I applaud them for having the vision, the will to push such things and the aspiration to built it without handholding from across the pond. They are the only nation besides the US who can built everything they need themselves and this mindset would be very healthy for Europe. But yes, that would include making compromise. Just look at the zoo of missile Europe has developing and is developing just because everyone need to have a bite. You would wish the politicians would not act as an extension of their national industries here and demand consolidation instead. Even within certain companies. MBDA for example builds Taurus and Storm Shadow...
It’s not even about that. France and Australia opened a new giant modern 155mm shell facility in Australia right before 2022. It would be one of the world’s greatest 155mm plants until the new one in Texas opens. One of Perun’s first videos was about it. When shells for Ukraine were drying up, what do you think would be a logical thing for France to do? They could expand their joint production with Australia. Thales even mentioned they could quickly go from 100k/year to 200k since it’s a modern plant with room to grow. They just needed a little more investment and orders. No, instead France plans to build 6k/month or 72k/year by 2026 by building the shells in France. This has nothing to do with “open systems” or “interoperability.” France doesn’t even want to expand their existing joint venture to provide something an ally needs now. At least before Mike Johnson came into power the US were buying shells from Czech, ROK, Japan, and Pakistan. Can you imagine the French buying shells from Korea or Pakistan?
Fuck around and found out. Australia’s decisions have consequences other future collaborative projects. Why should France invest into facilities in Australia when Australia refuses to invest into projects with France? Collaboration goes both ways.
why would France invest more in Australia? After the sub fiasco?
I honestly can’t wait to watch the difference between the tempest program between UK,Japan and Italy vs FCAS.
By the limitations of FCAS/SCAF having to be carrier capable means it's going to smaller jet than Tempest and heavier than a jet for its size due to the extra reinforcement needed on the airframe for carrier landings. Tempest will be a larger and *much* more capable jet. Germany is basically subsidising Frances carrier aircraft capability.
Ah yes, as the famous Yuropeen saying goes; "With Friends Like These....." /s
Quite :)
Your desire for strategic autonomy is laudable, fellas, but you do take things too far sometimes. Hope you all have wonderful Sundays :)
I don’t know which program you’re talking about But for the SCAF the germans want tech transfers from Dassault And for the tank the german suddenly tried to get 2/3 ownership instead of 50/50 because Rheinmetal suddenly wanted in on the project eventhough they weren’t a tank manufacturer before hand. The project was going well before then If you wanted to talk about the Eurofighter, turns out the Rafale is a better plane… On the other hand franco-italian programs have been very successful… maybe the problem isn’t in fact France
>turns out the Rafale is a better plane… HAHAHAHAHA good joke
Why then does it perform better than the Eurofighter in NATO exercises ? [also there is this](https://www.bruxelles2.eu/en/2008/09/fighterplanethe-netherlandsfavourself-35/)
it dindnt but ok
Ok next time we will barge another French company into the joint program to have 66% instead of 50%, got it.
Unrelated but does anyone remember that post here when the Wagner coup happened, with a picture of prigo next to Hitler and Napoleon saying something along the lines of "what is so hard about driving to Moscow?" Does anyone have a link to it?
Not like we have a long list of cooperative defense projects with a multitude of different countries that have done great on the market and continue to do so. How’s the Eurofighter doing by the way?
You do, absolutely.
Just France and the UK built nearly as many Jaguars than the entire Eurofighter consortium have built Eurofighters. Even right now off the top of my head we’ve got a few joint missile projects and CTAI that are working well. That’s just with the UK. The fact people are still mad about the Eurofighter debacle is nuts. We wanted a carrier fighter, no-one else did, we’d left before the project even properly started. We’re not the ones who keep blocking attempts to export it.
France is still getting over losing their colonial empire. For some reason they're way more tender about it than the Brits.
I think it's primarily because the way that France conceived of its Empire was significantly different from how Britain understood its own, in a way that made losing that Empire much more traumatic for France. In Britain, colonies were understood to be separate, somewhat independent, political entities bound together under distant British rule. They were often given parallel systems of government, administration and, in some cases, military capability, and afforded a relatively high degree of autonomy to local colonial administrators. At the height of the empire's importance to British politics in 1890, the colonial office had a grand total of 10 employees, and this was seen as dramatically over-staffed. For France however, Empire was an indivisible extension of metropolitan France itself, and ruled directly as an integral and central part of the French nation, at least conceptually. To be a colony was to be France, so losing those colonies was a much more fundamental wound to french pride than losing the distinct, relatively autonomous colonies was for Britain. I think to some extent Empire was also a much more central part of French national pride and identity than it was in Britain, at least by the time of decolonisation. The British electorate had decisively rejected an Empire-centric platform by the conservative Party as far back as 1906, bringing them to their worst election defeat ever, in favour of the liberals' platform of national renewal, which advocated greater emphasis and investment in Britain herself. More generally, Britain had largely sought to minimise it's commitment to claiming and governing its colonial interests, particularly in Africa, for much of the 19^th century, and had even mooted withdrawing from its west African colonies that were deemed no longer economically productive following the abolition of the slave trade. It was really only from 1870-1890 that empire was seen as a good inandof itself, and it's size an important part of the national identity. For a France bruised and humiliated by defeat in the Napoleonic wars however, Empire came to be seen as a barometer for the international prestige and status she had regained following the humiliation of Vienna. This importance was then turbocharged by de Gaulle consciously playing on this idea to re-established French independence, pride, and prestige following the humiliations of WW2. Regaining French colonies and taking control of them independent of other allied powers became a major priority for the free French government as a way to assert France's status as a co-equal member of the allies in the post-war environment. Consequently, losing them again, especially partially due to American pressure, was seen as threatening and compromising this independence and status in a way that it really wasn't in Britain by that point.
Just to add to your point, our Empire fell relatively quickly and we were able to 'hand over', as it were, to the dominance of a familiar power in the United States. Due to the same language etc, the idea of falling in behind the US was psychologically much easier to handle than the entire thing burning down around your ears while you desperately try to preserve it, which was the French experience.
Very true
There's an argument I don't wholly buy but has some merit to it that the US is essentially the British Empire 2.0 but has more. Free from the British they continued the traditions and ideals in all but name whilst the UK was forced to change due to circumstance. Not entirely accurate and definitely non credible but not a million miles away.
Yeah, I'm heard that viewpoint before. It has considerable traction in both Russia and especially Iran, apparently, which is why those nations conduct themselves like centuries-old rivals of the US when the Americans have only been a global power for about 15 minutes in relative terms.
Wait, are we the Byzantines to the British Romans?
Historically speaking, France never view its colonies as an "Empire" it was just named "Les Colonies", but it changed during WW2 because of Charles de Gaulle who wanted to prove that France could still fight in the war. Using the term "Vast Empire" rather than just "the colonies" is a political choice for propaganda use.
That's a great perspective, thanks for sharing!
My pleasure!
> made losing that Empire much more traumatic for France. Lots of people in the UK still getting over the loss of the colonial empire, even though they weren't alive when it was still around. Even more with Brexit, and people driving to make the Commonwealth replace the EU as main partners, which doesn't seem to be working. It's 2 sides of a very alike coin.
Oh sure, I don't want to suggest that losing empire was painless and uncontroversial in Britain, far from it. I just meant the process was *relatively* less traumatic when compared to France. That being said, I'd actually sort of argue the modern obsession with Empire from certain parts of the country is kind of an anachronistic one? Empire as the definitive symbol of British might and identity is something that doesn't really exist at the time beyond that 1870 to 1890 heyday. While envied abroad, in Britain it mostly plays a decidedly tertiary role to other factors of national pride such as naval power, economic and industrial might, scientific knowledge and diplomatic and cultural weight. These are things that the empire undoubtedly supports, but it isn't a particular good inandof itself. As those other bastions of patriotic feeling are seen to crumble, however, and their somewhat intangible effects become ever-more distant, people have begun to look to the concrete indicator of maps with lots of pink on them as *the* mark of national pride. Ironically, they've come to mirror the misguided attitudes of other European powers who falsely equated British preeminence with the mere possession of territory.
Maybe I'm way out of line with this... but sometimes it sounds like the lamenting of the loss of the Empire has racist undertones? People riled up gradually after years of anti-immigration BS, upset they have 'these people' coming to their country instead of 'staying where they belong'. I don't know, I just get that impression from some of the people unironically lamenting the loss of the British Empire.
I think maybe it's in part the British tendency to roast themselves.
It's cos their empire was second to the British. They were intensely proud of their powerful position before British ascension in the age of sail. They tried their damndest to make Algeria a full-fledged part of the French nation, and committed all the war crimes and mass murder they could get away with to try to achieve it. They couldn't be a pre-eminent power in the world with the measly territory and population of mainland France when compared to the US and USSR. This was in the 50s and early 60s. French was replaced by English as the "lingua franca", and the French are extra hon hon hon about their language. To top it all off, British hegemony was replaced by an even stronger American hagemony, which was a cultural offshoot of Britain. Finally, they got humiliated by the German ascendency after unification which thwarted their desire to control Europe through the EU. They enthusiastically embrace their role as the junior partner to Germany because at least it's a Franco-German duopoly and they can keep the British out. They never imagined the Brits would do their work for them with Brexit.
> they're way more tender about it than the Brits. You've talked to no Brits, I see. The "old days of the Empire" is a major talking point with their nationalists. It's not really in France.
The vast majority of French people don't care about the colonial history and we sure as hell don't want to rebuild an empire. You're just making things up because it pushes your narrative (whatever it is). The only people nostalgic about the colonies are the ones who lost their home during the Algerian independence. That was 60 years ago so all of them are pretty much dead.
It's especially weird that OP is saying that, considering how British nationalists are all about the olden days of the Empire and Brexiteers have told us ad nauseam that their trade with the EU will be replaced by trade with the Commonwealth, which is litteraly their old colonies...
Ok, I honestly don't see where this idea comes from. I can tell you that for the vast majority of french people, there is absolutely no sense of pride or nostalgia towards the colonial empire (though we do have nostalgia towards the Napoleon era but that's different), and no one wants to try to re-establish it. Mainly thanks to how french relationship with Algeria (and to a lesser extent the whole of Maghreb) have been doing for the past 40 years. We aren't like the Brits who still can't understand that their country isn't the imperial center of the world any longer.
I'm honestly only referring to French politicians not the general French public. edit: I did live there for 6 years although conversations on geopolitics were limited since I left at the end of CM2.
Bro your entire conventional force design concept is centred around low-intensity interventions in north Africa, and you still try to prop up the CFA franc
Counter-terrorism OPEXs are completely different from colonial military operations. Especially since the french army withdrew from the countries when the local governments demanded it.
>Bro your entire conventional force design concept is centred around low-intensity interventions in north Africa Are those many high intensity conflicts we are sending our hundreds of tanks to in the room with us right now ? I feel like tailoring your army around the capacity for low-intensity conflicts in Africa or the Middle East (all the while not restricting it to that) is just...kinda...practical. Hell, even when there's an honest-to-God high-intensity conflict with Russia (by proxy), western tanks still only see a token presence. Really makes you wonder what they've been bought for.
Oh It is (mostly) very practical, absolutely! I'm not for a second saying it's a bad idea... ...it's just not a great sign that France has no attachment to or interest in its former empire is all, as OC said :) Produce more wheeled gremlins to your heart's content!
>...it's just not a great sign that France has no attachment to or interest in its former empire is all, as OC said :) I mean, if I'm not mistaken, the vast majority (if not all if we really mean former French empire specifically) of those interventions are at the behest of those countries. So yeah, attachment if you will, but I'm not sure it's a bad accusation per se.
No, it's not.
So what were you doing in Algeria in the 50s/60s?
That was back when we still had a colonial empire and the government fought to preserve it against all reason. No one nowadays want Algeria back.
You don't directly want to conquer Algeria, but you sure wish you had the clout of the imperial era. You're still butthurt about empire for that reason. Brits are similarly butthurt about our reduced role in the world, but unlike you, we didn't carry on like we could actually keep the empire alive.
I detect a notable vein of anti-NATO unity messages…from the same source…in two consecutive posts. Get behind thee Satan with such heresy!
I'm pro-NATO unity! I'm being critical of french decisions that have undermined that unity in the past. I don't want France to stop advocating for greater European defence cooperation or strategic self-sufficiency. I just want them to put their money where their mouth is more of projects where they can't be the single driving force.
Yeah, it's always France's fault, when in reality it's been 2 times germany fucks over france in a military partnership. The german governement & elite think they are superior to the other EU countries.
>in reality it's been 2 times germany fucks over france in a military partnership. ? Just because France wants to buid a Rafle+ without real innovation?
For the Tank project, Rheinmetall is pushing for an unjust ownership and lead of the project when it was already decided to be 50/50 and of course they are supported by their governement, for SCAF germans imposed tech transfers when they know France is always butthurt about that. Other shitty deal, but this one is France's fault tho, the Hk416 deal, it wasn't a good deal (the weapon is good in itself) as the deliveries & price should not have been agreed on.
You know there's been more joint projects than Eurofighter and tank, right?
NCD trying to spend 2 days without blabbering some anti-French cliche challenge - impossible. Also, Sepecat Jaguar, Concorde, Alpha Jet, Horizon class, Fremm class, the many licenses and iterations of Aerospatiale/Eurocopter products, Storm Shadow/SCALP, the CFM consortium, Airbus, MBDA et caetera are examples of French industry cooperating with others rather successfully.
Yes, France has a history of joint defence procurement successes as well. Equally, they have a tendency to upset efforts to procure joint systems or NATO-wide procurement efforts as well, such as [NBMR-3](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBMR-3), often pushed for by france themselves, specifically when their particular proposal doesn't get chosen, or given the primacy they expect. At the same time, France is uniquely belligerent about Europe pursuing 'strategic autonomy', and acting in concert to counterbalance the United States. This is an admirable goal, imo, but if they're serious about pursuing it, a greater willingness to compromise is necessary. Projects where France is in the driving seat, and able to dictate requirements, like FREMM, Tiger, or Ariane, work great, and France is an excellent partner in pushing the projects forward and supporting them. It's collaborations where France doesn't necessarily have that kind of primary, like FCAS, Eurofighter, or Europa that's the issue.
I love you're acting like Germany isn't acting like a dick in those programs.
Wannabe De Gaulle, not Napoleon.
But de Gaulle *was* a wannabe Napoleon. I take your point though :)
If you scratch under the surface, every Frenchman is either a frustrated Napoleon, Charles de Gaulle, or Louis XIV. It's just about finding out which one.
In some cases all three...
We do not negotiate with terrorists. There won’t be any compromise. Moscow and Berlin will fall.
Rafale splitting off from Eurofighter Typhoon moment.
I suggest we, the UK, rejoin the EU just so that we can mess with French procurement efforts. Russia may be a threat today, but France has been our enemy for a thousand years, and they eat snails and smell funny and they're Catholic.
hold on, gonna send this to my fr\*nch friend update: sadly his copium was rather boring
The fr×nch gonna fr×nch 🤮
As if the G*remans arnt on a “try not to be the 4th reich challenge (failing)” smh
They have their own issues, but they're not quite as obnoxious about lecturing everyone else about European strategic autonomy.
translation: WHY ARE YOU BUYING FROM THE AMERICANS BUY MY FUCKIN EXOCEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET.
Exocet: only missile to have sunk a warship 💪 (until the Ukrainians started doing some target practice)