Main Ground Combat System (MGCS) and Euro Main Battle Tank (EMBT)

[Lord_James]

35 minutes ago, Beer said:

Even the T-90A and M and Oplot-M have boxy turrets which are intentionally as wide as possible because there is a very good reason for that.  

I don’t quite remember which object it was (it was parallel to T-90, I think?), but they redesigned the front hull to be more square. @LoooSeR, do you know what I’m talking about? 

[LoooSeR]

1 hour ago, Lord_James said:

I don’t quite remember which object it was (it was parallel to T-90, I think?), but they redesigned the front hull to be more square. @LoooSeR, do you know what I’m talking about? 

Object 187.

[StarshipDirect]

On 5/14/2021 at 5:34 PM, SH_MM said:

 

I’m sure Poland and some other Eastern European countries have shown interest. This would make make a good replacement for the PT-91 and T-72 for Polish Army

[delete013]

On 5/15/2021 at 3:20 PM, Lord_James said:

In what world? Have you seen 1980s and 1990s designed tanks? They’re almost all boxes with fat turrets (M1 Abrams, Leopard 2, Leclerc, Challenger, Type 90, Ariete). 

 

On 5/15/2021 at 3:46 PM, Beer said:

Even the T-90A and M and Oplot-M have boxy turrets which are intentionally as wide as possible because there is a very good reason for that.  

ow low are those hull and turret?

 

Isn't that because the primary aim of late cold war protection is not to get hit easily? The size grew purely due to size of spaced and composite armour, which is irrelevant if it gets hit sideways. If the future designs feature bulky turrets with small crew compartment, it is also okay.

Why would T-90 have deliberately broad turret? Broader turret is afaik undesired but unavoidable, long bustle likewise.

[Beer]

 

3 hours ago, delete013 said:

Why would T-90 have deliberately broad turret? Broader turret is afaik undesired but unavoidable, long bustle likewise.

 

You are wrong. It is deliberately as wide as the tank itself, i.e. its width is maximum possible. Look at the tank from the top and you may realize why. 

[delete013]

28 minutes ago, Beer said:

You are wrong. It is deliberately as wide as the tank itself, i.e. its width is maximum possible. Look at the tank from the top and you may realize why. 

You mean the turret cheeks?

[mr.T]

Turret design with wide cheeks is great in terms of armor protection  to weight ratio, cheek armor protects in the frontal 60° while other turrets need bunch of side armor to equal that protection.

 

 

 

[Sturgeon]

1 hour ago, mr.T said:

Turret design with wide cheeks is great in terms of armor protection  to weight ratio, cheek armor protects in the frontal 60° while other turrets need bunch of side armor to equal that protection.

 

 

 

 

Yes they can get away with that because they do not have a bustle. Which makes the tank a bit less safe. All sorts of tradeoffs involved.

[Sturgeon]

6 hours ago, delete013 said:

 

Why would T-90 have deliberately broad turret? Broader turret is afaik undesired but unavoidable, long bustle likewise.

 

Here's a T-72 with its turret conveniently removed and placed alongside the hull. Notice anything?

[mr.T]

The big issue with the layout is that turrets are increasingly unbalanced ,so they are actually forced to make bustles at some time as armouring grows. T90 now has a  bustle , T90MS

Still has some rounds outside the carusell but less than used to be the case in T72 .

 

As for unsafe , only tank in service that has ammo storage really safely handled is M1 , every other tank has plenty of rounds inside the fighting compartment without any separation from the crew. 

 

Carousel ammo load should be reasonably safe from harm but the additional charges and rounds that used to be placed in every nook and cranny on t72 were likely the ones going boom. With T90MS they moved much of that into the bustle.

 

[Beer]

I remember reading that during the Second Chechen war there was not a single documented catastrophic explosion because they used only ammo stored in the carousell which itself is extremely unlikely to get hit (at least the horizontal T-72/90 one). 

 

The bustle storage is safer for the crew but also rather easy target for mission kill. Also the bustle isn't large enough for having autoloader and enough ammo in the same time as well. Trade offs... 

[mr.T]

Indeed 

 

Ole standard loadout for T72/90 had ammo all over , hard not to hit any in case of penetration. Literaly charges and rounds everywhere .Not to mention the extra ammo is actually for reloading into carusel so its used last.

 

 

 

[roguetechie]

On 5/15/2021 at 1:45 AM, delete013 said:

Low silhouette, sloped plates where possible, small or narrow cross-section of turrets. More or less how late cold war tanks were designed.

Good, so it is the composite armour that needs space.

Maybe it is not so tall, or at lest, the crew capsule is lower under the bulky armour. You might notice though that there is a flat window before the driver and there seems not much space for armour. It looks like driver's shot trap on a challenger 2. The hull itself is tall relative to vehicle width and there seems to be a superstructure that adds to the weight. All this are vulnerabilities that were attempted to be solved by tilting drivers chair back and lower the hull. Is that simply gone now?

I think that part is my most credible observation. The hull is very low. The final drive housing extends almost all the way to the track. Where is suspension travel supposed to go? It looks more akin to Churchill's suspension.

 

Sure, I merely asked why is it so. Maybe I don't know something.

 

1. Sloped plates, low silhouette, small or narrow turret cross section/how late cold war tanks are designed.

 

You must be looking at different late cold war tanks than the rest of us because this is all just outright puzzling.

 

2. (Second paragraph thing)

 

I'm going to be honest with you here, the more I look at these "artists impressions" the more I'm more or less convinced that if there was ANY engineering input at all to these illustrations it was a checklist or some shit given to hire out graphic artists.

 

That said though, you brought up shot traps. Even assuming that drivers vision block step is actually planned to be there you're looking at maybe 10-20 centimeters in height which is basically thin enough to not matter at modern tank gun ranges. You equated it to the chally situation which is it manifestly nowhere near the same thing. In the chally they carved a big fucking hole in it's UFP DEAD CENTER and even that's not a shot trap! (Shot traps when people are shooting high L:D long rods at you aren't really a thing. There's just bounce/no bounce angles THAT'S IT) The chally's issue is it has the tank equivalent to wearing crotchless panties to ride steeplechase not a shot trap.  There's a big fucking hole just inviting a long rod to get deep the fuck up in it's guts!

 

On the superstructure on suspension things, I just flat have no idea what you mean by superstructure. On the suspension thing, reference my prior comments about these being graphic arts concepts more than anything like a concept drawing. Even if they planned to do it exactly like this though, with hydrogas suspension components etc it shouldn't particularly be a problem perse.

 

These "concepts" are too derpy to be all that serious to be honest.

 

If you want to see what a truly modern tank concept looks like check out the US army's OMT concept illustrations. (There's 3 or 4 of them and they're much more serious than whatever the fuck these illustrations are).

 

In some ways I think why several of us are confused by your commentary here is precisely because these things are so blatantly deviantart Level cartoony.

 

[delete013]

9 hours ago, roguetechie said:

 

1. Sloped plates, low silhouette, small or narrow turret cross section/how late cold war tanks are designed.

 

You must be looking at different late cold war tanks than the rest of us because this is all just outright puzzling.

Fine we have different understanding of the matter. I was brought to believe that such things matter by a number of observations, design principles of Leopard 2 and M1 Abrams, both late Cold war tanks. Rolf Hilmes in his Kampfpanzer describes in section 2.3 "Überlebensfähigkeitsbestimmende Elemente" the height of the vehicle as an important factor in the so called passive chance of getting hit (Trefferwahrscheinlichkeit). A number of projects in the 80ies in the US, USSR, Sweden and Germany attempted to explore the feasibility of external gun mounting, moving crew into the hull or very low hull or turret designs.

Development of US heights.

Explicitly lowered hull by tilting the driver's seat of an Abrams

 

External cannon mount without a turret

 

Nexter's design looks more similar to the boxy, tall vehicle of the Land Combat System from 2003. Hence, my remark.

 

9 hours ago, roguetechie said:

2. (Second paragraph thing)

On the superstructure on suspension things, I just flat have no idea what you mean by superstructure. On the suspension thing, reference my prior comments about these being graphic arts concepts more than anything like a concept drawing. Even if they planned to do it exactly like this though, with hydrogas suspension components etc it shouldn't particularly be a problem perse.

Upper square is the "superstructure". I assume it is there because the entire crew is in the hull. This clashes with the "deviantart" images.

Lower square is my issue with suspension travel. At any serious obstacle those side plates will hit the floor.

 

9 hours ago, roguetechie said:

These "concepts" are too derpy to be all that serious to be honest.

I assume it is Nexter's concept demonstration of digital battlefield, rather than detailed vehicle model.

 

[Gun Ready]

Hello all, Macron has won the elections! Guess that MGCS in continuing, or? Any news to report?

[W. Murderface]

I hope so. Last time I heard about the MGCS was two months ago, with talk of Italy joining the programme.

 

www.armyrecognition.com/analysis_focus_army_defence_military_industry_army/italian_army_to_possibly_join_european_mgcs_main_ground_combat_system_programme.html

[Alzoc]

Well on one hand now that elections period are over both in France and Germany, there is now enough political stability to continue negotiations.

On the other hand the war in Ukraine kinda validated France position on the need of an effective European defense and Germany woke up noticing that their army is basically naked and that they can't do much to help their neighbour in case of an invasion.

Cue emotional response and German politicians put 100 billions euros on the table ... and the first thing they buy are F-35, CH-47 and the THAAD system.

 

Now I perfectly understand that those 100 billions are meant to plug in the holes with material that is available now, and on a lot of niches the American were the only one that could provide the material quickly. But frankly it sent a terrible political signal that at the first sign of trouble, Germany turned around and went toward the US.

 

Add on top of that the fact that even before the invasion of Ukraine Germany screwed up two major European program by buying PE-8 naval patrol aircraft instead of going forward with the MAWS program and then refusing to participate to the Tiger MkIII standard (Forcing France and Spain to downscale the number of helicopters that will be upgraded) and making noises that they would be interested by Boeing's AH-64 instead.

 

Between all of that, their dependency to Russian gas and the fact that their partners had to convince them (at least in the beginning of the conflict) to take meaningful sanctions against Russia and help Ukraine ...

Short answer, nobody in Europe have any kind of trust left in Germany regarding defence and military matters.

Sadly it is likely that all cooperation programs with Germany will be re-examined.

[Rico]

German bashing is becoming sports.

 

Truth is no-one needs MGCS to fight T-72 or T-90. 

All neighbours are flying F-35 so why should they wait some additional 20 years to fly FCAS? 

I would have taken the same decisions as they did. 

[Alzoc]

True that no one need a brand new MBT to fight older generations ones, but all of the third gen MBTs are nearing the end of their life cycle and upgrade potential. Developing a new weapon system take time and you can't just wait for your adversary to put one in production to start the development of a new generation of your own.

 

As for the F-35, the only operational need forcing Germany to buy it was the capability to launch the B61, which is nearly worthless as far nuclear weapons goes (both for dissuasion purposes and as a tactical weapon). And even then only because the US refused to qualify the Eurofighter to launch the bomb (which is understandable) or the F-18 (which was done to force countries to buy F-35 if they wanted to keep their B-61). Killing the European defence industry to curry political favor from the US is a terrible decision in the long run.

 

Yes the US are friendly toward Europe now, but their priority nowadays is China, not whatever is happening in Europe. There is no guarantee that European interests will always align with Americans ones in the future so we ought to be as self reliant as possible. A world with three major powers is inherently more stable than one with only two.

 

 Gouverner, c’est prévoir ; et ne rien prévoir, c’est courir à sa perte  

Emile de Girardin – La politique universelle ( 1852 )

[SH_MM]

43 minutes ago, Alzoc said:

Cue emotional response and German politicians put 100 billions euros on the table ... and the first thing they buy are F-35, CH-47 and the THAAD system.

 

Now I perfectly understand that those 100 billions are meant to plug in the holes with material that is available now, and on a lot of niches the American were the only one that could provide the material quickly. But frankly it sent a terrible political signal that at the first sign of trouble, Germany turned around and went toward the US.

 

THAAD has not been purchased, neither has Israeli Iron Arrow (which has been declared the preferred solution over THAAD). Hopefully likely none of these systems will be bought, because they only were used as toys in political debates. "Let's buy some so we can feel safe."

 

CH-47 also hasn't been contracted yet. It was only announced (by the BILD newspaper) that CH-47 is supposedly winning the STH tender and therefore had "secured" the contract. Official sources contradicted these claims, stating that the tender is still open.

The STH program is running (in different forms) since 2003. This is hardly an unexpected outcome that an American system will be chosen (either CH-47 or CH-53) after a cooperation with France (proposed by Eurocopter as the HTH/FTH) was considered, but was rejected as it would be the most expensive, less proven option that would become available too late. Blaming Germany for aiming with interoperability with European allies and wanting to buy stuff that works is highly questionable.

 

The F-35 already had been declared to be the Luftwaffe's preferred Tornado replacement since the program started. It is the aircraft that offers the best combination of features and performance for the desired role, it has lots of growth potential and is operational with/has been ordered by eight European allies. There was no real alternative to buying an US aircraft, the Tornado will still partly be replaced by Eurofighters (with new EW systems).

 

1 hour ago, Alzoc said:

Add on top of that the fact that even before the invasion of Ukraine Germany screwed up two major European program by buying PE-8 naval patrol aircraft instead of going forward with the MAWS program and then refusing to participate to the Tiger MkIII standard (Forcing France and Spain to downscale the number of helicopters that will be upgraded) and making noises that they would be interested by Boeing's AH-64 instead.

 

That is the French opinion. Germany wanted to continue the MAWS program (even after buying P-8s), but the French government decided to shut down the program. Apparently the ability to defend Europe is only a secondary matter for the French government, at least when it comes to European defense projects.

 

The Tiger has proven issues with all operators, its availability rates are poor for all operators.

 

Looking for alternatives (after giving Airbus Helicopters lots of chances to fix the issues) is a reasonable response. Germany is evaluating multiple options - including joining the Tiger Mark III program, buying a replacement from America, developing/buying another replacement (e.g. with Italy by joining into the AW249) or just supplementing the current Tiger helicopter fleet with different lighter systems - but Germany does not want to buy Tiger helicopters at all costs. Specifically given all the issues that joint projects with France bring with them. A decision for or against the Tiger Mark III is planned for mid-2022.

 

1 hour ago, Alzoc said:

Between all of that, their dependency to Russian gas and the fact that their partners had to convince them (at least in the beginning of the conflict) to take meaningful sanctions against Russia and help Ukraine ...

Short answer, nobody in Europe have any kind of trust left in Germany regarding defence and military matters.

Sadly it is likely that all cooperation programs with Germany will be re-examined.

 

Odd to see such statements, given that the perception of France regarding Russian sanctions/military aid for Ukraine is even worse.

 

49 minutes ago, Rico said:

All neighbours are flying F-35 so why should they wait some additional 20 years to fly FCAS? 

FCAS is not an alternative to F-35, but a newer generation aircraft developed as successor to the Eurofighter and Rafale.

 

36 minutes ago, Alzoc said:

The only operational need forcing Germany to buy F-35 was the capability to launch the B-61 which is nearly worthless as far nuclear weapons goes (both for dissuasion purposes and as a tactical weapon).

 

No nuclear weapon is worthless as proven countless times by North Korea. Just an old, antiquated nuke will still get attention and act as deterrence.

 

37 minutes ago, Alzoc said:

And even then only because the US refused to qualify the Eurofighter to do it (which is understandable) or the F-18 (which was done to force countries to buy F-35 if they wanted to keep their B-61).

 

There were no issues with the F-18, it was offered with qualification for the B-61 bombs. Qualifying the B-61 on the Eurofighter also was offered by the US, however the conditions (disclose classified construction details/intellectual property) were deemed undesirable.

 

 

[Alzoc]

1 hour ago, SH_MM said:

THAAD has not been purchased, neither has Israeli Iron Arrow (which has been declared the preferred solution over THAAD). Hopefully likely none of these systems will be bought, because they only were used as toys in political debates. "Let's buy some so we can feel safe."

 

True that nothing has been signed yet, but same as these announcements were caused partly by an emotional response in Germany they also caused an emotional response in France which is becoming increasingly disillusioned with Germany (and I'm part of the pro cooperation with Germany and Europe crowd to give you an indication).

 

1 hour ago, SH_MM said:

CH-47 also hasn't been contracted yet. It was only announced (by the BILD newspaper) that CH-47 is supposedly winning the STH tender and therefore had "secured" the contract. Official sources contradicted these claims, stating that the tender is still open.

The STH program is running (in different forms) since 2003. This is hardly an unexpected outcome that an American system will be chosen (either CH-47 or CH-53) after a cooperation with France (proposed by Eurocopter as the HTH/FTH) was considered, but was rejected as it would be the most expensive, less proven option that would become available too late. Blaming Germany for aiming with interoperability with European allies and wanting to buy stuff that works is highly questionable.

 

As I said I perfectly understand the choice of the CH-47 as there is virtually no alternative to it (and especially no European one), it fill a needed role and if our forces could have a heavy helicopter as well they would take it. The main problem was the political signal it sent. Not just the fact that Germany bought the CH-47 or the F-35, they are not the only one in Europe as you said. It is more that the first thing they did when unlocking emergency funds was to look toward America and not even considering accelerating some European programs instead (the MGCS and the FCAS are behind schedule partly because of the German's parliament tergiversations and because Airbus is trying to get Dassault's intellectual property for free).

 

1 hour ago, SH_MM said:

That is the French opinion. Germany wanted to continue the MAWS program (even after buying P-8s), but the French government decided to shut down the program. Apparently the ability to defend Europe is only a secondary matter for the French government, at least when it comes to European defense projects.

 

The French government also proposed to lend modernized ATL-2 to Germany to plug the gap until the MAWS was developed. Be real, once Germany bought the Poseidon they would had no need for another true maritime patrol aircraft and France would have just wasted money on a minimalist version that wouldn't have suited our needs.

 

1 hour ago, SH_MM said:

The Tiger has proven issues with all operators, its availability rates are poor for all operators.

 

Looking for alternatives (after giving Airbus Helicopters lots of chances to fix the issues) is a reasonable response. Germany is evaluating multiple options - including joining the Tiger Mark III program, buying a replacement from America, developing/buying another replacement (e.g. with Italy by joining into the AW249) or just supplementing the current Tiger helicopter fleet with different lighter systems - but Germany does not want to buy Tiger helicopters at all costs. Specifically given all the issues that joint projects with France bring with them. A decision for or against the Tiger Mark III is planned for mid-2022.

 

True that the Tiger (like the NH-90) has major availability issues. But only Germany has it that bad consistently across their entire fleet (2018 was a prime example of that). Lack of availability is an issue that has been plaguing German forces across the board for a long time, partly because of a lack of funding and investment resulting in poor maintenance.

 

1 hour ago, SH_MM said:

Odd to see such statements, given that the perception of France regarding Russian sanctions/military aid for Ukraine is even worse.

 

Regarding military aid that's a fair point. The French government barely communicated on what they were sending to Ukraine and for all we know the aid sent was minimal. Some said it was in order to keep the door open for Russia if they wanted to negotiate (whether that's true or not I don't know). Though this position has changed recently when Macron announced that France will be sending Caesars SPG. Regarding sanctions however, given that we have much less to lose if Russia cut of the gas supply our government was among the first to announce it's intention on freezing Russian assets (1 day after the invasion) or to agree to exclude Russia from the SWIFT system (4 days after the invasion).

 

1 hour ago, SH_MM said:

FCAS is not an alternative to F-35, but a newer generation aircraft developed as successor to the Eurofighter and Rafale.

 

And now that Germany has started buying F-35, there is nothing preventing them from buying more, making the need for the FCAS much less pressing for them while it will become increasingly urgent for us. It leave all latitude for Germany to let negotiations drag on and extract as much concessions from France as possible even though we are the one with all the know how for once. Again, it was a terrible political signal.

 

1 hour ago, SH_MM said:

No nuclear weapon is worthless as proven countless times by North Korea. Just an old, antiquated nuke will still get attention and act as deterrence.

 

Not really, NK nuclear weapons are taken somewhat seriously because they can actually reach their intended targets (SK, Japan and now even the US west Coast). Nuclear weapons are only useful as a deterrent if they are coupled with a robust and credible delivery system. The B61 is a gravity bomb that only just recently gained a guidance kit for final targeting, meaning the plane delivering it has to be right on top of it's target to drop it. Even a stealth plane will have been spotted by enemy defenses long before reaching that point.

And even as a tactical weapon, the only use would be against a large concentration of relatively soft targets, nothing you can't achieve with conventional weapon systems (thermobaric, MLRS or artillery saturation attack, etc). Using a tactical nuke mean spending a lot less ammo true, but needing it would mean that we are already at a point where our ammo stocks are critically low meaning that we are in deep troubles anyway.

 

1 hour ago, SH_MM said:

There were no issues with the F-18, it was offered with qualification for the B-61 bombs. Qualifying the B-61 on the Eurofighter also was offered by the US, however the conditions (disclose classified construction details/intellectual property) were deemed undesirable.

 

The F-18 was offered for a time and then in December 2021 the US removed it from the list of planes qualified to carry the B61, leaving the F-35 the only choice. Qualifying the B61 on the Eurofighter would have never happened anyway since, as you said, it would have meant releasing every single information about the plane to the US (same reason a qualification of the B61 on the Rafale would have never happened). It was an evidence from the start.

 

Anyway we are way of topic, and I apologize if I came a bit too strongly. I am pissed off because of the recent German choices, as are a lot of other people in France. Frankly speaking those choices were short-sighted and threaten long term interests and the security of not only Germany but of the rest of Europe as well (at the very least from a French point of view). Situation is what it is and we will see how it develop from there...

[holoween]

1 hour ago, Alzoc said:

The French government also proposed to lend modernized ATL-2 to Germany to plug the gap until the MAWS was developed. Be real, once Germany bought the Poseidon they would had no need for another true maritime patrol aircraft and France would have just wasted money on a minimalist version that wouldn't have suited our needs.

 

https://augengeradeaus.net/2021/05/chancen-der-marine-auf-p-8-poseidon-als-neuer-seefernaufklaerer-steigen/

Das französische Angebot sieht keine Leihgabe vor, sondern schlägt den Kauf, alternativ auch ein Leasing, von vier auf den Standard 6 umgerüsteten DASSAULT Aviation ATLANTIQUE 2 (ATL2) vor, die durch Frankreich ursprünglich nicht mehr zur Umrüstung vorgesehen waren.
Die Flugzeuge wurden ab dem Jahr 1984 produziert und ab dem Jahr 1989 an die Französische Marine ausgeliefert. Der Zustand der Deutschland angebotenen Zellen der ATL2 ist seitens Frankreich nicht näher spezifiziert worden.
Die Anzahl und der erwartete Klarstand der angebotenen Luftfahrzeuge werden die Anforderungen potenzieller zukünftiger Einsatzverpflichtungen sowie die Bedarfe zur Regeneration von Besatzungen und zur Durchführung von Übungs- und Aufklärungsflügen absehbar nicht abdecken können.

 

So the french offer was to sell or lease modernized ATL2 that france didnt initially want to modernize so not exatly a good stopgap if it isnt available quickly and is as old or older than the airframes its supposed to replace. Even moreso given that the P3 wasnt modernized because it wouldnt be cost effective.

[Ramlaen]

3 hours ago, Alzoc said:

As for the F-35, the only operational need forcing Germany to buy it was the capability to launch the B61, which is nearly worthless as far nuclear weapons goes (both for dissuasion purposes and as a tactical weapon). And even then only because the US refused to qualify the Eurofighter to launch the bomb (which is understandable) or the F-18 (which was done to force countries to buy F-35 if they wanted to keep their B-61). Killing the European defence industry to curry political favor from the US is a terrible decision in the long run.

 

Well it's a choice of buying the best fighter available in both performance and value or supporting local industry which may or may not make something comperable in 20 years assuming another Typhoon/Rafale split doesn't happen.

[Alzoc]

13 minutes ago, Ramlaen said:

Well it's a choice of buying the best fighter available in both performance and value or supporting local industry which may or may not make something comperable in 20 years assuming another Typhoon/Rafale split doesn't happen.

 

That's exactly what it is.

 

The question is if everybody in Europe buy the F-35 what will happen when the need to replace the F-35 arrive in a few decades? Technically even France could buy the F-35 as well since there is a proper CATOBAR version (F-35C) (though there is the problem of our airborne nuclear dissuasion).

By the time the life cycle of the F-35 is at its end, indigenous aircraft manufacturer (Dassault, Airbus and Saab) will have completely lost all know how regarding fighter design because they haven't worked on anything similar for decades.

Choosing the F-35 and killing the FCAS is as good as destroying the capability of designing a high performance fighter in Europe for a long time, making us even more dependent on the US. Germany may be ok with that but their decision has an impact on the rest of us too :/

[holoween]

6 minutes ago, Alzoc said:

Choosing the F-35 and killing the FCAS is as good as destroying the capability of designing a high performance fighter in Europe for a long time, making us even more dependent on the US. Germany may be ok with that but their decision has an impact on the rest of us too :/

 

They are replacing tornados and not even all of them the EW is goin to be provided by further development for the eurofighter. If anything having experience with the F35 gives a better baseline to see what the FCAS has to be capable of.