never understood why the armies of the EU wouldn’t bank on airframes produced locally, we have great technology with Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Rafale, Saab Gripen
Because none of them have the capabilities of the F-35. And they are even more expensive than the F-35.
Aren’t they all 4/4.5th generation and not capable of carrying nukes? I mean they are a great stopgap and I would prefer having plenty of them, but the F35 abilities are much needed on a tactical and strategic level.
Too bad, it’s off the table with this liability.
the Rafale is used for nuclear deterrence and can carry medium range air launched cruise missiles. They are to be replaced with hypersonic cruise missiles launches with the Rafale F5 until 2035.
The Rafale can carry the ASMP, a french nucular cruise missile and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Gripen could be upgraded such that it can do so as well.
Kay. Coming from Germany it is about the nukes of our … ehm… “friends”. We still use the Tornado from 1974 because of incompabilities of our Eurofighters.
Does that matter though? e.g. if you do a nuclear strike, wouldn’t you bring enough support to make sure the nuke reaches its target?
Corruption. Paying for the protection racket. All good reasons /s
It’s much simpler than that: the Americans are always in charge of international operations.
The Dutch Air Force officers still get soggy about the prize for “the explosion of the year” that they received for bombing a Serbian powerplant. 🤮
An occasional pat on the back is enough, they don’t even need to bribe our leaders anymore.
I would get of buying foreign products in order to appease them, but buying something you can’t even use without their permission for every start is really stupid
Imagine the US invading the EU (or don’t play according their whims) and they can just *boop* disable all our advanced equipment.
Spoiler: the Ukrainians who jailbroke John Deere tractors end up saving the day
Oh shit, that happened?
Idk, but what did happen is that the John Deere remotely disabled equipment stolen by the russians. This is one of those cases where it sound cool but it obviously comes with horrible implications.
