- Reaction score
- 146
- Points
- 710
1) Germany reportedly moving toward a split buy of Super Hornets, Growlers and Eurofighter Typhoons to replace Tornado jets
2) The Bronk piece at RUSI:
3) And note this earlier at IISS:
Talk about, er, granular anaysis that we do not see in Canada. I would think the Germans hope/expect never to have to use damn nukes and thus all the technical arguments are irrelevant to their politicians (sound familiar?).
Mark
Ottawa
The German air force will reportedly buy up to 90 Eurofighters, 30 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and 15 EA-18G Growlers to replace the remainder of its Panavia Tornado fighter jet fleet, but the split procurement doesn’t offer an easy answer for Germany’s requirement to field a nuclear-capable jet, a U.K. defense think tank said.
Germany plans to use the Super Hornet, made by U.S. aerospace company Boeing, to fill a NATO requirement to field fighter aircraft capable of dropping the B61 nuclear gravity bomb, according to German business publication Handelsblatt, which first reported the split buy. It will also buy Growlers to replace the Tornados that carry out an electronic attack role.
However, only the legacy F/A-18 Hornet — not the Super Hornet — was ever certified to carry the B61, wrote Justin Bronk, a research fellow with the Royal United Services Institute, a U.K. based thinktank that covers defense issues. That means that the Super Hornet will have to go through the certification process, said Bronk, who called the split buy “the worst of all previously mooted outcomes.”
Boeing spokesman Justin Gibbons said that while the Super Hornet is not yet certified to carry the B61, the company has the U.S. government’s support for future integration.
“The F/A-18 Super Hornet is capable of being certified to meet B61 requirements for Germany under its timeline. Boeing has a proven track record of successfully integrating weapons systems that meet the needs of both U.S. and international customers,” he said. Gibbons declined to comment on the timing of Germany’s deadline for competitive reasons...
https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/03/26/germany-reportedly-moving-toward-a-split-buy-of-super-hornets-and-eurofighter-typhoons-to-replace-tornado-jets/
2) The Bronk piece at RUSI:
German Decision to Split Tornado Replacement is a Poor One
https://rusi.org/publication/rusi-defence-systems/german-decision-split-tornado-replacement-poor-one
...
The only possible nuclear adversary for NATO in Europe is Russia, and it has developed an extremely capable and thoroughly modernised integrated air defence system to protect both its ground force manoeuvre elements and its borders, including the key enclave of Kaliningrad. The modernised B61 Mod 12 is extremely accurate and has a large variable yield range to allow careful matching of nuclear escalation if required, but as a gravity bomb the delivery aircraft would have to get within a handful of nautical miles of the target – an extremely dangerous activity for non-stealth aircraft even against current-generation Russia defences. The German replacement fighter is intended to begin deliveries in the mid-2020s and will arguably need to remain credible against likely threats for decades to come.
The basic F/A-18E/F Super Hornet airframe design which is also shared by the EA-18G Growler is reaching the limits of its development potential. As an aircraft designed for multi-role carrier operations, the Super Hornet is immensely strongly built and aerodynamically optimised for low-speed, high-angle of attack controllability at lower altitudes. This makes it ideal for carrier operations, but at a significant performance and operating cost disadvantage compared to the F-16, its closest land-based comparator. Like the Eurofighter, it cannot be made ‘stealthy’ despite various design features on both to reduce radar cross-section where possible.
The Eurofighter is in a different league in terms of performance, especially at high altitudes and with heavier fuel and weapon loads, having been designed from the outset for air-superiority missions and agility at supersonic speeds. As such, it has significantly greater excess power, lift, a much larger radar aperture and more overall capability growth potential compared to the Super Hornet. While the Super Hornet is also cleared for a greater selection of weapons than the Eurofighter, neither are currently B61 certified. Most importantly, neither Eurofighter nor Super Hornet are a credible delivery system for the B61 against Russian targets due to the vulnerability of both platforms to modern Russian air defences. The addition of 15 EA-18G Growlers to the proposed force would technically allow Germany to provide some electronic attack (jamming) support to a coalition strike package, as well as potentially some limited suppression of enemy air defences (SEAD) work with the US Navy’s new AGM-88E Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM). However, with a tiny fleet size, usable aircraft numbers would be very limited. In addition, the Growler/AARGM combination is itself not a reliable answer to the latest long-range Russian surface-to-air missile systems (SAMs) such as the SA-21 (S-400) due to lack of missile standoff range and the vulnerability of the platform to anti-radiation and/or active seeker SAMs...
Given the importance of the DCA role to NATO as a whole, the US would then have little choice but to cooperate with Eurofighter B61 Mod 12 certification to meet the Tornado out-of-service date in the mid-2020s. If the DCA role is considered to require actual operational credibility from Germany, then the only feasible choice is the F-35A. Of all the potential aircraft on offer, the F-35A is the only one which represents an operationally credible B61 Mod 12 delivery solution. It will also be operated by all other European DCA members, offering shared training and maintenance burdens. As the UK and Italy have discovered, even small numbers of F-35s can offer significant advantages to medium-sized air forces operating Eurofighter Typhoon as their backbone fighter fleet, since F-35s can get much closer to potential threats and share situational awareness and targeting information with the rest of the force.
Germany’s apparent move to purchase a split fleet of Eurofighters, Super Hornets and Growlers is the worst possible outcome – it imposes all the additional costs and availability challenges of small additional fleets on top of the main Eurofighter force, without any of the additional operational credibility in the DCA role and whole force enabler benefits of a spit buy which included the F-35.
https://rusi.org/publication/rusi-defence-systems/german-decision-split-tornado-replacement-poor-one
3) And note this earlier at IISS:
Berlin and the bomb
...
Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands will all operate the low-observable Lockheed Martin F-35A in the DCA task. Germany, however, as things stand, will use a fourth-generation fighter, having ruled the F-35A out of its competition. However, in order to successfully deliver a free-fall weapon, such an aircraft would need to penetrate enemy air defences that would likely include combat aircraft and a layered belt of advanced surface-to-air missiles; this raises the question of whether a fourth-generation combat aircraft is now the ‘right’ choice for the DCA task. As a low-observable design, the F-35A would offer greater survivability in penetrating defended airspace, but even here there is risk. While the F-35A is stealthy, this only reduces the detection range of threat air-defence systems, and having to near overfly the target increases the chance that the aircraft will be detected by air-defence sensors and engaged.
Stand-off weapons
Aircraft survivability and the likelihood of successful delivery would be improved by allocating even a small number of stand-off weapons to what is currently the NATO DCA role. Arguably, the Alliance could reduce the number of nuclear warheads required at the same time because a stand-off system employed for even part of the task would increase the credibility of deterrence.
An air-launched stand-off weapon is one option, although a submarine-launched cruise missile would be an alternative (and it is likely that the next generation of Germany’s submarines will have both horizontal and vertical launch systems – potentially facilitating such an option). Only one European NATO member has a nuclear-armed air-launched cruise missile in its inventory: France fields its ASMPA supersonic cruise missile on the Dassault Rafale multi-role combat aircraft as part of its national deterrent.
France, however, is not a member of the NATO Nuclear Planning Group, and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons would prohibit Paris from providing a nuclear capability to a non-nuclear power, in this case Germany. For NATO’s DCA, the US retains ‘absolute control and custody’ of the free-fall bombs allocated to the task. It is at least conceivable that a similar arrangement could be agreed with regard to a small number of the ASMPA. These would be retained by Paris but declared to NATO as part of the DCA capability, and would be made available to the German Air Force in extreme circumstances. Were treaty concerns or domestic politics to block such an approach then an alternative could be for France to supply a small number of the missiles without the nuclear package. A US warhead could then be integrated and the system treated in the same way as the B61 is now within the NATO DCA construct.
The missile would have to be integrated on whichever aircraft Berlin decides to buy, but this is also true of the B61-12 on the Super Hornet or the Eurofighter. Consideration of any such approach would be divisive in Germany. But French President Emmanuel Macron has already indicated Paris’ interest in widening the discussion on the ‘role played by France’s nuclear deterrence in our [Europe’s] collective security’. In a 7 February speech, Macron stressed: ’Europeans must now take greater responsibility for this European defence, this European pillar within NATO.’ Bolstering the sub-strategic element of NATO’s nuclear deterrent would arguably support this goal and would provide an important Franco-German element in the wider context of bilateral defence cooperation...
https://www.iiss.org/blogs/military-balance/2020/03/germany-tornado-replacement-options
Talk about, er, granular anaysis that we do not see in Canada. I would think the Germans hope/expect never to have to use damn nukes and thus all the technical arguments are irrelevant to their politicians (sound familiar?).
Mark
Ottawa
