What upsets me is that apparently, European nations are just making a political decision of buying these overpriced, handicapped jets in bulk.
There are three nations I know off (Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium), where Wikileaks cables have revealed that the governments had reached an agreement to stack the deck in favour of the F-35 ahead of the official competitions. The Belgian Minister of Defense even went so far as to assure the US embassy that we would be buying them, years ahead of any public decision or even an evaluation of the options.
We have 2 capable European 4.5G alternatives - the Dassault Rafale or Eurofighter Typhoon - which would be able to perform the same duties while also supporting further development of European technology in this sector.
For the countries I mentioned earlier, the 4.5G Gripen NG would likely be just as adequate for any roles in any conflicts they would ever be part of, while being much, much cheaper to purchase and operate than any of the alternative options.
Instead of encouraging competition among developers and funding the design of European fighters (while also supporting the European economy a little), they're buying jets that are incapable of doing most the the stuff that it says on the box, sending billions of taxpayer money over to the the US military complex.
The one EU nation that has to buy the F-35B is the UK. Because we're building a couple of supercarriers without catapults, so they've got to field STOVL planes, and the government scrapped the Harrier fleet (the USMC bought the entire lot, gleefully) to prevent backsliding.
Notable complicating factor: Rolls Royce builds the lift fan for the F-35B. So panicky late attempts to cram cats into the CVs were cancelled after 3 months, because pork.
Meanwhile, the Eurofighter Typhoon was originally intended to be a carrier-capable fighter with an arrester hook and beefed up undercarriage, until France flounced from the consortium and went it alone with Rafale. An upgraded Rafale or a Typhoon derivative with carrier ops baked in would be entirely possible, cheaper than the F-35B, and vastly more effective as a fighter.
> The one EU nation that has to buy the F-35B is the UK. Because we're building a couple of supercarriers without catapults, so they've got to field STOVL planes,
I did wonder why the decision was made to go for the STOVL version of the F-35 when the new carriers are obviously large enough to support CATOBAR - that explains it perfectly!
STOVL is the right choice for the new carriers as it reduces the amount of practice that pilots will need to be able to take off and land on them. It wouldn't be possible to be as flexible with where the UK's F-35s will be based (land or sea) if all pilots needed to stay current at CATOBAR landings.
That excuse is marvellously surreal, in a "Yes, Minister" way.
"We are going to spend an extra $25M on each fighter, in order to save on training costs."
$3.5Bn (we're buying on the order of 138 of these turkeys: the F-35B, as required for the STOVL role, costs $25M more per unit than the F-35C or A) will buy you a lot of CATOBAR training.
Also that some Dutch companies are involved in producing parts for the F35. At least 70 Dutch companies are supposed to be involved in producing parts for the JSF. And perhaps the unconfirmed rumour [0] that US nucleair weapons of the cold war are still stationed in the Netherlands have also somehow contributed to the choice for the JSF.
There are three nations I know off (Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium), where Wikileaks cables have revealed that the governments had reached an agreement to stack the deck in favour of the F-35 ahead of the official competitions. The Belgian Minister of Defense even went so far as to assure the US embassy that we would be buying them, years ahead of any public decision or even an evaluation of the options.
We have 2 capable European 4.5G alternatives - the Dassault Rafale or Eurofighter Typhoon - which would be able to perform the same duties while also supporting further development of European technology in this sector.
For the countries I mentioned earlier, the 4.5G Gripen NG would likely be just as adequate for any roles in any conflicts they would ever be part of, while being much, much cheaper to purchase and operate than any of the alternative options.
Instead of encouraging competition among developers and funding the design of European fighters (while also supporting the European economy a little), they're buying jets that are incapable of doing most the the stuff that it says on the box, sending billions of taxpayer money over to the the US military complex.