EDIT: Also a friendly reminder that literally nobody wanted these Euro 4Gen planes. They were hoping for export sales back in the day, shipped them around for years without getting any takers (Apart from the couple of Eurofighters they sold to Saudi Arabia, when the Saudis wanted to get closer to Europe.) until a few third world shitholes that needed to replace their Soviet planes from the 1960ies finally picked up a few.
The Rafale is doing great on the export market now.
Typhoon is basically dead as is the Gripen.
My poor mother in law just passed, married for many decades to my retired suvmariner father in law. So last weekend I was driving to my old lady's home town right outside of Bremerton WA. I always find it interesting to see what the navy has tied up along the waiting for disposal dock. For many years it was a swarm of aging carriers, but last weekend I was treated to the busted hulk of a catameran style LCS. I got thinking maybe the best way to further streamline the defense industry might be to just hand cash out directly to arms conglomerates, system apparatchiks and party yes men politicians. Building the ridiculous boondoggles is just wasting everyone's time. Indeed with the current system maybe some of the money ends up in the hands of some welder or something seething with white rage. We can just cut that wasteful part of the loop right out.
The initial LCS designs were absolutely trash, especially the catamaran version. Cracking hulls, awful NVH for the crew, issue after issue.
Instead of a nice conventional frigate the Navy went full retard and decided the LCS program ships HAD TO hit 40 FUCKING KNOTS. That is retard speed for a warship that size and basically useless. There is a reason most warships to out at 28-32 knots and that's because any faster and you start making huge compromises to get that fast.
That and, unlike Europe's offerings, Russia's already relatively cheaper cost means that a number of the Russian MIC's big ticket items from jets, to AFV's, so submarines can be exported world wide, increasing their production runs and thus even further lowering the cost per unit
Right until CAATSA passed. This kneecapped Russian arms exports unless it's to places like Iran, Myanmar, sub Saharan Africa or a few counties in South America.
It stopped Egypt from buying dozens of Sukhois and it's allegedly pushing India to look away from Russian arms for new buys
You sure about the gibs buddy? If one would go for social benefits why not go for Germany or France. The states got no Universal healthcare for example. The Bild news paper though is asking the most important question:
View attachment 5787607
"Employment or social benefits: what pays more?"
And since the new Buergergeld they even publish lists of jobs that pay LESS than sitting on your ass and receiving welfare. LOL.
View attachment 5787617
https://www.nius.de/gesellschaft/in...rgergeld/9fbbbcd7-a584-4c3e-a78e-4c62a3e28faa
Based on a family of 4 people, 2 kids included that is.
Muslims may have low IQs but they know how to get something for nothing. Try to beat that, America! I would go for it myself, but I enjoy driving my car too much.
The USA has free healthcare, schooling, housing, food and even cash handouts if you're a fucking illegal alien.
They also work cash only jobs to keep gibs.
Regarding the whole "europe has many good weapon systems and institutional knowledge is fantastic" thing, overall they
dont maintain anything, leaving major issues unresolved for years (
archive),
barely make anything new (
archive), and
only very slowly make replacement parts (
archive).
Normally you would have some innate production capacity just due to maintaining your standing forces, but that upkeep has been neglected for decades. They do have a 'MIC' but it is comparatively very small and limited.
It's small due to the 1990s peace cuts and the fact that most EU militaries are tiny and can only support small orders.
My theory is that the Biden Administration is trying to get out of the quagmire that Nuland desperately wants to keep going. With Congress not allowing more aid and Ukraine's collapse seemingly inevitable Nuland's options were limited.
She probably attempted to convince the Europeans that it was time for NATO to intervene. Macron jumped at the chance while Sholtz balked and released those tapes.
So she did a lot of damage in her time as a diplomat.
Probably but I'd bet money on Congress passing a multi billion dollar Ukraine aid bill in the next 2-3 months.
That'll keep Ukraine propped up until 2025 as the Euros are also dumping billions into Ukraine at the moment.
Don't conflate sales failures with engineering failures. They might be good planes, but for already mentioned reasons, can't be made in high enough numbers cheaply enough to be viable. Also probably not enough bribe money from the manufacturer
The Typhoon is almost out of production, the Gripen E is a sales disaster (wow 40 jets to Brazil) and is probably dead once the Brazilian and Swedish air force orders are completed in 4-5 years.
However.... The Rafale is doing great as it's essentially a French Super Hornet with a slightly better ECM system, equivalent radar and slightly better performance.
It's also essentially 100% French so no annoying export restrictions unlike Typhoon (Germany)and Gripen (US engine and radar).
Wont save anything. When the personnel wait for command from a shore HQ to start damage control for fuck sakes.. And sit anchored and immobile after receiving a warning about possible attack 30 minutes ago..
The BSF doesn't do basic shit and continuously getting punished for it.
Also, late and already
posted
Yeah I didn't see it... Whoops.
I think the BSF command staff needs to be tied to the bow of a suicide boat and launched into Odessa.