The European Commission president says increasing defense spending is necessary in "an era of rearmament." A European summit on defense and Ukraine is planned this week amid tense transatlantic relations.
Not sure, if we can completely replace US weapons, including jets and so on, already.
I guess, that much will be spend at European companies, but I’m pretty sure a bulk will go the the USA military industry
and maybe also other countries - I’m not really up-to-date with current military capabilities and production facilities in Europe or worldwide
To my understanding, EU countries aren’t in a shortage of aircraft - their air power is enough to match Russia. However, they are in a shortage of bombs to drop and missiles to fire.
They’re also in a shortage of artillery and rocket artillery and air defense.
As for the industry that can be scaled up fastest (drones), everyone is in a shortage of them. Fortunately there is one country in Europe that’s been doing absolutely everything to scale up their production. So much that it currently out-produces the US, and maybe out-produces both the US and the EU. I’m fairly certain that this country is willing to help on the matter (it’s called Ukraine).
Jets? The Eurofighter is made by European companies only.
Especially France has some leading Jet / Air combat companies.
Italys Leonardo is leading for combat Helicopters
For ground forces Germans Rheinmetall produces some good tanks.
The UK is also not too weak but it’s ties to the US are a bit too strong… (BAE Systems gets tons of money from the US and I personally wouldn’t be too sure if they would choose the UK over the US if they had to)
Are the Eurofighter really good?
At least in the first years I’ve only read about problems and the ones in Austria couldn’t fly for most of the time
But that’s quite some years ago, so I can’t remember what the problems actually were - and have no idea, if those got finally resolved
Is there any comparison to relative modern MiGs (or whatever the correct counterpart would be)?
Edit: also I’ve read that the American jets have some kind of lock, where we need some unlock code from the USA. Is that correct?
Because that is quite some high level of trust into a foreign power to let ourselves defend our countries
Also, if any of these contain proprietary code that can not be independently inspected by military staff, they should be considered compromised.
Corporations exist to generate profit. They do not care about borders, and can’t be trusted to not share information with current and future adversaries.
Some Finnish guy claimed that it’s not just that F35s contain proprietary code, they actively phone home daily to the US and stop working if they can’t reach the server.
If that’s true, it’s incredibly fucked up and whoever made the deal to buy them should be fired out of a cannon.
New air frames tend to have a lot of issues. They’re kind of at the limits of engineering complexity. Too many parts optimized for weight/strength just perfectly, until there’s that one extra side load, or power drain, that no one expected. That’s why a lot of test designs end at the full scale testing stage. It’s not until all the parts are in one place that you can really see if they all work together.
The Austrian Typhoons are all the earliest model and Austria chose not to upgrade any of them, so they’re approaching 25 years old and a less mature design than everyone else’s Typhoons
Yeah, because the Austrian military is a fucking joke
We seem to rely solely on neutrality, because “look at Switzerland during WW2!!”, but all of those idiots completely miss, that the Swiss were armed to the teeth to defend themselves.
While in Austria every form of building up self defense measures are always countered by neutrality claims, because as long as we aren’t a threat, no one will attack us
Yeah, that will work out great, when we get rolled over…
But if the FPÖ gets its way, we’ll probably already showing our bellies to the wannabe strong man in Moscow, because Russia will play a big part in supporting right wing parties and with that, they are happy to meet their master it seems.
Not sure, if we can completely replace US weapons, including jets and so on, already.
I guess, that much will be spend at European companies, but I’m pretty sure a bulk will go the the USA military industry
and maybe also other countries - I’m not really up-to-date with current military capabilities and production facilities in Europe or worldwide
Maybe someone more knowledgeable could chime in
To my understanding, EU countries aren’t in a shortage of aircraft - their air power is enough to match Russia. However, they are in a shortage of bombs to drop and missiles to fire.
They’re also in a shortage of artillery and rocket artillery and air defense.
As for the industry that can be scaled up fastest (drones), everyone is in a shortage of them. Fortunately there is one country in Europe that’s been doing absolutely everything to scale up their production. So much that it currently out-produces the US, and maybe out-produces both the US and the EU. I’m fairly certain that this country is willing to help on the matter (it’s called Ukraine).
Jets? The Eurofighter is made by European companies only.
Especially France has some leading Jet / Air combat companies.
Italys Leonardo is leading for combat Helicopters
For ground forces Germans Rheinmetall produces some good tanks.
The UK is also not too weak but it’s ties to the US are a bit too strong… (BAE Systems gets tons of money from the US and I personally wouldn’t be too sure if they would choose the UK over the US if they had to)
Kill switches makes USA’s F35 garbage in EU
Yeah, exactly!
I don’t get how we can rely on foreign unlock codes (or kill switches if it’s the other way around), when it comes to our own countries.
That is just so much bullshit…
We can. The US only pushed us to buy F35 to carry their atomic warheads.
Eurofighter, Rafale and Gripen are excellent fighter jets.
Are the Eurofighter really good?
At least in the first years I’ve only read about problems and the ones in Austria couldn’t fly for most of the time
But that’s quite some years ago, so I can’t remember what the problems actually were - and have no idea, if those got finally resolved
Is there any comparison to relative modern MiGs (or whatever the correct counterpart would be)?
Edit: also I’ve read that the American jets have some kind of lock, where we need some unlock code from the USA. Is that correct?
Because that is quite some high level of trust into a foreign power to let ourselves defend our countries
Not sure if they are any good now but I know the F35 had major issues as well.
Also the F35s are very complex and require a lot of maintenance. Not sure about EF , Rafale or Gripens.
Gripen is specifically built to be cheap and easy to maintain (for a fighter jet, of course). It seems like it’d be a great choice for Ukraine
Also, if any of these contain proprietary code that can not be independently inspected by military staff, they should be considered compromised.
Corporations exist to generate profit. They do not care about borders, and can’t be trusted to not share information with current and future adversaries.
Some Finnish guy claimed that it’s not just that F35s contain proprietary code, they actively phone home daily to the US and stop working if they can’t reach the server.
If that’s true, it’s incredibly fucked up and whoever made the deal to buy them should be fired out of a cannon.
Yeah, seems quality of new releases are shit quite over the board - except for some lonely exceptions
New air frames tend to have a lot of issues. They’re kind of at the limits of engineering complexity. Too many parts optimized for weight/strength just perfectly, until there’s that one extra side load, or power drain, that no one expected. That’s why a lot of test designs end at the full scale testing stage. It’s not until all the parts are in one place that you can really see if they all work together.
The Austrian Typhoons are all the earliest model and Austria chose not to upgrade any of them, so they’re approaching 25 years old and a less mature design than everyone else’s Typhoons
Yeah, because the Austrian military is a fucking joke
We seem to rely solely on neutrality, because “look at Switzerland during WW2!!”, but all of those idiots completely miss, that the Swiss were armed to the teeth to defend themselves.
While in Austria every form of building up self defense measures are always countered by neutrality claims, because as long as we aren’t a threat, no one will attack us
Yeah, that will work out great, when we get rolled over…
But if the FPÖ gets its way, we’ll probably already showing our bellies to the wannabe strong man in Moscow, because Russia will play a big part in supporting right wing parties and with that, they are happy to meet their master it seems.
Patriots…my ass