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6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?
- throwawaysea 5y ago> “We want to be able to upgrade, advance [and] develop our capabilities ourselves, and as sovereign countries inside the partnership, each partner has that goal,” Commodore Moreton explained. Is this flexibility really a worthy goal? I feel like it would be better for these countries to reduce the number of variables and work to scalably and cheaply build many of them. It doesn’t have to be one plane for every mission necessarily, but the ability to customize for each nation feels like a distraction rather than a feature.
- ChuckMcM 5y agoGenerally yes. If you have domestic defense contractors they can participate in various fitting and retrofitting programs without having to back engineer some of the SWaP[1] specs for the stuff the US defense contractors are making for the F35. I also suspect it would help if you have air war doctrine differences with the US (like guns vs missiles as an example). [1] Space, Weight, and Power. It defines the envelope within which the avionics and other gear have to operate.
- elabajaba 5y agoGuns vs missiles is a bad example (missiles clearly won decades ago). It's more about eg. wanting to use a locally developed missile instead of using one of the US approved missiles (because missiles have to be tested, integrated, and approved to be used on an aircraft before you can actually use them, which can take years even before accounting for politics.) The MDBA Meteor (European AMRAAM competitor, generally viewed as the best beyond visual range air to air missile (BVRAAM) currently) has been in service since 2016, but won't work on F-35s until ~2026. For comparison, it only took ~1.5 years to integrate the Meteor on UK Eurofighters.
- t43562 5y agoI think it's because Britain in particular is desperate to get outside support for the programme whereas the Swedes and Japanese want to get access to technology but design their own aircraft. So the only way to get them onboard is to make the association loose. I can't tell if this is good or bad - it might mean that the Swedes will make something affordable out of it and the rest will blow billions on various Golden Geese (is that the right term?). There's some interesting Japanese technology - e.g. their AESA missile radars would go into the Meteor to bring it far out ahead of anything else. Also I think they have some ceramics in their fighter engines etc which are of high interest.
- bserge 5y agoSo they don't actually know what direction to take aircraft in and decided on stealth. Seems reasonable, all else being equal, the party that is detected last has a higher chance of winning. What happens when a new detection method is developed that makes these planes not stealthy? Don't you then just have 4-5th gen craft that cost 2-10x as much? Guess it takes a real war to discover the actual winner of modern warfare.
- pat76 5y agoLike the damn Zumwalt destroyers plans. Bunch of useless boomers in the mil complex full of their own hubris even after loosing to illiterate goat herders they keep coming up with this type of bullshit. I am just glad budgets are evaporating and these clowns are all retiring soon.
- pathseeker 5y agoThe navy was in a conflict with illiterate goat herders?
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y agoI can decode this rant. The Zumwalt class started out as a requirement from the armed forces committee in congress for a replacement for the old battleship Naval Gunfire Support mission. That is sit a bit off the coast and go boom with big guns to help the boots on the ground. Just one wee little problem with that: anti ship missiles have made that a suicide mission since approximately the late 60s. And no, all the stealth in the world wasn't going to make a difference in that when a simple counter battery radar would spot you, not to mention other means. The Navy tried to get out of it but couldn't, so we got stuck building 3 rather useless boats and then canceling the program. Some neat naval design and engineering went into them which may be useful in the future, but it wasn't worth it for the sticker price at all. The people created this fuster cluck are the same folks that kept the battleships operational or semi operational post WW2 when it was clear they were obsolete, at non trivial cost to taxpayers.
- marsven_422 5y agoJust get nukes, no one will attack you then.
- MangoCoffee 5y agoi don't know the future of air fighter but this news remind me of Elon Musk saying the fighter jet era is gone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKJ-uS55mhM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKJ-uS55mhM
- bpodgursky 5y agoThis doesn't seem especially wrong to me. There were a lot of horses after the cavalry era was over, and the cavalry era was over long before the generals realized it. The next war is going to be a drone (low-intensity) and hypersonic missile (high-intensity) war... it's not going to look like Top Gun.
- imtringued 5y agoDrones are the equivalent of robotic horses. It's a foolish comparison.
- throwaway210222 5y agoYou have to wonder why these military muppets feel the need to turn up to an interview in full camouflage. What happened to 'step-outs' ?
- fortuna86 5y agoWhy would Elon Musk know anything on the subject?
- imtringued 5y agoThe era of infantry has passed and yet we still have infantry.
- Guthur 5y agoI'm far from an expert but given the timeliness and complexity of 5th generation fighters I'm sceptical this could be operational by 2035 unless there have already been significant work or it's more of an iterative generation.
- pkd 5y agoIf past is an indicator, it might take upto 30 years for it to be operational.
- alfiedotwtf 5y agoI've seen contractors who are artful in taking government contracts for a long and extended ride, but Defence contractors take it to the next level.
- wombatpm 5y ago3 rules of defense contracting: 1) Get the money. DOD likes to talk about future contracts. Nothing is real until contract is signed 2) Keep the money. DOD likes to cost sharing where the contractor has to pay the Military for the things they were already going to do, facilities that already exist, etc 3) Get more money. A contract just sets you up for winning the next contract
- spockz 5y agoHow is this affected by the new pact between US, UK, and Australia? The news here made it appears as that caused some bad blood between EU and the US/UK.
- paganel 5y agoIt’s mostly France with the bad blood, as they lost a lucrative submarine deal.
- bnastic 5y agoI can’t remember a single military project involving France and the UK that didn’t end up with them parting ways. From NATO, for a while, to eurofighter/rafale
- icare_1er 5y agoFrance discovers that being out of the EU does not mean being "isolated at all"... rather seems the opposite. One more lie of the Remainers.
- harvey9 5y agoMight be overshadowed in the news by France recalling ambassadors over the nuclear submarine plans for Australia.
- kryptiskt 5y agoThat doesn't affect the EU as a whole. Sweden is skeptical about giving EU that role anyway, they're working for closer strategic ties to the US, and have signed agreements to that effect. They already chose Patriot over a German/French project for air defense.
- GekkePrutser 5y agoThey've never been team players. Don't forget they were happily building Nazi tank parts in WWII while playing nice with the allies. On the other hand, many EU countries have picked US fighters over Swedish offerings like the Gripen. It does go both ways. I'd love to see the EU more militarily independent from the US. Especially because they tend to start wars for economic reasons. Sponsoring the military industrial complex, oil reasons.. In Europe we view the military more as defense and not as a geopolitical or economical tool. We also view joining the military more as a job and less as a duty to our country. But if EU countries start opting out it'll never happen. We can still be friends with the US, but less military ties would be appreciated IMO.
- formvoltron 5y agoIf you are going to create an expensive, outdated when first created machine in an effort to create jobs... why not create jobs and solve an actual need / problem at the same time.
- pvarangot 5y agoBecause otherwise some of the stealth fighter engineers go to China and there's a chance you get stealth-fightered. Or that's what I think the argument usually is.
- colordrops 5y agoBecause then the money wouldn't get pumped into the coffers of the military industrial barons.
- systemvoltage 5y agoThis is a tired argument, and slightly hypocritical. Usually, the same people are proponents of not-so-useful but indirectly beneficial science projects and space exploration. But when it comes to military, the same reasoning gets thrown out of the window. Defense is a necessary evil and history has shown that things go from peaceful to high-tension heated global theater in no time. The inertia of training people to defend the nation or a group of nations is too large. Posture avoids conflict, the whole point of doing these military exercises. I think all aspects of doing things that private enterprises or free market economy cannot simply afford should be maintained. From how nuclear weapons work to sending probes to Venus to smashing protons. The brain power needs to be fed with regular annual maintenance. It shouldn't be a partisan circus. This is an actual need / problem. Sure, the feeding frenzy can get the MIC to show the dark side of capitalism, let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. Also Defense is a diplomacy business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_pact trading it for soft power, coercion, economic benefit, regional peace, etc.
- dendrite9 5y agoThis is a valuable point. I know you're right but I still find myself bristling at some of the defense projects that don't seem necessary to me. But there is value in maintaining the expertise and processes.
- solmag 5y agoThe least relevant defense margin for the aforementioned states.
- Waterluvian 5y agoAt what point does the ideal approach just become building a LOT of cheap drones that carry minimal ordnance?
- hpoe 5y agoBased on the cost of drones vs the cost of an F-35 we hit that point several years ago. In fact I remember watching a military channel doc in 2010 where it pointed out that was the ideal strategy at that point anyway.
- numpad0 5y agoThat’s called cruise missiles
- anonuser123456 5y agoCruise missiles are like a million bucks a pop.
- tapland 5y agoYes. So would drones with crazy ranges, speeds and ability to stop threats.
- thedudeabides5 5y agowhich is pretty much what's on order https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3147997/regional-stability-risk-chinas-growing-use-military-drones https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3147997/reg...
- nosianu 5y agoHowever, I would expect drones to be reusable and not of the self-destruct type like a cruise-missile, so that you get at least those drones back that were not shot down, and/or have them attack more than only a single target.
- sevensunsets 5y agoYep, it's not gonna go over budget or fail to be produced! /sarcasm
- poxwole 5y agoLet's sink another trillion into this just like we did with F35
- Apocryphon 5y agoNow that’s an interesting random group for a collaboration.
- ARandomerDude 5y agoNot in the defense world. These are sophisticated defense engineering hotspots who collaborate to make up for not having America's money.
- Apocryphon 5y agoWhy then and not France, Germany, the Netherlands, etc.?
- fosk 5y agoItaly - believe it or not - has top notch expertise in producing military and space technology. I recall they also export lots of military equipment, of all types.
- jabl 5y agoAs TFA points out, there's a competing French-German-Spanish 6th gen fighter project, FCAS. FCAS is apparently already in some kind of trouble due to conflicting requirements. The French want a follow-up to the Rafale, that is a carrier-capable, multi-role plane with long-range strike capability, crucially including nuclear strike. The Germans want none of that, they want primarily an air defense fighter. For more details, see https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/fcas-franco-german-spanish-combat-air-programme-really-trouble https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentar...
- jhrozek 5y agoSweden is producing its own domestic fighter jets to this day (Saab Gripen). It’s latest generation was unveiled in 2017. So they have the experience but my assumption is that developing a next gen fighter is just too expensive and wasteful for such a small country.
- angelzen 5y agoDrone swarms.
- predictmktegirl 5y agoHow does a “6th generation” fighter still have a human inside? What’s so generational about it?
- neuronic 5y agoThe next generation of bullshit military spending? A trillion for Afghanistan and F-35 each. Jeez, what could we have built with $2 trillion in investments? What cool companies, technologies or infrastructure could have sprung from this?
- DarkByte8 5y agoThe kind that would be bombed by China if we would not erase the existence of winnie the pooh.
- neuronic 5y agoThe amount of bullshit in this post… wow. China doesn’t give a fuck about US mainland.
- bnastic 5y agoAs I understand, that $tn for F35 is projected over the entire lifespan of the program, which is decades in the future. Not the sum they spent on development.
- light_hue_1 5y agoYeah. Half of that is R&D right now. $400 billion to develop and buy the craft. Then another 0.5-1 trillion dollars over 50 years to keep them flying. An astronomical waste of money.
- mongol 5y agoFrom Wikipedia: "Tempest will be able to fly unmanned, and use swarming technology to control drones. It will incorporate artificial intelligence deep learning and carry directed-energy weapons. The aircraft will have a Cooperative Engagement Capability which is the ability to share data and messages with other aircraft and coordinate actions. Tempest will feature an adaptive cycle engine and a virtual cockpit shown on a pilot's helmet-mounted display. A generator that delivers "unprecedented levels" of electrical power has also been developed for the aircraft." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Systems_Tempest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Systems_Tempest
- sgt101 5y ago>>A generator that delivers "unprecedented levels" of electrical power has also been developed for the aircraft. Someone at MOD has finally learned... "what do you mean you can't move the ship and turn the radar on at the same time".. "what do you mean you can't fit catapults because there's nothing to power them".. etc etc etc
- wombatmobile 5y agoWar is in part an expression of technological competitive advantage. Nth generation weaponry is expensive because technology requires the best minds, materials, and facilities that money can buy. But what if for the same money, or less, we could buy something even better? How much does peace cost? Has anybody ever costed it? For example, what could $2 trillion have bought in Iraq, Portland, or Jerusalem if it had been intelligently deployed for peace instead of war? I know there is no handbook for peace, whilst there is a whole military industrial complex for war. But what if smart people with budget built tools for peace? I’m not saying the design, engineering, and deployment of these tools would be easy, obvious, or quick. But what if smart people built them, and, once built, they could scale?
- kukx 5y agoWeapons are also tools for peace, an atomic bomb helped a lot in that regard.
- kybernetikos 5y agoI looked into this a few years back and the cost/benefit of the initial use of atomic weapons is not as cut and dried as many people believe. That's not really the topic here though. It's absolutely true that weapons can be tools for peace, but I don't think that is how the projects in Afghanistan and Iraq played out. Even with the best intentions the fact that it is a military operation planned by military leaders and staffed by trained military personnel means that you're going to get particular kinds of approaches. I think the suggestion is to approach these projects as an equivalently resouced mission with different aims and led by different people and to see if the balance of resources they would choose would be different.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y agoThe US uses war to export its domestic issues abroad. War is the primary conduit and excuse for corporate welfare. Some of this goes into jobs. Occasionally - exceptionally, and less often than most people realise - some of it spins off into useful civilian tech. But most of it is just free money for nothing much to not very nice people. Some of whom use it to buy political influence. And some of whom use existing political influence to make sure they benefit from it personally. It's a perfect circle of corruption and moral decay built on foundations of death and terror.
- jabl 5y agoIt seems in Europe there is the general idea that with the USA waning as the sole superpower, and further with the USA more and more focused on great power competition with China [1] rather than partnering with Europe against the Soviet Union, Europe must take on more responsibility for its own defense. Including the capability to build top of the line high tech military gear like fighter jets. Of course, the problem is how to convince European tax payers to part with the money necessary for this. Particularly as we already have two separate European projects to design next gen fighters, the UK-Italian-Swedish Tempest as well as the French-German-Spanish FCAS. Like herding cats. I wonder what could be done to reduce the cost of developing a new top of the line fighter? More COTS components? A modular approach, which is certainly much more limited in scope in high-performance aircraft than e.g. in cars? [1] As for China and Russia, interestingly it seems that China is poised to overtake Russia in combat aircraft development: https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/whitehall-reports/russian-and-chinese-combat-air-trends-current-capabilities-and-future-threat-outlook https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/whitehall...
- ganzuul 5y agoDon't be so eager to throw our tax money into this pit.
- jabl 5y agoAs an European taxpayer, I'm certainly concerned that resources are wasted. OTOH, Putin has time and again proved that he's a belligerent crook entirely willing to expand his territory any time his neighbors show weakness. Much as I wish it were different, Europe must be able to mount a credible defense, with or without the USA.
- toxik 5y agoYou are surely aware that France and the UK have nukes. That seems like a pretty strong deterrent.
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- jonplackett 5y agoJesus Christ. This is one of those articles that just repeats the same piece of information no less than 4 times! Plus I’ve already read the headline here on HN
- xarope 5y agoHuman nature, sadly, is such that "It is better to be a warrior in a garden than to be a gardener in war". You will find similar sentiments with Machiavelli, Zen, Art of War etc.
- icare_1er 5y agoGood example that cooperation between states, doesn't need a Parliament in Brussels or a "Commission". Not signing up for the same currency, the same fishing laws, the same legislations on trade, borders, etc, does not mean you cannot team up with a few other countries on topics of interest.
- sgt101 5y agoThis is a play to gain entry to the US program and secure not for export versions and subcontracts. If India gets involved then it becomes a serious program, because that will indicate that the US is refusing to play ball and everyone else has to go it alone.
- GekkePrutser 5y agoInteresting but another article mentions it's so expensive that the UK was reducing its F-35 order to pay for it. In the light of its rekindling with the US and Australia this week, I doubt that will be appreciated.
- elhesuu 5y agoLet's solve them with weapons instead