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This is top of mind for all European countries that bought the F-35. They are painfully aware of this. So is the US defense industry which will notice softenin
by bborud 2y ago
This is top of mind for all European countries that bought the F-35. They are painfully aware of this. So is the US defense industry which will notice softening sales kicking in a few years down the line as European countries are less inclined to buy US arms.
This was predictable though. The markets have already rewarded those who saw this coming.
- eunos 2y agoBut if the EU has no 5th gen fighters then they'd have a hard time maintaining Air Superiority against Russia if they manage to mass produce Su-57 or Su-75 and I am betting the Russian can do it before EU can have 5th gen fighters or FCAS.
- postingawayonhn 2y agoThe Russian aviation industry has a terrible track record on delivering new aircraft.
- eunos 2y agoI'm willing to entertain the possibility that the Russian can improve the track record faster than the EU develops 5th gen fighters.
- eitland 2y agoSo far their 5th generation fighter program has been an even worse embarrassement than the T14 Armata. Their own press photos shows uncovered Philips screws on a supposedly stealth aircraft, and their "loyal wingman" drone used the first opportunity near the frontlines to try to defect.
- SiempreViernes 2y agoSure, but that risk is just something Europe has to eat as punishment for buying F-35 instead of building their own, it doesn't affect the new reality that US aircraft cannot be trusted in wartime.
- eunos 2y agoI'm highlighting more about EU conundrum here and I'm still amused that they still have energy to pick up fight with say China.
- rich_sasha 2y agoThankfully, Russia doesn't really have 5th Gen either. Europe has a lot of solid 4+ gen planes: Rafale, Eurofighter, maybe Gripen. And I'm willing to guess that, especially with better trained pilots, these are potentially better than Russia's assortment. But there remains a question of quantity and determination.
- varjag 2y agoThe surviving Russian pilots are pretty competent at this point.
- goatsi 2y agoThe surviving Russian pilots fly towards the front line at a high altitude until they get close to the suspected range of Ukrainian air defences, drop glide bombs and then turn around. Sometimes the Ukrainians have snuck an air defence unit closer to the front lines without it being detected and the pilots exit the category of surviving Russian pilots. I'm not sure how applicable this would be to a confrontation with European countries. Russian fighters will get getting lots of flight hours on CAP as well, but not much combat based on reporting. Both sides are keeping everything inside their own AD bubbles.
- varjag 2y agoIt's not like European pilots operated in even a mildly contested airspace since 2011.
- fullstackwife 2y ago> Russia if they manage to mass produce Su-57 or Su-75 They can only do that if US provides them with required components oh wait...
- eunos 2y agoI'm willing to bet they can do it with possible financial assistance from India (they need 5th gen fighters too) and generic chips from China. P.S. Many mocked Russian munitions came with chips made by Texas Instruments among others, but thing is those chips are so damn generic you can get that from random shops in Shenzhen.
- eitland 2y agoIndia already got burned. Their previous orders have still not been delivered since they were sent to the frontlines in Ukraine. I doubt India will want to repeat that.
- eunos 2y agoNot many options for India. F-35 is also very risky and unclear delivery date, not to mention they also got burned by delayed F414 engines delivery for their Tejas. With rumours of Pakistan getting J-35, 5th Gen fighters are necessity I guess. Besides they can force Russian to manufacture them in India like Su-30 MKI.
- matthewdgreen 2y agoRussia doesn’t have air superiority in Ukraine and they chose the time and place of the war.
- mhog_hn 2y agoGood, can we skip the 5th gen and move towards autonomous aerial systems faster?
- thewinnie 2y agoRussia already lost Su-57 in Ukraine when ukrainians didn't even had F-16.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ben_w 2y agoI think Russian capabilities depends almost entirely on who the US and China are willing to sell weapons to — Russia has huge corruption problems, arguably this is why they were dumb enough to not only start a war but also why they weren't able to actually pull off a blitzkrieg against Ukraine, so I don't think Russia will be able to combine high volume and high quality for anything any time soon. EU industrial capabilities may also have issues, but they are (mostly) different ones than Russia faces.
- maxglute 2y agoYeah a lot of RU dismissing here. Whatever shit tier RU MIC/performance has been, it has manage to consistently defeat or mitigate what US+EU has thrown against her. Which includes highend gear like PAC3 MSE. Meanwhile half the reason RU had a hard time was due to facing UKR's abundant legacy USSR systems. At this point it's not unreasonable to dismiss everything in EU arsenal as wunderwaffe tier especially without US support. Including F35... which even if US doesn't restrict usage against EU-RU scenario, could still be borderline paperweight without US tier ISR. People also forget NATO fought a much shitter/temu RU in Yugoslavia where NATO threw everything at even more legacy soviet systems. All of the awacs, prowlers, F117 barely chiped away at 20% of Yugoslav anti air, something like 700 harms were fired and destroyed less than handful of SA6 batteries. Hard to argue EU part of NATO has better military capability than 20 years ago. IMO there's a strong chance US would heavily restrict/limit F35 operations against RU. Because one shot down F35 by S400 let alone anything shittier completely evaporates narrative around 5th gen (and what that entails for IndoPac). They'd rather see RU hit F35s in hangers with standoff munitions because at least they can point to JP and SKR and say, see, you need to build harden air shelters.
- eunos 2y ago> People also forget NATO fought a much shitter/temu RU in Yugoslavia where NATO threw everything at even more legacy soviet systems. All of the awacs, prowlers, F117 barely chiped away at 20% of Yugoslav anti air, something like 700 harms were fired and destroyed less than handful of SA6 batteries. Hard to argue EU part of NATO has better military capability than 20 years ago Likewise the reason why Russia couldn't steamroll Ukraine swiftly is because Ukraine anti air is very formidable (using Soviet hardware no less). That is why it is wrong to simply assume Russia is weak.
- bojan 2y agoThat's the thing - having F-35s doesn't mean any more you actually have them, even though you paid through your teeth for them.
- cratermoon 2y agoSounds like Kindle books.
- CoastalCoder 2y agoSo, F-35 Kindle edition.
- Spooky23 2y agoIf. They have less than 30 airframes, probably 30-40% have some level of operational airworthiness. The Russians get a lot of glazing on social media about military prowess. The reality is they’re fighting a tiny, poor country, got their asses kicked early on when nobody was really helping Ukraine substantially, mostly by virtue of their own incompetence. The Russians version of the USAF is their information operations. They’ve helped to nurture right wing shitheads in the US for decades culminating in two freakshow presidential administrations. They’ve done the same in Germany in the former GDR and in the UK with the leave wankers.
- rich_sasha 2y agoI wonder if we'll see a coordinated wave of F-35 cancellations. They must all be aware they are potentially buying bricks. The time to do it, thus, is now - the situation isn't improving while time and money are wasted. But that's an enormous political escalation. Or maybe Europeans, as "founding members", are able to support the planes on their own? I doubt it though. The engine alone is US made, ans that alone is probably unmaintainable without their support.
- ExoticPearTree 2y agoIt is not going to happen. There is no european manufacturer or a consortium that can build a similar airplane with comparable capabilities. They can't even match the F-22 which is more than two decades old. The only way Europe can match Russia/China is to keep buying american made weapons. Maybe in 20-30 years the situation will be different and Europe will have the same capabilities of the US, but until then... buy, baby, buy!
- lou1306 2y agoAny warplane that _works_ has comparable, nay even better capabilities than a brick.
- generic92034 2y agoThere are three superpowers, only one of which has shown no hostility towards Europe. Draw your conclusions.
- cutemonster 2y agoThere are two. Russia is not a super power. Putin has nukes, apart from that Russia is a pretty irrelevant country. More like this: Two super powers, and a terror nukes nation.
- generic92034 2y agoIt does not really change my argument, if you exclude Russia from the group. It was about possible alignment options Europe now has. However, any power able to incinerate large parts of the planet is a bit more than a regional power, in my eyes.
- StayTrue 2y agoCanada’s largest newspaper published an opinion piece [0] calling for the cancellation of F-35 purchases. The article calls out source code availability in its argument. [0] https://archive.is/2LLkO https://archive.is/2LLkO
- mc32 2y agoEurope does not produce a 5th gen fighter. By the time they get one out, the big three will have 6th gen fighters.
- amarcheschi 2y agoEurope is developing 6th Gen fighter(s) already though. And yes, Europe produces a 5th Gen fighter. The f35 is made only in USA and Italy, although I share the worries on having a potentially brickable device
- bborud 2y ago5th gen is a nonsense marketing term. It is far less about the plane itself and more about how it integrates into a force. This is why russian figthers are pretty useless: they are not integrated with the rest of the force and they lack coordination. The russians do not even have the ability to discriminate between their own planes and enemy planes when making decisions to launch AA missiles.