Some unrelated recent military procurment storiess since I am getting bored of Ukraine

[Condottiere 40K]

[Sire Brenshar]

But will it hold air craft carriers?

[Condottiere 40K]

An escort carrier.

[Adar]

DCNS won the Australian submarine contract, like I suggested they would back at the start of the CEP. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-2...ntract/7357462.

Anything but the Germans was my third choice on the matter so I am kind of happy.

[Dewy]

The Australian frigate program also looks rather interesting. Something like $30b, which is nearly as big as the submarine contract.

The "possible" candidates, so far that I've read about:
Type 26
MEKO 400
F-105 AWD
FREMM
Iver Huitfeldt

Also, Germany is looking into upgunning their Leopards, in part preparation for the upcoming Euro-tank.

It got shortened to three designs about a month ago in a very small and confusing announcement. The three designs are BAE Systems with the Type 26 Frigate; Fincantieri with the FREMM Frigate, and Navantia with a redesigned F100 (which is what the Hobart class destroyers are based on). I'm sort of surprised the DCNS version of the FREMM wasn't selected, although I think the Type 26 will win.

Anything but the Germans was my third choice on the matter so I am kind of happy.

What do you have against the Germans?

[Condottiere 40K]

[IMG]https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/2000/1*lu9XekzZcXH68oLvcC3ehQ.jpeg[/IMG]

[Knight_Of_Ne]

That's genuinely a nifty little idea, though it might be impractical when faced with a doorway.

[Ziltoid]

That's genuinely a nifty little idea, though it might be impractical when faced with a doorway.

More like impractical when facing any other situation than standing up firing at firing range. LMGs got bipods for a reason. Crane like that will hinder your ability to move freely (without getting stuck) and change positions greatly. While providing you with semi-useless ability to shoot slightly better while standing up, but why would you wanna do that anyway? You might let burst or two on contact standing up for suppressive fire, but then seek cover and support for the gun likely from prone position, instead of continuing standing there like an idiot who watched too many Rambo movies and spraying away.

Pros outweight the cons so heavily that thing seems completely pointless, unless youre like 50kg and got wet spaghetti for arms, then it might enable you to atleast shoot with the thing without falling on your ass. But you shouldnt have LMG in your hands in the first place then.

[Condottiere 40K]

Refurbished lamps for old

[Adar]

Denmark is now admitting that they plan to buy the JSF. SAAB and Dassault did not even bother to show up to the competition as they considered it rigged in favor of the JSF an the generous assessment in the calculations indicate that they where right. Despite a smaller meaningful weapon load, shorter range, severe availability issues and the Australian document collection I published before Denmark think they need fewer JSFs than Eurofighters which make it cheaper when applying a significantly lower purchase price than the current cost of the F-35.

On the other hand, the JSF in low numbers may be all that is needed when facing an enemy still struggling to comprehend the complex technology of door handles.

What do you have against the Germans?

Because we have a lot of issues with German companies buying Swedish companies and then plundering them. We have ThyssenKrup trying to steal business secrets from FMV through Kockums in order to benefit HDW and similar issues with Volkswagen rigging procurement to favor MAN (which they own 100 %) at the cost of Scania (where they are majority owners).

[Holger Danske]

Imo all three candidates were for us, and I really don't understand why Boeing wanted to sell us F-18s enstead of far better suited F-15s. In any case I really hope there is a back door arrangement for more than 27 units as it is comically little. I had hoped for at least something comparable with Norway. Speaking of which. Why didn't Holland, Norway, Denmark, etc join forces as they did with the large F-16 purchase...

[Condottiere 40K]

The multi-role F-35A is the lightest and most maneuverable of the three versions — and, at around $150 million per copy as of 2014, the — ahem — “cheapest.” Granted, that price tag is trending downward as order volume increases and Lockheed’s workers gain experience.
The $250-million, attack-optimized F-35B includes a secondary, downward-blasting engine for short and vertical takeoffs and landings — a feature that the Marines demanded and which has added significantly to the plane’s weight, complexity and cost.
The Navy’s F-35C — which the sailing branch primarily touts as a stealthy sensor-platform — possesses a bigger wing to allow for low-speed carrier landings and suffers from greater drag than the F-35A does. It cost a staggering $330 million per jet in 2014.

https://warisboring.com/say-it-again...7fa#.abwwa446w



As things stand now, a hundred fifty million is swallowable. And since it probably will become the standard NATO fighter, unlikely to get more expensive due to volume sales, but also unlikely to get any cheaper.

The Bee does things no other plane can do, so two fifty million is workable, but not necessarily tolerable.

But at a surprising three hundred million plus, the Navy should just kill the Cee programme and buy more F-18s nothing can justify that price tag, unless they navalized an evolved variant of the F-22 and cloned Maverick.

[Adar]

The first Gripen E built from scratch is now officially presented.



The major selling points of Gripen is that it is significantly cheaper to operate but not far behind its competitors in performance and in most cases it also got some significant advantages.

Versus Rafale: Shorter range and smaller payload but bigger radar and two-way communication with the Meteor missile.
Versus Eurofighter: Highly dependent on the operator as only Britain seem interested in developing it properly. But compared to the British Eurofighter it is slower, smaller and got a weaker radar. The advantage is that it is much cheaper and is undergoing convergent evolution as British Eurofighters and Gripen will share a lot of technology in regards to radar, IRST and missiles.
Versus JSF: Lack stealth but can fly further, faster and carry a larger load of weapons in missions where control over air space is contested.

Source
Stressing that aircraft 39-8 is not a prototype, Ydreskog says: “Assembly of the first test aircraft – with 60,000, mostly new parts – was shorter than number 204 for the C/D.” The programme’s other test units are in different stages of structural assembly and only minor adjustments are expected as the shift to series production occurs. “There is some optimisation to do – we can reduce some weight,” he notes.
But Saab believes one of the biggest advances with the Gripen E comes through its use of an all-new integrated modular avionics system, which splits flight-critical and tactical management software. It says the latter’s software, hardware and algorithms can be rapidly changed – like apps on a smartphone – to keep pace with evolved operational requirements or technological advances in computing over the life of the type’s use.
Flight-test activities are expected to be one-third of the total required for the C/D and software and hardware already being flown in the simulator is described by test pilot Marcus Wandt as being “very stable”. A new rooftop laboratory in Linköping will soon start testing the combination of the aircraft’s AESA radar, infrared search-and-track sensor and other equipment.
With the high level of laboratory and simulation-based testing being conducted before the Gripen E gets airborne, Ydreskog notes that during flight testing the company will be “verifying the models, not the functionality” of the new fighter.
Saab believes a potential market exists to produce between 400 and 450 Gripen Es over the life of the programme. Head of Gripen Jerker Ahlqvist says it will have the capacity to complete between 25 and 30 aircraft per year in Linköping, plus output by Embraer, which means it can meet potential export demand.

[Adar]

Boeing is now protesting against the Danish procurement process where the Danish experts calculated that using the F/A-18 would be 50 more expensive than the F-35.

Source

Boeing told a Danish parliamentary committee on Thursday that the recommendation was based on "incomplete and possibly flawed data".
The Danish minority government announced last week its recommendation to buy Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter jet rather than Boeing's older F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.
"We have asked the Danish Ministry of Defence to reassess its evaluation of the cost. We think their report has made the cost of the Super Hornet 50-100 per cent more expensive than in reality," Boeing vice president Debbie Rub told Reuters.
The ministry report evaluating each fighter jet candidate was based on data estimating that the Super Hornet would have a service life of 6,000 flying hours, while Boeing thinks the right figure for Denmark is 9,500 hours.
The report also compared a one-seater fighter jet F35 to a two-seater rather than a one-seater Super Hornet, Debbie Rub told Reuters.
Danish defense minister Peter Christensen told Danish broadcaster TV2 that Boeing's critique would not change the government's recommendation to buy Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
The report concluded that the total cost of the F-35 jet is 42.2 billion Danish crowns ($6.4 billion) while the Super Hornet would cost 60.6 billion crowns.

Given Denmarks status as a partner in the JSF program I find it rather odd that Boeing and Eurofighter decided to invest in participating in the competition.

[Condottiere 40K]

Denmark's reasons for choosing the F-35 are as valid as Britain's, though without a carrier, maybe a tad less so.

[Ziltoid]

Gripen E would seem like good choice for Finland, considering its supposedly fairly easy to maintain (even by conscripts, which we got plenty) and ability to take off from emergency airstrips on countryside roads.

F-35 so far seems just too unreliable, like in the case of 5 out of 6 not being able to even get to air in recent testing.

Denmark and other further away countries can perhaps afford the luxurity of having such high tech planes, that maybe work reliably 5 years from now. But Finland can't since threat of Russia is real lately again, and we are in the frontline if anything happens. Which is why id hope Sweden would perhaps give us nice deal for Gripen E too, since in actual war scenario, it would be us defending them as their bufferzone as usual.

We could always jump in the 5th gen stealth hype train of F-35 and the likes in future, once they early growing pains of the project have been solved and prices and its actual combat worthiness more clear.

Danish F-35 testing was just theoretical done, so i wouldn't really trust such evaluation too much. And im sure companies behind it sweetened the deal for them, considering how much bad rep F-35 has gained in last years as the budget keep son ballooning bigger and bigger and more issues keep on arising. Seems they trying to chew too much at once cramming all possible new unproven complicated systems in one platform, that's supposed to also do tasks of several specialised different planes.



Also ridiculous how F-35 is supposed to take the A-10 CAS role, no way it can do the same as well as A-10 can, but it certainly can do the same job in lot more expensive way, thats for sure, and any losses/dmg will cost also tons more to repair. A-10 is made specifically just for that low flying close air support role, being able to bounce small arms fire and even sustain tons of dmg from bigger caliber AA, and having massive 30mm gun and decent payload to go along with it. It operates relatively cheaply, easy to maintain, good loitering time and can take a beating. All of which F-35 is not basicly, having small 25mm gun (compared to 30mm) with low ammocount, issues with gun overheating, overly expensive stealth coating that definitely wasn't designed to take hits and is likely very expensive to repair and so on.

Only in extremely hostile situation against higher tech opponent than current insurgent/proxy wars are, F-35 has the benefit of stealth on its side, but in such situation you wont be really calling CAS missions anyway, if enemy SAMs and fighters are still around.

Slightly over exaggerated comparison with some humor added:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Logios]

Imo all three candidates were for us, and I really don't understand why Boeing wanted to sell us F-18s enstead of far better suited F-15s. In any case I really hope there is a back door arrangement for more than 27 units as it is comically little. I had hoped for at least something comparable with Norway. Speaking of which. Why didn't Holland, Norway, Denmark, etc join forces as they did with the large F-16 purchase...

27 would be enough for defending the Danish airspace, but considering that we need to defend the airspace of Greenland and the Faroe islands, participate in the Nato defence of the airspace of the Baltic countries and probably participate in international missions (the F-16s were in action in Libya and Iraq), then 27 is a bit in the low end.

Boeing is now protesting against the Danish procurement process where the Danish experts calculated that using the F/A-18 would be 50 more expensive than the F-35.


Given Denmarks status as a partner in the JSF program I find it rather odd that Boeing and Eurofighter decided to invest in participating in the competition.

Ironically, at the upcoming Danish Airshow, both F/A-18 Super Hornet and Eurofighter will participate in the flight show. F-35 is to be represented by a full-size model.
http://danishairshow.dk/en/aircrafts

[Condottiere 40K]

After Jutland Germany made the most of its lighter losses of men and ships, while in Britain the Navy was criticized by many for its apparent failures. It was reported that a ‘Daily Mail’ journalist in search of news was interviewed at the Admiralty by Captain Reginald Hall, Director of Intelligence Division (DID), who told him he was making a fool of himself, as the Navy had done very well. ‘ “How do you make that out?” said the reporter. “‘Well”’ said the DID, “if I kick you out of this room, which I shall do presently, and you can’t get back again, isn’t that a victory for me even if I get a black eye in the process.” ’ (National Records of Scotland, GD433/2/357, pp.8-9).

[mrmouth]

The F-35 growing pains might be more significant but so will be the positive outcomes. It will best the F-22 in a number of crucial areas that make it worth having in the first place. So if you are Denmark, you either buy a new fighter, or you buy yourself into a future that the West's adversaries have not yet shown they are on par with. Building airframes is a lot different than building an air/ground multi-purpose data integration platform that the F-35 will be. We have seen small glimpses of what it will be with the F-22 over Syria, directing the air war, serving as reconnaissance and gathering intelligence, between dropping 1000 lb JDAMs. Soon they will control UAV swarms.

On an otherwise unremarkable day in March 2013, an American MQ-1 Predator drone was flying in international airspace off Iran, conducting a routine surveillance flight over the Persian Gulf. But the U.S. Air Force knew trouble might be lurking ahead.

Several months earlier, a pair of Iranian Sukhoi Su-25 attack planes had attempted unsuccessfully to shoot down another patrolling Predator. After that, the Pentagon decided subsequent drone patrols would be escorted, either by F/A-18 Hornets from the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier or F-22s deployed to nearby Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates. On this day, Lt. Col. Kevin "Showtime" Sutterfield was the escort, heading toward the drone in case of trouble.

"Showtime" was in a Raptor.

As the Predator flew its pre-planned route, two Iranian F-4 Phantoms approached and acquired the drone on their radars. One of the Phantoms got to within 16 miles of the MQ-1. On another heading, Col. Sutterfield closed in on the F-4.

"Showtime is an Air Force Reservist … he flies the F-22. He flies it really well," Welsh said. "He flew under their [Phantom] to check out their weapons load without them knowing that he was there. And then he pulled up on their left wing and then called them and said, 'You really ought to go home.'"

http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a21232/why-the-f-22-raptor-is-such-a-badass-plane/

[Ziltoid]

The F-35 growing pains might be more significant but so will be the positive outcomes. It will best the F-22 in a number of crucial areas that make it worth having in the first place. So if you are Denmark, you either buy a new fighter, or you buy yourself into a future that the West's adversaries have not yet shown they are on par with. Building airframes is a lot different than building an air/ground multi-purpose data integration platform that the F-35 will be. We have seen small glimpses of what it will be with the F-22 over Syria, directing the air war, serving as reconnaissance and gathering intelligence, between dropping 1000 lb JDAMs. Soon they will control UAV swarms.



http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a21232/why-the-f-22-raptor-is-such-a-badass-plane/

Yeah except your article says also:

the F-35 "was never designed to be the next dogfighting machine. It was designed to be the multipurpose, data-integration platform that could do all kinds of things in the air-to-ground arena."

And small countries in Europe need their few fighter jets to be for air superiority and interception, not for air-to-ground data-integration multipurpose overexpensive platforms. Now if we could buy F-22 Raptors, id agree getting the latest gen for high price would be worth it, with F-35 its questionable so far.