Timmymagic wrote:Meriv9 wrote:Just one post before I wrote that we shouldn't focus on Pesco funds, but that doesn't mean they arent important.
PESCO funds are an irrelevance. 500m EUR spread across every defence project going is going to mean next to bugger all for combat air, and what little there is will get siphoned off by France and Germany. He who pays the piper plays the tune...
Unless another European country brings a guaranteed home buy of 'Tempest' or a big lump of cash that they're happy to spend they bring nothing to the party. There are no capabilities that the 3 nations haven't got covered already.
If you read the quote about the PESCO funds, the funds will reach 13bln by 2021 and we don't know how much when Tempest will be in the heat of development.
There is no need for other partners, as you rightly say, we just need a frontman/dummy in the worst case; most probably you will be included in PESCO like Mogherini was saying last year. This just to be on an equal footing to the FCAS project in terms of EU financing.
Which other European partner(s) do you think will join?
IMHO we have to think like with the F-35, different level partners.
I hope Poland, it is the main candidate as many pointed out. The problem is that Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway are all too small to have two fighters lines but at the same time rich enough to get the F-35, it feels like wasted potential
if Benelux and Scandinavia were two big entities they would be the primary possible partners IMHO. I would consider Poland a second level candidate as Italy for F-35.
We have also to consider that east Europe is going to grow a lot by 2030, combine this with the fact that sooner or later we will have to step up the defense spending to substitute the US one. In this optic, I would keep an eye on the Czech and the Slovaks, the first one have the Griphen until 2027, both of them are highly industrialized skilled and they are going to grow a lot. If we throw in a maintenance plant in the deal I bet we could get a buy for 20-25 fighters?
About Japan the idea of offering help for the carriers is really good, between Trieste and QE I imagine we have quite the know-how that we could transfer to the Japanese to gain a footing for the Tempest. Are they going to build another two Izumo or they are too small to use the F35B in an efficient way?