But does Europe need anything like that? The European fighters could easily deal with the Russian ones, and that’s basically all that counts unless they want to fight the US, in which case you still don’t want the F-35 for obvious reasons.
You dont need the F-35 just for the russian planes, you need it for the russian ground to air missiles and radars(and targets that those things might protect). While you can suppress enemy air defences with non stealthy aircraft, that is much riskier and much more limited in scope. Which is why Russia isnt using its massive airforce in a way that is expected(by western standards). Even Ukraine’s very limited anti-air capability has shut down the ukranian airspace to russian aircraft.
A stealth aircraft allows you to penetrate much deeper into enemy airspace and/or in a safer manner. It unlocks a completely different mission capability.
This is also useful against airplanes. Imagine if european planes have a radar with 120km range and a missile with 60km range. The equivalent russian planes have a 100km range radar and a 50km range missile. So while the european planes have the advantage, this advantage is anything mindblowing.
Now imagine a european stealth aircraft, with the same missile and radar but because it is stealth, it can only be detected within 20km of a russian aircraft. That means that the stealth plane can go in, shoot a missile and get out before the russian plane even detects it. The advantage is immense and allows the stealth aircraft to be orders of magnitude more effective.
There is a reason why everyone, including China, is spending billions to make stealth airplanes. The only reason people think stealth is irrelevant is because of russian propaganda, because Russia is too poor to produce stealth airplanes. The thing is, designing AND producing a stealth airplane is very expensive. There are a few european designs but those things wont be coming out for another 10+ years at the earliest(or in 20 years if we want to be realistic). In the meantime, Europe decided to use the f-35, which is a very capable and cheap aircraft(actually cheaper than rafale, etc).
It doesnt help that we have 2 different 6th generation airplane designs in Europe. It’s a clusterfuck. Maybe Trump will help Europe get its shit together.
Partially but the big advantage of being in a big alliance, is sharing stuff. That is the most effective way of progressing.
Take microchips for example. Taiwan is making them, with european machines and the european machines use american technology. Taiwan is able to create cutting edge microchips because they are allied and dependent on their allies. Similarly, a lot of russian technology has its roots in the soviet era, when russians had access to scientists/technology from all over eastern Europe.
Apes together strong. Thats the strength of alliances. But if you have a bad faith ape, that ape can destroy the effort of all other apes. Thats the weakness of alliances. For strategically important things(jet planes), you might be willing to take an efficiency hit, by creating things independently for security reasons. Which is why the french have rafale.
But keep making cutting edge things in order to maintain and improve your defence industry capabilities is very expensive. Thats why Canada doesnt have a jet plane industry, even though they used to have a very capable fighter jet industry. Or you could be like Russia, where you can design new planes but dont have the money to produce them, so you are basically spending a lot of money, creating one off planes.
Because none of them have the capabilities of the F-35. And they are even more expensive than the F-35.
But does Europe need anything like that? The European fighters could easily deal with the Russian ones, and that’s basically all that counts unless they want to fight the US, in which case you still don’t want the F-35 for obvious reasons.
You dont need the F-35 just for the russian planes, you need it for the russian ground to air missiles and radars(and targets that those things might protect). While you can suppress enemy air defences with non stealthy aircraft, that is much riskier and much more limited in scope. Which is why Russia isnt using its massive airforce in a way that is expected(by western standards). Even Ukraine’s very limited anti-air capability has shut down the ukranian airspace to russian aircraft.
A stealth aircraft allows you to penetrate much deeper into enemy airspace and/or in a safer manner. It unlocks a completely different mission capability.
This is also useful against airplanes. Imagine if european planes have a radar with 120km range and a missile with 60km range. The equivalent russian planes have a 100km range radar and a 50km range missile. So while the european planes have the advantage, this advantage is anything mindblowing.
Now imagine a european stealth aircraft, with the same missile and radar but because it is stealth, it can only be detected within 20km of a russian aircraft. That means that the stealth plane can go in, shoot a missile and get out before the russian plane even detects it. The advantage is immense and allows the stealth aircraft to be orders of magnitude more effective.
There is a reason why everyone, including China, is spending billions to make stealth airplanes. The only reason people think stealth is irrelevant is because of russian propaganda, because Russia is too poor to produce stealth airplanes. The thing is, designing AND producing a stealth airplane is very expensive. There are a few european designs but those things wont be coming out for another 10+ years at the earliest(or in 20 years if we want to be realistic). In the meantime, Europe decided to use the f-35, which is a very capable and cheap aircraft(actually cheaper than rafale, etc).
It doesnt help that we have 2 different 6th generation airplane designs in Europe. It’s a clusterfuck. Maybe Trump will help Europe get its shit together.
If so, it must be because they don’t have enough R&D money because we haven’t been buying them. Own goal.
Partially but the big advantage of being in a big alliance, is sharing stuff. That is the most effective way of progressing.
Take microchips for example. Taiwan is making them, with european machines and the european machines use american technology. Taiwan is able to create cutting edge microchips because they are allied and dependent on their allies. Similarly, a lot of russian technology has its roots in the soviet era, when russians had access to scientists/technology from all over eastern Europe.
Apes together strong. Thats the strength of alliances. But if you have a bad faith ape, that ape can destroy the effort of all other apes. Thats the weakness of alliances. For strategically important things(jet planes), you might be willing to take an efficiency hit, by creating things independently for security reasons. Which is why the french have rafale.
But keep making cutting edge things in order to maintain and improve your defence industry capabilities is very expensive. Thats why Canada doesnt have a jet plane industry, even though they used to have a very capable fighter jet industry. Or you could be like Russia, where you can design new planes but dont have the money to produce them, so you are basically spending a lot of money, creating one off planes.