US Can’t Do It Alone And Should Foster French Military Industrial Base

Abstract: US Should Foster French Military Industrial Base because NATO is having a weapon production problem… and even a weapon quality problem (Russian hypersonic weapons, long derided, actually work, the West has no equivalent). The more acute this quality-quantity problem gets, the greater the probability of an expanding world war. 

A case in point is the French Rafale fighter-bomber, which… the US, or at least the West, sorely needs to be deployed in great numbers… It complements the F35… to put it mildly. Instead an all F35 all the time policy has been deployed… for avaricious reasons.

***

The comment below and attenuated extracts thereof as short as two sentences were systematically inspected and blocked on the Internet by Microsoft AI. This sort of censorship is to be feared: this is a case of a US Internet giant deliberately blocking all and any critique of major US policies and products with huge imperial impact and potential servitude for all those not belonging to the present US establishment, or associated to it. The same evil AI enabled insult against France, French individuals and French products in the same context (namely French Rafale against US F22). Maybe I got banned because I forgot to insult the French? In any case this shows why there should be recourse by law to censorship and the law should require censorship must be capable of justifying itself explicitly.]

***

The US fighter F22 Raptor, a supposedly “stealth” high speed interceptor, is pretty much useless, and this is why it was (correctly) discontinued by Obama, shortly after it lost air superiority fights against Rafales and old Mirages. Indeed the only thing the F22 can do is interception, whereas Rafales and Mirages are first of all bombers with interceptor capabilities. A Rafale can supercruise fully armed at Mach 1.4… And also has inflight refueling (from other Rafales) and stand-off nuclear bombing capability.

Since WW2, all military planes are more or less stealth. And they can all be more or less detected, except if they fly really very low, tree top level. or inside mountain valleys as US, French and other Western pilots train to do.

The US Air Force never wanted to engage the Rafale fully, over the horizon, because the Rafale can go completely stealthy and passive using only infrared detection and then firing a very long-range Meteor ram-jet missile… In infrared, the Rafale is more stealthy than the all too big F22 Raptor. 

Little known, the Rafale’s omnipotent role was what inspired the F35… Except the Rafale is much more capable, and with active (not just passive) stealth. The F35 is more the replacement of the A10… And that’s very good… But limited. Only the F35B (vertical take off) is really exceptional.

The US had to talk down the Rafale for commercial/imperial reasons. By enticing European countries to purchase the F35 rather than the Rafale, or the Patriot instead of the Mamba/Aster 30, the US has condemned Europe to 40 years of servitude. Although Europeans tend to detest Trump for his “America First” bravado, it’s really Biden who enslaved Europe with all sorts of weapons systems and offers Europeans couldn’t refuse…

The US did something similar with AUKUS, breaking the contract Australia had to purchase very advanced Air Independent diesel French subs (a tech the US doesn’t have, but China has, and France is the master). 

It’s greedy and not very smart for the US to consider its ally and parent, France, as a commercial enemy, while the world is experiencing a pre-full-out world war situation.

Other Western countries are making remarkable military efforts, in particular Ukraine, of course,  but also Poland. Germany has one or two anti-aircraft competent systems (especially IRIS). The excellent NASAM, initially Norwegian, is a good example of US-European cooperation we need more of. 

Patrice Ayme

[50 different versions of edulcorated versions of fragments of the preceding comments were blocked on the Internet by Microsoft AI: they didn’t “meet the guidelines”. This is not different from what is going on in China.] 

 

Rafale is morphing into much more advanced versions as time goes by… Successful US fighters F15, F16 and F18 are going through such changes too: the F18 Super Hornet is a different plane from the initial F18 (and not to be replaced by the F35!) The F22 was terminated, because its very conception was obviously wrong: a pure interceptor, which the Rafale and old Mirages defeated! It was one thing to have “Raptor salad” as a German pilot put it operating Airbus Typhoons, which are also pure interceptors… But Rafale and Mirages are also, and mostly… bombers…

USA Buys Cheaply A Collapsing, Submissive Europe, One F35 At A Time

Why Did Germany Decide To Buy The F-35?

Germany wanted to show to the USA that it was an obedient colony, with no significant industrial future or will to independence and, as such, should be treated as part of the US empire, and thus, defended. Obama and Trump had accused Germany to be a “free loader” in matter of defense, as the US paid for nearly everything to defend Germany. Not so say the German Socialist-Green coalition: see, we make industrial hara-kiri and pay for the F35 with our blood.

By exclusively buying the F35 Germany and similar bonsai armies wanted to remind the USA and their own dimwit rabble that Germany’s suzerain and lord was located in Washington, DC. All the countries which embraced the F35 embraced US political, industrial, military and technological superiority, and are anxious to exhibit their obsequiousness, lack of worth, and complete submission to US potentates.

Alternatives to the F35 existed indeed. This story is a long one. The Rafale already defeated the F22, literally and figuratively. When Obama realized this, he canceled the F22 program (the F22 basically can’t bomb, whereas the Rafale does this expertly; now if, on top of that the Rafale shot down the F22 and its sensitive stealth skin…)

Objectively, the Rafale F4.1 is demonstrably a much better plane… and the Rafale has been extensively war tested in Afghanistan and Africa. The Rafale is nearly in all ways superior to the F35… except for the F35 B, the vertical take-off version of the F35, which is unique, and for the US Marines. The F35B is definitively an amazing and well-conceived plane, which enables it to turn many ships into aircraft carriers. Only the US Marines ordered it.

The Rafale is much better conceived than the F35 for all other missions: the F35 is a one trick pony supposed to avoid some particular radar frequencies… not all of them, and not infrared… Extravagant passive stealth on some frequencies is both the F35’s advantage and its disaster.

After all, the F35 is an imitation of the Rafale fighter-bomber in the overall idea of being able to do all missions. The stealthy Rafale was the first “omnirole” plane… The Rafale bombs, even atom-bombs, penetrates, and intercepts. The F35 does the same, but more oriented towards bombing… Which it doesn’t do very well (its bombs and missiles, carried inside are too few). 

Of course the F35 could be used in “beast mode”…carrying plenty outside its own stealthy skin… But then the F35 is not stealthy anymore, and, handicapped by bad composites and angular geometry, not as fast as the Rafale which can supercruise in beast mode at 1.5 mach…. While still being stealthy as the Rafale has active stealth (Thales is so good in war electronics, Russian tanks and British Navy use it…).

The main difference between F35 and Rafale is that the former is exclusively passive stealth, whereas the latter is a mix of that with active stealth. So the aerodynamics of the Rafale are not compromised…. whereas those of the F35 are. Both programmes are very old, and the US thought at the time that passive stealth was superior. It’s not, except in a slow moving plane.

This is no theory: Rafales and Mirages were used at the onset of the Libyan war, against fully performing anti aircraft defenses (before systemic AA suppression). The Rafales covered for the Mirages (which are not stealthy).

Rafale (left, upside down) can handle 11gs in emergency (so a pilot weights a ton). Both planes have the same overall dimensions, although the F35 is heavier: 13 tons empty versus 10 tons for the Rafale. The g limit of the F35 is 9g. The F35, on the right, due to its bath tub approach to aerodynamics from passive stealth, has the worst aerodynamics of modern Western fighter bombers. Corrupt Europeans say in a double entendre: no problem, with the F35 we can “network”… with Washington. The Rafale has a maximum takeoff weight of 24.5 tons and can carry more than 14 tons, including 9.5 tons of external fuel and armament.

According to the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation in 2021, the F-35 program costs a total of $1.7 trillion across its lifecycle.

***

Germany is supposed to help develop the “6th generation” Franco-German-Spanish Future Combat Air System (FCAS / SCAF) which is led by France in general and Dassault in particular (maker of the Rafale; the Typhoon/Eurofighter is made by Airbus). To visualize the effort, the F35 research and development was 55 billion dollars. The FCAS/SCAF research and development is supposed to be 100 billion. It will be the next generation Rafale. However, forking over billions to the US military industrial complex is antagonistic to the FCAS/SCAF (especially as the US is developing an equivalent, 6th generation plane… So Germany is basically sending money to that new US plane…) 

Choosing the F35 was pretty much an act of allegiance of Berlin to Washington, and betrayal of Paris. And so it is throughout the democracies (AUKUS was more of the same, when Australia abruptly chose inferior US nuclear subs rather than the superior French ones it was contracted to purchase). 

Even supposedly neutral Switzerland moved by the star spangled banner, kneeled to Washington, kissed the ground and embraced 36 F35s. Switzerland also purchased five Patriot missile defense systems from Raytheon Technologies, which defeated the Aster/Mamba/SAMP/T system from France’s Eurosam…. Which is superior to the Patriot in several ways… It doesn’t end there: the NASAM, a closer ranger air defense system is integrated with Patriot and F35. And all can be turned off from Washington in a software update. So supposedly ex-neutral countries such as Finland are now arms of the Pentagon (but Finland has only an embassy in Washington, not “representatives”).

Tellingly, in a Freudian slip, the only clear advantage that the Swiss found to the F35 was that…”the F35 networked in a superior way”. Let’s all network with Washington: US makes planes, Europe sells vacations, luxuries and chocolate… to US tech workers. Let’s see how far that sort of independence goes…

The last laugh would be if Trump or an alter ego came back to the White House…

Switzerland and Finland had declared air defense as a priority operational requirement and other contenders such as the Dassault Rafale, the (Swedish) Saab Gripen, and the (Airbus) Eurofighter Typhoon were found by careful Swiss and Finn studies, superior to the F-35 in terms of aerial combat capabilities (and the Rafale engaged in ground combat for thousands of hours; F35s, by Israel, a tiny bit). All are European planes. Moreover, the latest version of the Rafale, F4.1, has everything the F35 has in terms of electronics and awareness, including a fancy helmet. So this is another case of transparent corruption, similar in spirit to buying all the fossil fuels to tyrant Putin. The US is a democracy, but a greedy one with limited awareness on the responsibilities its power should imply.

The US amply proved, in the early years of WWI and WWII, and the Suez Canal/Hungary Invasion crisis, that, in its search for greater supremacy, it will ally with the fascists and treat Europeans as it did who it used to call the “Redskins“.

The US amply proved, in the early years of WWI and WWII, and the Suez Canal/Hungary Invasion crisis, that, in its search for greater supremacy, it will ally with the fascists and treat Europeans as it did who it used to call the “Redskins”, just good enough for slaughter.

The USA’s deep psychology, tied to its deep state, in particular that of its ravenous plutocratic universities, has demonstrated that its ultimate aim is to take over Europe. Wittingly or unwittingly is besides the point. It will happen, and it has found collaborators in all the anxious F35s’ European purchasers… while perfectly valuable home grown systems are left to die from lack of financing and interest.

Meanwhile Europe can launch only two rockets to space in the rest of 2023… While Elon Musk, Tesla and Twitter superman, launches rockets cheaply to space every few days, having already landed more than 100 of the said rockets… A feat the next European rocket models will be unable of… And a feat which lowers considerably the cost of access to space…

Industrial policy does matter for access to space, any space… Russia knows this, China knows this, India knows this, Japan knows this, the US knows this. The French used to know this. And still do a bit… But the F35 purchasers pretend they do not, and that the market decides… When the F35 they purchase was actually a massive government program (1.7 trillion dollars, so far…)

Are European policies too dumb for tears? Or are European politicians too corrupt to fathom?

Patrice Ayme