Options in case of an EFA breakdown

[Lascaris]

Lets assume the EFA negotiations fail but with a twist, namely that Britain also needed an carrier plane along with France. So France and Britain go their own way to develop something more along the likes of Rafale and Germany stays separate.

So under the circumstances what would Germany, Italy and Spain do? There are German design options and Germany does need to replace Phantom. But does Germany proceed with a design derived from TKF-90 trying to get Italy and Spain to follow its lead? Or we see the Germans buying into a Hornet derivative as was being offered? (Say Hornet 2000 with I suppose the MDS-2000 radar)

And what about Italy and Spain? Would either team up with either the French-British consortium or Germany? In theory theid also have the option of devoloping something like CASA AX into a light fighter Gripen style but I'd think this would be unlikely.

Thoughts?

 

[Archibald]

They would buy american jets, really. A mix of F-18 and Harriers.

 

[Antonio]

CASA AX compared to Italy-Brazilian AMX and Aermacchi M346 in its different iterations.
Not an option to replace a failed EFA so, for Spain, the choice would be between Super Hornet and Rafale.

 

[starviking]

They would buy american jets, really. A mix of F-18 and Harriers.
F-35Bs

Harriers have been out of production for years (if not decades).

True, but the change point is the EFA negotiations about carrier compatibility, which lead France to leave the project in 1985. In our timeline, AV-8Bs were manufactured up to 1995 - so they fit this scenario.

 

[kaiserd]

Not to be a killjoy but very hard to see a realistic scenario where it was France and Britain that danced off together to jointly develop their alternative version of what otherwise became the Typhoon and the Rafale and leaving Germany, Italy & Spain jilted at the alter.

It was Dassault’s high percentage work-share as much if not more than any specific issues around max weights and carrier compatibility that ensured it was France alone with the Rafale.
If France and the UK could have compromised on this (say France with a higher percentage just for their aircraft) to make your proposed scenario work then seems unlikely EFA would have splintered like it did and we would instead be talking about a Typhoon/Rafale hybrid built jointly by all these countries together.

 

[Archibald]

As a sidenote, in summer 1985 Spain briefly hesitated between (future) Typhoon and Rafale, before joining the German - Italo - British team.

 

[Lascaris]

Not to be a killjoy but very hard to see a realistic scenario where it was France and Britain that danced off together to jointly develop their alternative version of what otherwise became the Typhoon and the Rafale and leaving Germany, Italy & Spain jilted at the alter.

It was Dassault’s high percentage work-share as much if not more than any specific issues around max weights and carrier compatibility that ensured it was France alone with the Rafale.
If France and the UK could have compromised on this (say France with a higher percentage just for their aircraft) to make your proposed scenario work then seems unlikely EFA would have splintered like it did and we would instead be talking about a Typhoon/Rafale hybrid built jointly by all these countries together.

I won't quite disagree, ideally you'd need a strong Anglo-French block to be already in place by 1985 and separate from Germany for a stronger point of divergence. Which would point to the 1960s. Say for example that Britain selected Mirage IV* in 1965 (why? Something/a major spat the previous year at Nassau.) with AFVG coming into fruition when Dassault got threatened with losing the Mirage IV* contract if AFVG was abandoned. Thus come mid 1970s you have AFVG and NKF (Germany, Italy, Netherlands and maybe Canada) entering service and France and Britain having an ACF/Mirage 4000 in the works for air defence/Mirage IV replacement. (I just can't see AFVG as very viable in the role given its engines). This brings you in 1985 with the French and British being used to cooperation for the past two decades separate from Germany, Dassault relatively happy with it (they didn't much like AFVG but selling to Britain IV* and 4000 were more than ample compensation for that, as was the Mirage F1-53 with British avionics that won the Belgian order and went for more exports) and the two stick together.

But that would be probably distracting from the question of what Germany (and Italy and Spain too) does if faced with the question of cooperation with France and Britain not being in the cards for EFA. It's not as if the German's don't have technical options, MBB TKF-90, Dornier's ND-102 and Hornet 2000 are all technically viable but which way Bonn would had tilt?

 

[Archibald]

What (technically, politics are another matter) drove the Rafale away from the Typhoon was the most difficult requirement: the need for a naval fighter.
Now had the Aéronavale replaced its Crusader by... something else than Rafale, that difficulty just evaporates.
So what could have replaced the old Crusaders ?
As of 1980, a naval Mirage F1. After extensive searches, I can tell it very nearly happened, twice, in 1971 and 1976. Related to the F1-M53 and then it snowballed into the Deal of the Century.
The other option, of course, is F-18 by the late 80's. This also very nearly happened in 1989 but was promptly shot down. Just like the Rafale, the Hornet is too heavy for Foch and Clemenceau: the catapults can handle the aircraft only with a little internal kerosene and a pair of Magic 2 AAM on the wingtips. Hence aerial refueling by Super Etendards just after takeoff.

I would say a naval F1 is more interesting, as it far lighter and smaller and could enter service in the late 70's, solving the naval fighter issue just as the Rafale - Typhoon talks start, in 1977-82.

Lascaris: there are a lot f interesting scenarios for anglo-french aircrafts from 1965. Dassault build a shitload of prototypes, and some might have been of interest to GB, particularly if TF-30 and M53 are replaced by a SNECMA Spey.

 

[Lascaris]

Lascaris: there are a lot f interesting scenarios for anglo-french aircrafts from 1965. Dassault build a shitload of prototypes, and some might have been of interest to GB, particularly if TF-30 and M53 are replaced by a SNECMA Spey.

My pet idea was for the 10% of SNECMA goes to Bristol instead of Pratt & Whitney, after all the Olympus can substitute J75. End result is that M53 is a SNECMA-Bristol design (and more powerful). Oh and Bristol buys out Rolls Royce instead of the other way round.

 

[Archibald]

My pet idea was for the 10% of SNECMA goes to Bristol instead of Pratt & Whitney, after all the Olympus can substitute J75

You mean their 1959 deal ?

amen to that, brother !

What is really interesting is that SNECMA 1959 deal with Pratt was for the Mirage IV-B. It was really a French B-58, twice as big as the Mirage IV-A that was finally build (with C-135 tankers). 60 mt, 5000 km range, mach 2.
IOTL it was scrapped because the J-75 engines were not acceptable: De Gaulle felt the americans could have grounded its strategic bombers just by not delivering engine spares. So the Mirage IV-A, with Atar, was preferred - even if it needed the C-135FR to go anywhere. Grounding the C-135 would not have grounded the Mirages.
Now with British engines... such aircraft could replace the V-bombers, Canberra, and perhaps avoid the fiasco of the TSR-2. In fact if provided with TSR-2 avionics, it would be an European Tu-26 Backfire long before this aircraft existed.

Where it gets even more interesting, the Mirage IV-B would essentially be a twin-engine, 1/3 Concorde in size and weight. As you said - Olympus.

 

[Lascaris]

My pet idea was for the 10% of SNECMA goes to Bristol instead of Pratt & Whitney, after all the Olympus can substitute J75

You mean their 1959 deal ?

amen to that, brother !

What is really interesting is that SNECMA 1959 deal with Pratt was for the Mirage IV-B. It was really a French B-58, twice as big as the Mirage IV-A that was finally build (with C-135 tankers). 60 mt, 5000 km range, mach 2.
IOTL it was scrapped because the J-75 engines were not acceptable: De Gaulle felt the americans could have grounded its strategic bombers just by not delivering engine spares. So the Mirage IV-A, with Atar, was preferred - even if it needed the C-135FR to go anywhere. Grounding the C-135 would not have grounded the Mirages.
Now with British engines... such aircraft could replace the V-bombers, Canberra, and perhaps avoid the fiasco of the TSR-2. In fact if provided with TSR-2 avionics, it would be an European Tu-26 Backfire long before this aircraft existed.

Where it gets even more interesting, the Mirage IV-B would essentially be a twin-engine, 1/3 Concorde in size and weight. As you said - Olympus.

That is certainy possible but how would Mirage IVB compare in cost to the Mirage IVA -C-135FR combination? If Hustler was any indication IVB is going to cost about twice as much as IVA. So you are going to get what for the same money, something below 40 aircraft? Mirage IV* is I suspectt a better option being more economical.

 

[Archibald]

This is not the right thread to discuss this ! But we can open another one

 

[Hood]

My feeling is that if Britain and France had gone off together, that might not have automatically ended Spain and Italy and perhaps Germany from going with whatever Anglo-French airframe that resulted. With the desire to maintain a European industry it seems unlikely that the smaller players wouldn't have gravitated to whatever European programme emerged.
I think its the lowest probability what-if given the differences between the partners and of course Britain had no conventional carriers at that stage.
But looking at this scenario from the other nations' perspective; Spain brought Hornets anyway so arguably was in no haste to decide at that stage other then for politco-industrial reasons. They may well have joined Germany in a Hornet 2000 buy, the Germans were quite keen on the F-18L but of course with no other buyer the land-based Hornet might never of got off the ground and German may well have just acquired F/A-18s as Spain did.
Italy could also have gone down the same route, or maybe more likely acquired F-16s in the 1980s to replace the Starfighters as they eventually had to do anyway after the Tornado stop-gap as Typhoon was delayed. Perhaps there might even have been scope for a Tornado ADV sale to Italy?

 

[alertken]

I'm with kaiserd #4.

The influence of Marcel, then Serge was out of all proportion to the firm's attributes, and starts with Bloch's success in not being absorbed into a State-entity in 1937. The line Ouragon-Mystere-Mirage III was estimable, but not beyond the scope of the Nationalised sites: success bred hubris. That featured in the recalled Saviour President, 1/59. So, Mirage IVA/Force de Frappe. UK and US tried to dissuade such proliferation/duplication - expensive dilution of France's economy, undermining the D'Artagnan, all-for-one essence of NATO. CDG suggested UK itself might examine exactly that: UK failed to grasp his logic.

UK, 1/65 reduced its Requirement for a deep nuclear penetrator to 40 strike/10 trainers: that killed TSR.2, whose cost would be untenable on so small an order, so UK joined McNamara's planned 3,000 TFX. BAC pitched Mirage IVA/Spey, but Defence Secretary Healey accepted F-111K and attended to a much larger Requirement to replace F-4K on CVA-01 and F-4M in RAFG. He could have joined any one of the plethora of French/FRG/Italian/US V/STOL schemes, whose raison d'etre was runways being Scudded. But he chose to presume intact pistes and to invent AFVG. Marcel soon caused CDG to uninvent his subordination to BAC, who were thus left to doodle doomed UKVG...until Marcel's hubris came to the rescue.

France was admitted to the F-104 Group's discussion of an NKF and cheerfully announced the problem was resolved: the others could share the perspex, wheels and brakes on anyMirage. Excommunicated. Healey in, like rat up drainpipe. Tornado. Serge then did the same. Typhoon. US tried hard to kill both.

If... French politicians had reined in Marcel and Serge, reminding them who pays their bills, then...the collaborations that worked on Concorde, ELDO....and on to borderless Airbus/MBDA, could have been earlier, extravagent duplication Tornado/Mirage 2000, Rafale/Typhoon avoided. Thank the Lord that we have all learned for the next generation.

 

[Archibald]

This not only is nearly incomprehensible (the writting), it is also a nationalistic rant that completely ignores reality. Oh well. Blame Dassault, easy target)

Mind you, the European also added weight to the EFA project to a) exclude France with an aircraft too heavy for its carriers and b) exclude SNECMA M88 in favor of the EJ-200. So yes, our beloved british "friends" led by that Thatcher [insert lots of rude words here] quite cheated the game, too.

Where to start ? yes, by 1948 the public companies were unable to make a decent jet (bar the Vautour). SNCASO Espadon was to be the answer, but weighed too much and climbed like a led sled. At least the Ouragan worked and did not killed its pilots like too many other prototypes did. Dassault went the cautious way, and it paid. Same for the Mirages.

Dassault learned the hard way to ignore the Armée de l'air blue sky Operational Requirements (O.R) and build palliatives on private funds, then the palliatives become permanent after the AdA recognized that, while the O.R could be done, except at horrendous cost.
Dassault build a shitload of prototypes in the 60's only to threw most of them after the AdA changed its mind, and despite stellar flight tests program. Mirage G, Mirage G8, ACF are good examples, the later was scrapped while 80% complete, in 1975.

British aircraft makers faced the same conundrum - the RAF was no better than AdA, in the sense its Operational Requirements were complete madness (see TSR-2 - splendid aircraft, but budget killed it, as Sydney Camm perfectly understood).

say what you want of Dassault, but facing the same conundrum as its british counterpart (blue sky O.R) they did a far better job surviving to the present day.