United Europe Air Force

Read the forum code of contact

Member for

11 years 2 months

Posts: 1,059

Except that the decision to attack Lybia was not taken by truly independent european states! Just like the UK refusal to participate in an attack against Syria was due to heavy PUBLIC pressure, so was the german decision. In fact in all these wars we have been dragged on, against all european principles, you find me ONE instance in which the majority of european citizens were supporting it. Simple, there is none. So how one say that the european countries are able to take independent decisions when decisions to go to war in support of US interests are taken INSPITE of the peoples will? Reason is again simple because like in any other similar situation (i.e. former Warpac) our governments are puppets in US service. No "conspiracy theory" or anything (like some try to imply) just the simple truth.

True independence mean being able to defend yourself and deter any potential aggression or threats, and also being able to support your interests if need be. Given the current numbers (about 2000 combat aircraft) in the EU a drop to under 1500 is perfectly sustainable and sufficient to deter ANY potential opponent. Of course, in the long run, European togetherness should be the objective, in fact Earth togetherness should be THE objective.

The interests of an independent Europe (dictated by it's citizens through vote) would certainly not be in line with US corporate and hegemonic interests and in fact will be opposite many times. I expect the yanks to be thoroughly unhappy about that, hence the need for strategic parity.

Again, it's putting in balance being mere puppets increasingly subjected to and oppressed by US interests (how can you call this then, we don't want wars, we don't want our lives spied, we don't want being mere milk cows for corporations, yet all this it's exactly what is happening!) versus being TRULLY independent nations. I suppose with this mentality, if say the yanks are going **** up tomorrow , those of you who are so aghasted by the idea of us europeans, north, south, east or west working together and collaborating together and striving to a better future together are also OK with say the chinese taking over as the "Big Brother" or maybe the russians? Really ?!

Of course not. Divide and conquer remember? How can we decide anything together when our governments are NOT independent and are NOT working for their own citizens' interests, but for a foreign powers'?

So i guess it's preferable to give a piece of sovereignity (if not all of it- as it stands now) to a foreign power 5000 miles away, than do so in the interests of a better, stronger EUROPE? Budget wise, it's not only about savings but also about creating huge numbers of jobs and supporting the local high tech industry. Think of all the current and planned contracts of items from US, how many tens, even hundreds of billions they worth, money going OUT, money made by the hard work of the european taxpayer. Think how many JOBS sourcing those very same items here can support! Plus, an independent Europe will be free to pursue it's own international relations, for instance we can export tens of billions worth of defence items to China and other countries that are "verboten" now under US ruling. In fact, in my opinion the flourishing of the european defence industry, and overall economy will be astonishing if we'll ever manage to create an independent Europe.

Then how are they doing it in this current "NATO" then? I refuse to believe that would be a problem, how, why? You would have a steadily decreasing number of types of assets operating in a streamlined system with little duplication like of the current each-country-on-it's-own system, in many respects sharing common infrastructure and weapons (the AESA radars will have very common components, or should be made to, the missiles are in many respects commons to all 3 Eurocanards, you can have just 2 types of fast jet engine, EJ-200 on Typhoon and Gripen-NG (yes i'd change the F414 for an EJ-230), and M-88 in Rafale). In fact i do recall now, this very commonality in the former Warpac was praised at that time, every aircraft or tanks etc. could operate and be serviced in almost every constituent country.

Yes, i know the local ultra-nationalists are going nuts whenever someone mentions about EU or about a common defence force, let alone what i'm proposing. Again as above these "individuals" are very happy to just being puppets of a foreign power 5000 miles way and paying lip service to them, than working together and striving together with their fellow EUROPEAN neighbours for a better place for all. But then again, since regretably this otherwise absolutely wonderful country and people has been penetrated so deeply by US machinations, who do you think is steering the public opinions against EU, a united Europe and so on? Divide and conquer...

Lordy, you are either naive, insecure or paranoid and probably all three.

Member for

13 years 5 months

Posts: 3,381

Isn't the point of a United AF to streamline? You would have two or at most fighter types plus naval type(s)

Sure but there is a limit to how much streamlining can be accomplished prior to the next generation of platforms coming online. Unless you are willing to throw away perfectly good aircraft for no good reason...

Member for

15 years 5 months

Posts: 6,983

The inter-national strife for work-share and avoid costs means its doomed before it even started,
while the idea of national cooperation for defense is a good un, it will be competition on an economy level, the primary level.

Member for

18 years 9 months

Posts: 13,432

Accepting for the moment the premises that a unified European (let's say EU) air force is a good idea & achievable, one can still poke great big holes in the proposed structure.

Let's start with naval air.

CVF is being built, with the first one approaching completion. Converting to catapult launch starting straight away would cost a lot, delay service entry for years, & mean buying catapults from the USA. There is a European alternative to US catapults, but EMCAT needs more development before it could be fitted to a carrier. Waiting for that would leave CVF without fighters for years. There is no possibility of operating with Harriers as an interim measure, because we don't have any, & Italy & Spain between them barely have enough for their own much smaller ships. The only medium-term option for CVF is to operate F-35B.

The Italians & Spanish can't keep their Harriers operating for many more years, because of age. F-35B is the only logical replacement.

We should therefore buy F-35B.

Developing EMCAT & fitting it to future carriers (e.g. a second French carrier) is feasible, & I'd like to see it done, but it's not a practical option for the near future.

If you really want an EU navy able to do anything a militarily unified EU might want to do, completing CVF as planned, building a second Cavour-class ship (could have a joint Spanish/Italian two ship carrier force), buying the planned UK F-35B force, plus the (reduced) planned Italian F-35A/B force as all F-35Bs, & using them to provide complete carrier air groups for those four ships, with reserves, would make more sense than throwing away what's already been done & starting anew.

One could also add a second French carrier, & turn enough of the planned Rafale C orders into Rafale M orders to provide both CdG & the new ship with full air groups plus reserves.

That'd be six carriers, but not all CVF-size. Plenty for anything short of a naval war against the USA or fighting China off its own coast without local allies - neither of which are things worth planning for.

Member for

20 years 4 months

Posts: 1,050

There is no point in a European Air Force as long as there is no common European identity. Let's try to get somewhat standardized equipment and force structures first, before we talk about a EAF. Plus, your numbers are way off. Realistic are ~140 German Typhoons for example.
The first step should be a common European fighter training, but even that failed to materialize. And to be honest, I prefer the friendly people of Wichita Falls over any possible European location populated by the usual European peaceniks.

Member for

14 years 2 months

Posts: 4,619

Some of the countries, like the UK, quite like working with the US too, so not everyone is looking to throw off the yoke of oppression you describe.

Member for

14 years 4 months

Posts: 2,114

Accepting for the moment the premises that a unified European (let's say EU) air force is a good idea & achievable, one can still poke great big holes in the proposed structure.

Let's start with naval air.

CVF is being built, with the first one approaching completion. Converting to catapult launch starting straight away would cost a lot, delay service entry for years, & mean buying catapults from the USA. There is a European alternative to US catapults, but EMCAT needs more development before it could be fitted to a carrier. Waiting for that would leave CVF without fighters for years. There is no possibility of operating with Harriers as an interim measure, because we don't have any, & Italy & Spain between them barely have enough for their own much smaller ships. The only medium-term option for CVF is to operate F-35B.

The Italians & Spanish can't keep their Harriers operating for many more years, because of age. F-35B is the only logical replacement.

We should therefore buy F-35B.

Developing EMCAT & fitting it to future carriers (e.g. a second French carrier) is feasible, & I'd like to see it done, but it's not a practical option for the near future.

If you really want an EU navy able to do anything a militarily unified EU might want to do, completing CVF as planned, building a second Cavour-class ship (could have a joint Spanish/Italian two ship carrier force), buying the planned UK F-35B force, plus the (reduced) planned Italian F-35A/B force as all F-35Bs, & using them to provide complete carrier air groups for those four ships, with reserves, would make more sense than throwing away what's already been done & starting anew.

One could also add a second French carrier, & turn enough of the planned Rafale C orders into Rafale M orders to provide both CdG & the new ship with full air groups plus reserves.

That'd be six carriers, but not all CVF-size. Plenty for anything short of a naval war against the USA or fighting China off its own coast without local allies - neither of which are things worth planning for.

Thanks for your pertinent reply Swerve. I can think of several alternatives to your conundrum, for instance why can't the Rafale-M be used on QE as STOBAR? If it will need more power to efficiently operate that way, then the 9 ton M-88 engine is already in existence. More power is always good anyway. I see no problem for Rafale-M to be fitted with those engine, yes it will cost some money, but put in balance even so it will end cheaper than an F-35B. And even if it will actually be slightly over F-35 (extremely unlikely, just saying) the advantages of full control over it (no CISMOA and other crap there) and again the benefit of billions invested in local jobs outweigh any disadvantages (like an increase in cost of the ship to fit it with arresting gear). One can hope the EMCAT would be ready for Prince of Wales if the interest and the investment is there, if not she can be used as a STOBAR too.

I was reading that the french were mulling a QE class hip of their own (let's call it CVFF), starting building that ship before the end of this decade will give my UE Navy a powerful 4 ship carrier fleet by 2025 easily. Again, if the EMCAT is ready it can use that, if not just use it as STOBAR. I know CdG uses an american catapult, i'm just trying to work around that. If there would be possible to have a deal with no disadvantageous conditions, then of course, one can get those damn catapults for QE and the CVFF from them, if not, use them as STOBAR and then fit the EMCAT during the first major overhaul.

CdG can operate 24 Rafales plus several helos, while the 3 QEs can imo easily be able to operate 36 Rafales plus several helos (if they can operate 36 F-35B, surely they can do same with Rafales), they are big ships. I would also rather have Merlin AEWs on all 4, rather that continue to operate Hawkeyes (again, independence).

As for the italian and spanish VTOL carriers, once the Harriers reach the end of their lives that part of their role (air-defence primarily) would be taken by the increasing number of fleet carriers, after that i would use them as LHDs, fitted with helicopters only, and future developments like an european tilt-rotor or the new generation of high-speed helicopters etc. Hell combining them with the Mistrals and with the british LHD, covered by 4 fleet carriers (i still think we'd need at least another 2 more by 2030) will give the UE Navy a formidable amphibious and regional power projection capability as early as 2025. We don't need to go to the US shores or the Pacific, but we might need to support our interests in Africa, Mediteranean and the ME.

And to be honest, I prefer the friendly people of Wichita Falls over any possible European location populated by the usual European peaceniks.

Then why aren't you there already, and leave us the inferior "peaceniks" be?

Some of the countries, like the UK, quite like working with the US too, so not everyone is looking to throw off the yoke of oppression you describe.

First of all you speak for yourself, not for the UK people. Go and ask on the street how much they like working with, or rather, FOR a foreign power, ask them if they really want to go to war for them and bring misery and death to MILLIONS, to be spied by them, hell to be threatened to be thrown in one of THEIR jails, and their own politicians who they elected to serve THEM, they abandon THEM for the interests of this foreign country (isn't that called treason?), even if they never set foot in thatr country and never broke any laws, ever! Like i said to the above poster, if one has such a big hard-on for the US, with all due respect, but the airport is that way. Leave the rest of us be.

I can never for the life of me understand this group of peoples who are are so loathful and arrogant toward their very own neighbours, with who we have so much in common and are exploding in anger whenever someone mentions about working together, striving for a better, independent Europe, a better life for all, yet they are so enthusiastic in support of a foreign, violent, hegemonic power 5000 miles away, whole only interest is to keep us under their boot, and who culturally is light years away different from us. Either they're nuts, or i am.

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 5,396

One benefit of a large well-integrated Air Force is critical niche capabilities which small Air Forces cannot afford.

Small Air Forces tends to concentrate on Shooters and Trash Haulers, while ignoring recce and BLOS communications. Recce is especially important because it provides targeting for the shooters. During WWII, a fair percentage of air assets were dedicated to recce. But during WWII, the OODA loop was measured in days or weeks, so pictures taken 3 days ago could be used to plan a bombing raid 3 days in the future.

The Russians and Chinese have studied the timing of the western Air Forces' OODA loop, specifically the amount of time between location of a re-locatable target until bombs arrive at that location. In response, the Russians and Chinese have made all of their high value equipment rapidly relocatable. Radars, TBM launchers, SAM batteries, command posts, Etc. can all be relocated within 5 minutes. Coupling the ability to rapidly relocate with decoys prevents western Air Forces from completing the kill chain (find, fix, track target, engage, and assess). The combined Air Force could develop the capability to tighten the OODA loop to negate the Russian/Chinese advantage due to rapid relocation of their assets.

Member for

18 years 9 months

Posts: 13,432

Djcross:

Well said. If I was in charge of planning the structure of a combined European air force I'd be far more interested in sorting out the ISR & logistics deficiencies than the fighter forces. Yes, I'd do all I could to standardise on as few existing types as possible, & initiate studies into a Rafale/Typhoon follow-on (I favour an incremental approach, starting with airframe refinements around the same systems, while continuing to develop those systems), but I'd be giving higher priority to getting more satellites, ISR aircraft/UAVs, tankers, transports, & stocks of PGMs - to name but a few.

Mack8:

It's too late for EMCAT to be ready for PoW. The ship's well along in construction. Even if EMCAT gets all the money needed, it's too late for it to be developed in time to be fitted to PoW without stopping the build pending redesign & then doing a lot of re-working.

Dropping F-35B procurement now would be shooting ourselves in our collective foot. It'd be an ideological move, not rational in military or economic terms.

As for your proposed fleet, you forget something crucial. To be able to defeat the USA in naval warfare, one needs superiority. Parity isn't enough, & relying on other US commitments to make it possible to defeat the USN with inferior strength overall would guarantee disaster. The strategic situation is too heavily skewed in US favour. The USA has much greater self-sufficiency in strategic materials. For example, it does not need to import food, & it does not need to import fuel from further afield than North America & the Caribbean - & it might be able to dispense with the Caribbean.

The USN therefore has a much easier job than a European navy, which would have to protect trade routes bringing in vast quantities of essential materials. Forget carrier battles: think submarines wreaking havoc with our imports.

The US army & air force, likewise, face no local threats. The defence needed by the main part of the USA is little more than policing. In a world changed as you envisage, that would not be true of Europe. We'd need to devote much more effort to guarding our borders.

And, of course, you ignore the fact that there's absolutely no appetite here for turning the USA into an enemy. A cooling of the relationship is possible, but outright armed hostility is crazy. What for? What do we have to fight over?

Member for

15 years 5 months

Posts: 6,983

+1 with dj, such a unit under a special command would meet much less friction

Member for

14 years 4 months

Posts: 2,114

And, of course, you ignore the fact that there's absolutely no appetite here for turning the USA into an enemy. A cooling of the relationship is possible, but outright armed hostility is crazy. What for? What do we have to fight over?

I'm not alluding to go to war with them or anything, i did said that before! All i'm saying is independence means just that, no one should afford push you about, you must be able to be ready for any eventuality. Regarding the US Navy, they would be in the exact same situation if UE would have 6 carriers. If they'd get loopy for some reason or other, no way they can muster more than 6 carriers, and it will be suicide for them too, especially facing our combined navy AND airpower. That's the point of deterrence, to make it so costly and so hazardous for an opponent to afford messing with you that they'd rather walk away. Plus we'd have 500 nuclear warheads in the bargain, the third most powerful deterrent on Earth, that must account for something.

As for defending one's border and in relation to the US and our situation, well the chinese and russians didn't go into full scale war even at the height of mutual antipathy, so i fully expect today, in much more "civilized" times, to not go to war with the russians any time soon. What for? If we go over them they'll chew us, if they come over us, WE will chew them! Again that is the whole point of deterrence, 1500 fighters, a sizable and well equipped combined land force and the Navy i envision is more than adequate by 2030. If things by then warrant more equipment, well we will have to have more then.

Regarding the resources, actually apart from Latin America, i would say that most of the sources of raw materials are in the neighbourhood as far as we're concerned. Africa, ME are close by, and Asia could be accessed by land if need be. In fact, hypothetically the yanks would be the hard pressed ones to try a blockade against us, how are they going to blockade us at OUR shores or in the Med? Anyway i believe that an independent Europe will also bring a huge shrinkage of US sphere of influence, they would have lost one of their main market and source of "power", there's no way they can face us (strategically speaking), and the chinese (freshly having had access to the best european technology that is for sale!) at the same time (plus the russians). Then we will have a truly multi-polar world. Which is why they don't want that, and which is why we are vassals to them today...

Member for

13 years 5 months

Posts: 770

of course those pesky Europeans that dont agree with your world view will either be made to see the light or be shipped off to camps right?

Member for

12 years 3 months

Posts: 5,905

Time to close the thread?

Member for

13 years 5 months

Posts: 770

Agree!!!!!!! (or move it to "General Discussion")

Member for

15 years 2 months

Posts: 2,631

Agree!!!!!!! (or move it to "General Discussion")
Yes, lets... before someone decides to say these ideas sound awfully similar to a certain chap's that had Adolf as his forename... Oh wait... Blast!

Member for

20 years 4 months

Posts: 1,050

All i'm saying is independence means just that, no one should afford push you about, you must be able to be ready for any eventuality

And this is done today more or less with economical "warfare". The core issue of all your ideas is that there are no European interests, but only national ones. Depending on the party in power pretty much every European country could end up in the US team.

No European airforce is able to operate without US support. Libya was a perfect example for just that: intelligence, jamming, not even sufficient ammo supply. The only working framework we have is NATO, an organization dominated by the US. If your goal is an independend foreign policy, you need to define European interests first. And then you can decide which military capabilities you want and can effort.
Just making up fantasy numbers for combat fleets is pointless. Gallileo and an European replacement for link 16 would do more for European "independence" then some additional combat assets which rely on GPS and link 16.

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 5,396

And this is done today more or less with economical "warfare". The core issue of all your ideas is that there are no European interests, but only national ones. Depending on the party in power pretty much every European country could end up in the US team.

No European airforce is able to operate without US support. Libya was a perfect example for just that: intelligence, jamming, not even sufficient ammo supply. The only working framework we have is NATO, an organization dominated by the US. If your goal is an independend foreign policy, you need to define European interests first. And then you can decide which military capabilities you want and can effort.
Just making up fantasy numbers for combat fleets is pointless. Gallileo and an European replacement for link 16 would do more for European "independence" then some additional combat assets which rely on GPS and link 16.


Link 16 is a dead end 1980s technology because it is omnidirectional and alerts your adversary. The first thing I would expect an enemy to do is jam L-band, which negates your Link-16, your IFF and your AWACS.

Europe also needs a high bandwidth, secure SATCOM network.

Member for

15 years 5 months

Posts: 6,983

I'll just copy my notifications

Hi, I did a little homework on datalinks and here are a few things that will make you giggle.

The frequency jumping on the Link 16 is controlled by a 9 digit code with the format CCCCNNNNB where C is Capital, N is Number and B is Boolean (A or B net).

IFF/MODE4 (whatever Mode 4 is) is controlled by an 8 digit code, format CCCCNNNN.

This means that the entropy (number of potential passwords are 26^4x10^4*2 = 9,1 bn combinations and the IFF is 4,6bn)

So how long will it take to crack? Well... not that long.
http://thehackernews.com/2012/04/extreme-gpu-bruteforcer-crack-passwords.html#
-----------------
Type hashes average speed (Using NVIDIA GTS250):
MD5 420 000 000 n / a
MySQL 1.08 billion n / a
MD4 605 000 000 n / a
NTLM 557 000 000 n / a
SHA-1 120 000 000 n / a
MySQL5 66 million p / s
LM 49 million p / s
------------------------

Lets just say that the algorithm takes a horrendous long time to crack and we only can test 10 mn per GPU and we only can spare 2 GPUs for it (a modern fighter carries 6-10).

This makes it take...

9,1bn/20mn per sec = 1 min 16 seconds to test all combinations for the frequency password, but in real life the average would be that you only do 50% of this => 38 seconds

For the IFF/MODE4 it would take 38 seconds to try all combinations or on average 16 seconds to crack the IFF... with 2 GPUs.

Imagine this being relayed to an AWACS that has a larger cluster focused on code cracking. A 25 GPU cluster can achieve "350 billion-guess-per-second". Yes, that means it would take 0,013 seconds to crack the network crypto (once a large enough sample is gathered) and another 0,007 seconds to crack the IFF/MODE4. This is the speed one could expect if you have sometihng similar to rainbow tables.

http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/12/25-gpu-cluster-cracks-every-standard-windows-password-in-6-hours/

Now imagine facing off with a potent adversary and suddenly you get a message over link 16 that you are looking at friendlies and in fact, an enemy formation is closing in from your flank. Thanks to directional transmissions nobody else will know what data you got from the foe and suddenly distress calls are heard over the radio that there are boogies inside your formation (these are recorded and transmitted by the enemies AWACS using actual call signs).

This is the future air war.

But just for the heck of it, imagine you change passwords to be completely random capital letters and numbers and the password is 9 symbols long. (36^9 is entropy) It would take the enemy approximately 290 seconds to crack with a gpu-cluster from 2012.

In 2020 (when F35 enters FOC) one might expect a capability about 1'000 times faster or more, meaning that even with improved passwords it would take 0,29 sec to crack it or less.


[ATTACH=CONFIG]225043[/ATTACH]
Attachments

Member for

12 years 3 months

Posts: 5,905

I'll just copy my notifications

[ATTACH=CONFIG]225043[/ATTACH]

yes. Great summary.

This is why selling your Sat frequencies away for peanuts or pretending a strong networking with Link16 only is just b****.

If there is one thing around what Eu def is primordial is global Sat and networking.

Member for

20 years 4 months

Posts: 1,050

Link 16 is a dead end 1980s technology because it is omnidirectional and alerts your adversary. The first thing I would expect an enemy to do is jam L-band, which negates your Link-16, your IFF and your AWACS.

Europe also needs a high bandwidth, secure SATCOM network.

And yet, there is no common European solution on the horizon for such essential capabilities. That includes drone bandwith. The next more or less big common effort is AGS (alliance ground survaillance), to provide European NATO members with at least a basic realtime ISR capability. Based upon outdated American drones (global hawk) and relying completely on US comsats.

Replacing some JSF with Rafales or whatever individual platform is irrelevant if most of the C4I relies on US support. Same with logistics. As long as Europe doesn't innovate, but only follows trends set by the US, "European independence" is a pipedream. Innovation is expansive. And here we come back to our "peaceniks". They complain about the US nonstop, but are happy to use US infrastructure if it saves some €€€.