German DoD last Wednesday released the new biannual report on major #Bundeswehr defence projects. Not worth doing a line by line overview, but there are still some interesting bits and pieces both said and not said, given recent budget adjustment. Quick 🧵 on selected programs.
Most conspicuously absent from this list: P-3C Orion & successor P-8A Poseidon. Interesting because of recent reports re substantially increasing the fleet from five to twelve AC, still not confirmed by DoD.
Also notably absent is F-35, though it gets mentioned under "Tornado".
Now onto individual programs.
Tiger: Mk III decision still a big question mark. Text repeats previous blurb of chief considerations and points to a decision to be taken "mid 2022". Which a casual glance reveals to be now. 🤷♂️
Ch-47F: Unlike Poseidon the program gets its own entry. Nothing much in there except contract signature now hoped for early 2023.
Pegasus SIGINT: First airframe arrived in GER 08/21 for integration. Second airframe to be delivered "mid '22", third and last before end of '22.
K130: Hulls 11-15 get a mention. These should replace first batch hulls instead of paying for MLU. Framed as "The fundamental decision to procure a further five boats (...) continues to be followed." whatever that means exactly.
U-212CD: If you hoped to read about the rumoured extra hulls to be bought with the special budget-money, you are being disappointed. BUT: It's very interesting that the remark from previous report how 212CD will inform MLU work for 212A boats has been dropped without replacement.
F126 frigate: Same on frigates, the rumoured purchase of hulls no 5 and 6 is not being specified beyond the statement that realisation of this option has to be clarified no later than June 2024. So I guess don't expect an announcement too soon here.
Puma IFV: No mention of second batch beyond pointing fingers at the yet to be decided force mix for Army "medium forces" (ie how many Puma vs wheeled IFV solution).
TLVS/MEADS: He's dead Jim. While the program continues its zombie-presence in report, new remark "Patriot can match capabilities via modernisation and continued use until 2048 from overall planning perspective should be clear preference." speaks for itself.
FCAS: "If no agreement can be reached that meets the interests of all three partners in regards to equal participation, continued cooperation should be questioned."
Unusually strong language for a report, this is obviously about the NGF pillar-differences.
A few thoughts on the issue of China's new corvette/light frigate sized combatant and what its point is, may be, and pertinently, has been stated to be, going off this article in TWZ.
We do have one image from the yard giving this design an official purpose. Text declares the celebration of the launch of a project for a "comprehensive test platform". The design is partially visible in the graphic (minor differences but its clearly intended to be the same ship)
That issue should make the nature of this effort less mysterious. Now, in the context of PLAN testing of weapons, sensors etc its worth noting the service does operate more bespoke test ships, specifically the Type 909/A/910-series (designation somewhat blurry AFAIK).
Thankfully the actual report by the German audit office is free to read, so I just looked at that instead. Link can be found here (pdf). Bullet points follow, as a comedy in eight acts: 1/ bundesrechnungshof.de/SharedDocs/Dow…
Effort to replace MCM capability by 2027 dates back to 2014. A standing commitment to NATO is to provide 11 boats with improved capability by 2031. Navy estimated original funding requirement at 2.7 bln Euros. 2/
For that cost Navy wanted 11 new, boats capable of long range deployments (current boats designed for Baltic/North Sea), improved C2 for multinational ops, wider USV/UUV integration. Despite all this obviously requiring larger boats, Nayv claimed it did not. 3/
"According to the US Congressional Research Service, the US navy has 9,000 missile vertical launch tubes to deliver long-range cruise missiles, compared with China’s 1,000."
Actual source for these 1,000 cells for PLAN is Nick Childs, of IISS, himself cited in a CNN piece linked here. It is not immediately clear from that piece how Childs arrives at his claim, but it demonstrably wrong, unless "or so" is doing a lot of work. edition.cnn.com/2021/03/05/chi…
Caveat straight up: PLAN is not at present confirmed to use LACMs on their surface combatants. But thats neither here nor there, the issue is missile cell count. Also PLA of course has a lot of land based land attack capability the USN does not have.
Mal ein🧵auf Deutsch, weil es nun wild durch die lokale Diskussion geht bzgl "neuer" Eroeffnungen, angeblicher oder tatsaechlicher Skandale zum Thema F-35, Triebwerkproblemen, Block 4-Modernisierung. Was sind die Fakten?
Teil 1 - Die Bloecke: F-35 ist ein Programm, das, wie viele vorherigen Entwicklungen in Evolutionen stattfindet. Strukturelles Kern-Element hier sind die "Blocks", die neue Faehigkeiten integrieren. Das ist nicht unaehnlich zu Eurofighter mit seinen "Tranchen", siehe EF T1 vs T4.
Manche Bloecke sind relativ milde Neuerungen, mit entsprechend geringer Kostensteigerung. Andere sind allerdings fundamentale Erweiterungen. Block 4 ist mit Abstand die bedeutenste Modernisierung, die zahllose neue Faehigkeiten einruestet. Das erfordert mehr Triebwerks-Leistung.
Rheinmetall announces they will in collaboration with Ukroboronprom start to refurbish Fuchs APC for delivery to Ukrainian forces. Related joint venture will commence work by July. In second step full local production is intended. esut.de/2023/06/meldun…
Rheinmetall & Ukroboronprom previously announced signing strategic cooperation agreement for local manufacture of defence materiel. While observers (and CEO Papperger) named MBT, assembly of Fuchs may be more logical first step. UA said to have "four to five digit"-requirement.
Fuchs APC-production could be quick to implement both because the design is mature & required processes established, and because Rheinmetall already has significant experience establishing foreign production. Company most prominently sold a full assembly to Algeria back in 2014.
Still not a fan of "MBT are outdated."-take on Russian tank losses.
Yes, the Russian Army lost a metric shit ton of them.
Because they threw a dramatic amount of materiel, clearly without coherent operational plans, into a grinding war of attrition. Not because tanks dont work.
Problem with such analysis tends to be that people fixate on "popular" weapon systems vs all the other stuff the Russians also lost immense amounts of.
Quite similar to the eternal "aircraft carriers are obsolete"-takes in naval discussions. Far less often a case for IFV or DDG.
This is doubly true for Soviet MBT. Which were designed for a very specific way of assault. As soon as you move outside of that CONOP, you get punished far more than with Western designs, which by nature had a broader field of roles in mind. But the broader point applies equally.