European NATO Army alternatives: 1950 - 1990
- Thread starter Giant Man Eating Rabbits
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The f11-1f carries plenty of payload for german requirements. Including 4 sidwinds (which is something you came up with not part of german requirements at all)
I'm pretty sure he flew all four (the four finalist) and he supported the f-11-1f. The f-104 destion was taken on the leval above the test pilots heads.
The stories are contradictory, their only oral account about this.
Because all Documents about F-104G purchase were "accidentally destroyed" in mid 1960s.
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The Lightweight Fighter (LWF) program in 1974, it was NATO replace program for F-104G, F-105 and F-4 (fighter bomber).
Contender:
General Dynamics YF-16
Dassault-Breguet Mirage F1M-53,
SEPECAT Jaguar
Saab 37E "Eurofighter". (modified Viggen)
Northrop P-530 Cobra (modified YF-17 - later became F/A-18)
Lockheed CL-1200 Lancer (modified F-104G with new wings)
in end it was YF-16 that won, with Mirage F1 on second place.
i wonder what happen, if Europa had take the Mirage F1 ?
The intention was (though not in quite so many words) for the German armed forces to be incapable of acting independently. Germany wouldn't be capable of producing the most modern war materiel, and wouldn't have a General Staff, so its armed forces would only be able to operate as part of a European Defence Community formation. The model isn't entirely dissimilar to that of (say) the British Indian Army.
Immediately after WW2, it was hoped that Germany could be entirely demilitarised, but through the 1950s it became obvious that a land war against the USSR would need German troops. Figuring out how to do that without facilitating a repeat of 1939 and 1914 was a major concern for the other Western powers.
Of the three finalists - the F11F, the F-104, and the Mirage III, only the F-104 was a production aircraft. That made it significantly less risky. The F11F was ruled out in practice because it wasn't going to enter USN service, which would have left Germany with a bespoke fighter. Too risky. That made the real choice between the Mirage III (not yet in service) and the F-104. The requirement was for a multirole fighter, including an air defence/air superiority role. That played to the F-104's strengths. And, on paper, the small wing makes it stable at low altitudes, giving it an edge.
Yes, Lockheed may well have got the contract through less-than-legitimate means. But it's not as though Dassault was totally innocent of such behaviour either. And it's not guaranteed that the Mirage III would have been notably safer: in Australian service, 41 of 116 aircraft were lost in accidents - a rate of 35%, compared to 32% for the F-104 in German service.
One of the things that gets left out of these discussions is that you can't bribe the customer to accept a fundamentally unsuitable product. You can try and tip the scales between two closely balanced competitors, but if the aircraft (in this case) being put forward just can't do the job, the officials can't give it the win. They need to protect their own interests, and a bribe is no use when in prison for obvious corruption. The 'smart' corrupt official takes bribes from both sides, then awards the contract exactly the same way they would have done if they'd never been bribed at all!
Well this variant is going to have the M53 engine, probably FBW (it was offered to Egypt with it) and newer electronics. So... it's no worse than early Mirage 2000 or F-16 really. Which brings us to the next question... if it's selected with the last 80 French air force Mirage F1s switching to the new variant, mass production for the four NATO countries probably Spain and perhaps Greece switching their orders to the new variant and the naval variant Mirage F1M being produced in place of Super Etendard... what is the reason for Mirage 2000 to exist? Mirage F1E has taken up its role. I think this is a TL where you see advanced Mirage F1 variants taking up the place of Mirage 2000 and Mirage 4000 mass produced... which in turn has effects on what became Rafale and Eurofighter.
F11 Tiger — China Lake Museum Foundation
chinalakemuseum.org
I think you are misreading its 4 sidewinder or 2 drop tanks and a pair of sidewinders. This is not something I came up with its the listed stores and external armament of the F11 and F11-1f Sure there will be artist impressions but as the 1f is only two prototypes. And the 11 itself a secondary in the USN. Why would you not have a missile armed fighter. Its the age of the missile armed fighter.
I think there is a misunderstanding of the capabilities of the aircraft involved
that gives a decentish overview of both the F104 and the Lockheed sales technique. But the key issue is the timeline. The contract for Germany is signed in 1958 at which point only the 104 is in production ( albeit a very different one from the G) and while the Mirage and Lightning may have been close enough to be competitive the Mirage did not offer the production facilities Lockheed were willing to set up and neither could offer the freebies the US could from the assistance program, much less what was on offer from Lockheed. Any discussion on what other potential aircraft could have offered falls away when Lockheed are basically willing to set up an aircraft industry as well. With a proven and from a Korean war perspective very effective aircraft.
What could be done? Everyone knows that composite armour is superior to a simple steel armour. Even within steel armour there are differing properties of different steels involved. The issue is manufacturing capacity and quality control. This was not available in the US at the time and it had been a problem since the T48 program which results in the M48 so a bunch of engineers saying we can fix is soon may another couple of years is meaningless when they have been saying the same thing for the last decade.
The entire T95 program tried to do three things, new power train ( fail) new gun (fail, but the turret could take the older US 120 and L7 if not the new 90mm smoothbore) new armour ( fail).
The M60 is in many ways an embarrassment in procurement terms at best its an interim design, a very good one admittedly, until the US can incorporate new armour and engines and a new gun. The they screw it up again with the MBT 70 and get it right with the M1 admittedly for the M1 its different armour from Britain and gun from Germany. But by that point the last of BuOrd had been crushed and consigned to the lower hells and the US has realised that it is not the source of all advanced tech and that producing the gun is nice, developing and producing the ammunition is better.
But to go back to the original point an M60 even with non existent composite armour is not going to help reestablish the German AFV industry. Leo 1 will and they will offer work to the Dutch etc.
Not really. The LWF program is sign up by Netherlands, Norway, Belgium and Denmark to the F16 program. The Missing ones are Britain, Germany, France, Italy. If they get involved then its much more likely to be a European designed and built aircraft of which only Viggen and Dassault are operating contenders ( not to say that there would not be an entirely new aircraft) but the deal of all of them would require substantial design manufacturing and production in their own countries and Britain Germany and Italy are already committed to Tornado for the attack/maritime strike role and for the British to the ADV. And that really only comes about because of the French withdrawal from the Variable Geometry project in order to develop the F1.
Its the a French problem They will do their thing for their reasons and demand design leadership. The British Germans Italians and probably Swedes have not been as precious.
The "non existent" armour as posted above was an option.
All I hear is lot of red herrings and strawman arguments,
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One possibility there actually is the MRCA project that became the Tornado.
Initially, the study group included the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada. If they're persuaded to stay in the consortium, that's potentially 160 Belgian Tornadoes, 213 Dutch Tornadoes, and 138 Canadian Tornadoes. That's not an easy sell, the Tornado was a much bigger and more complicated aircraft than the F-16, and all three pulled out at different times and for different reasons. But if you can manage it, the Tornado starts to look like the default F-104 replacement.
This is off-topic, but the concern for the F-104 is not the accident percentage itself, but its excessive mortality rate.
Except the did not have the production capacity to build it. This is neither a straw man nor a red herring.
The specific type is a silicate composite which has been under examination sine the T48 project. Sure it works conceptually, Can you build enough at the scale required to armour a tank fleet and that has gives sufficient advantage over other types of armour to make any increase cost worthwhile. Cost including cost of establishing and maintaining the plant to produce this. No. The straw man is in ignoring the actual issues in doing this in favour of assuming that it can be solved with the costs and benefits aligning in favour of your argument,
Well since the Soviets produced the T64 with armour very similar in the second half of the 70s and this was dropped on cost grounds, and never subsequently adopted in favour of other protective systems the efficacy argument also seems to fall away.
This is the Earned Value Analysis issue. What is the program intended to achieve? how far away from achieving that? Well the end point is the deployment of tanks to combat units. Where you are after 10 years of study and two tank programs is you can't make it at scale and it offers poor multi hit protection and it can't be curved. Also you have no actual production facilities able to make it at the scale needed. And 10 years of materials science have passed with guys in the US now working on a steel, Al/silicate matric which can be made in large sheets and be curved with excellent KE protection and multi hit survivability but is crap against HEAT rounds requiring spacing of armour as per MBT 70.
Well at best with an indeterminate time and cost for further development and establishment of production facilities you get something that is better than steel, unless its hit multiple times, can't be slope and curved and is more expensive than steel, And you have it for what 10 -30 years because its a structural component of the hull not an applique ( the T48 started as an applique but thats not what they were looking at). While at the same time the generals are saying we need to deploy a tank now because not only is the T54/5 better than the M48 but the Russians are working on the next gen and another group of of equally qualified staff are exploring something totally different which they say is better and cheaper and they can figure out the HEAT issue in no more than 6 month to 5 year timeframe. Your call but the fate of the Free World and thousands of American boys hangs on it,
One starts to develop a sympathy with McNamara dealing with this sort of clusterfuck.
Your end point being it would have reduced Israeli losses in 73, and presumably others elsewhere, but then so would doing proper recon prior to charging into an an intact multi batallion AT defence as long as each tank only took one hit, I mean multiple hits would be a problem.
There is also the earlier AFVG which if it included the others from the start would work too and lead to a slightly earlier Tornadoish which may give space for development of a lighter weight less complicated ( Viggen its the Viggen) A2A later adapted to air to air to ground aircraft that may or may not have Swedish origins, Tornado really does not work that well for Dutch, Danish etc which may be a gap for the F1 if the French play nice but more likely one of the many agile fighters of the later 70s. Even for the French the F1 is in part a stop gap for the AFVG.
The Panavia Tornado started as something different what become later
in 1967, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Canada founded F-104-Replacement-Group for light multi role combat aircraft, with single engine and one pilot.
but in 1968 thing changes radical the UK abandon the TSR.2 went for F-111K only to cancel order and mess up the AFVG with France...
suddenly UK is part of F-104-Replacement-Group now called Multi-Role-Combat-Aircraft, while Belgium, Netherlands left the program.
RAF wanted a Bomber and Germany got twin engine combat aircraft (during that time Grumman offer the yet to fly F-14 Tomcat to Luftwaffe, they decline it )
the MRCA change from dual design Bomber / Fighter into Panavia Tornado in 1970
The simple answer is..
Maxwell chose not too, when he sign out on the XM60 in '58. (Pre Nixon, RH)
As shown is the article, is could be done, but in reference to cost and speed, they did not. KISS.
As to cost /benefit, HEAT was becoming the dominant round for tanks of Soviets and USA, (AP of various types for short range). So a benefit.
Leopard 1 post dates this, still being a joint study with France in the 50's. Both took the low protection, high mobility route. Another RH.
The T64 was in service Dec '66, publically displayed 1970. The T64A with composite a year later. Though officially in Germany in "mid 70s", it was said to enter heavy tank bns of divisions and armies HQ tank BDE replacing T10 much earlier (in secret).
As to cost, the Soviets went the other way..
These features made the T-64 expensive to build, significantly more so than previous generations of Soviet tanks. This was especially true of the powerpack, which was time-consuming to build and cost twice as much as more conventional designs. Several proposals were made to improve the T-64 with new engines, but chief designer Alexander Alexandrovich Morozov's political power in Moscow kept the design in production in spite of any concerns about price.
The Voss "system" still relied of separate rounds for rifle and MGs. Standard rounds fired though tight rifling is over stabilised, and maintains spin axis in line with barrel, leading to high drag and keyholing.
I agree!
I would tactically introduce .257" as new rifle and SAW round, and let them save face, and keep .30-06 for MMG.
Prewar, both infantry and cavalry board accepted .276", Mac killed it. A lot of that mixed up with stockpile, and BAR being .30".
Pig board trials, etc, so it's ok (for rifle), medical studies of WW2 show no difference btw Japanese 6.5mm and 7.7mm wounds.
FAL was originally designed for 7.92x 33mm, would be closer to base concept. .257" would allow a "light" rifle, still selective fire, and acceptable to many European NATO members.
As usual, the US can try everything else, first and accept it, suitably Americanized!
I think one of the issues is there a lot more study groups than development programmes. Nothing wrong with this The All regular RAF which has to defend against bombers approaching over the North Sea with massive raid warning times, or the RCAF attempting to defend Canada which is really big, are different from the conscript German Dutch or Danish air force ground personnel, who have much less warning time for air defence and but all have tactical missions on the Central Front, except the British and French who also have missions in Africa, the Middle East and east of Suez at various times.
In all probability there are two aircraft needed at the time ( remember this would be early 70s with design starting t the latest in 68 so cathode ray tunes, bespoke avionics and lots of changes to the materiels technology, avionics and electronics flight control technology, weapons systems et al. One of which has to have a 2 man crew to manage the weapons systems radars and designators and bombing. One would ideally be single seat because you don't need all these things. The early concept for the MRCA was looking at single and two seat versions.
I think the POD missed in these discussions is the Jaguar.
Which at about 68 the British and French had realized that the Advanced Trainer bit does not fit with the supersonic nuclear bomber maybe off carriers bit and went off with Hawk and Alpha Jet. At this point you have a suite of three in or shortly to come into production ( flying in the early 70s introduction in 79 for the original Tornado) with the Jag as the light strike, Mirage F1 with secondary ground attack as the interceptor and Tornado as the Heavy/ADV. This then gets political with how you share things around in terms of manufacture and that leans on the French surrendering some control and spec from the F1 but it forms a consortium that can then look at the next gen European Combat Fighter having a much better basis for development than it did and you end up with that product in the late 80s or more probably 90s that looks like a Rafale/Typhoon. But remember the French still want a carrier based aircraft which is not compatible with the British and now German and Italian and probably Spanish need for a heavier longer range interceptor.
If you want to get radical change the deal with Japan so they buy Jags and get a share in the F1/ECF development.
I presume you mean Maxwell Taylor He had no choice, Congress would not fund the M48A2 after FY59 and had said so, So either the US ceases tank production then or it move ahead with something that works and that's the M60 without the still in development armour.
Source that. The dominant AP round was the APDS or APFSDS with HESH or HEP as the chemical energy round way into the 70s if not much longer with the use of rifled guns decreasing the performance of HEAT but not the others. The prominence in anti tank systems is because it does not need high velocity guns to fire and can use rocket and actually needs guidance systems because the flight time is so long but the launcher system can be much lighter and theoretically more accurate because its guided.
At the time,
The US did not have APDS for for 90mm, but still used HVAP.
APDS from UK was adapted with 105MM.
(Tungsten carbide)
Soviets went smoothbore in early 60's, for HEAT as range (as you said 😋) does not effect penetration and cheap APDSFS (steel intially) for close, Zalgora, etc
USSR has pioneered the use of APFSDS ammunition in tanks loadout with the introduction of T-62 medium tank. With their extremely high speed and long direct-fire range these rounds could be effectively used at substantial range in spite of the antiquated fire control of T-62. Opposite to the popular belief, it was not however a prefered anti-tank round until the end of seventies, with HEAT being considered more versatile, accurate, and powerful. This, as well as very modest advances in NATO armor protection during this period, resulted in the Soviet APFSDS rounds not changing much in appearance until the 80s, with only evolutionary changes in internal composition; they were nevertheless sufficient for dealing with contemporary NATO armor thanks to significant potential offered by 125mm gun.
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If you can get US to adopt M732, as a "cheaper" MICV, you can get a lot of nations standardised on one vehicle.
Instead of M113 based AIFV;
Turkey, Belgium, Netherlands all M723
Probably Canada as well?
20×139mm ammunition becomes standard ammo for NATO IFV?
MARDER, AMX-10, and M723
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Giant Man Eating Rabbits
Banned
Regarding tanks & artillery
Could both tanks and artillery using the same caliber of round help such as what happened with the L7 105mm round being not only used by tanks M60, Leopard & Centurion bit also the Abbott SPG, M101, M102 M108 guns?
Would it be useful for NATO tanks to up gun and use the NATO 155mm round?, Is it at all possible?
Could both tanks and artillery using the same caliber of round help such as what happened with the L7 105mm round being not only used by tanks M60, Leopard & Centurion bit also the Abbott SPG, M101, M102 M108 guns?
Would it be useful for NATO tanks to up gun and use the NATO 155mm round?, Is it at all possible?
It doesn't work that way. Tank guns fire unitary ammunition and artillery pieces use separate ammunition with a variable number of charge bags (whether the charge is then cased or the breech is self-obturating), so they wouldn't be compatible even if you wanted to fire the same projectiles out of both guns, which is almost never the case.
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