The RCAF's Next Generation Fighter (CF-188 Replacement)

[Altair]

No first world nation is setting up a program to buy or build 4rg Fighters. That is the point.

Rafales, Eurofighters, F16s, Gripens are all still being purchased and built.

Are we late to the game, sure, but better late than never.

You enjoy ignoring context don’t you.

I enjoy ignoring false narratives.

You probably are that shortsighted you think that would be a win for Canada.

Any move to decouple Canada from the USA in terms of military reliance is a win.

 

[Furniture]

Canada has a lot of IRB’s on F-35, all you are doing is giving reasons to pull every single US Defense Company out of Canada.

Canada has a lot of auto manufacturing and the US governemtn, against the wishes of the companies themselves, is trying to force the industy out of Canada. In what world does it make sense to assume that America won't do the same the second the last Canadian F-35 rolls off the line, or the second our final order is placed?

Saab/Sweden haven't been actively trying to destroy our industries for the last year...

If the RCAF keeps play the game of tilting requirements to American platforms, the RCAF is likely to be told what BC was. It's a big CAF, and if they don't want to play ball, the money can go elsewhere... I bet a few new CDC, or LAVs could be bought with the extra cash.

 

[Altair]

Canada has a lot of auto manufacturing and the US governemtn, against the wishes of the companies themselves, is trying to force the industy out of Canada. In what world does it make sense to assume that America won't do the same the second the last Canadian F-35 rolls off the line, or the second our final order is placed?

Saab/Sweden haven't been actively trying to destroy our industries for the last year...

If the RCAF keeps play the game of tilting requirements to American platforms, the RCAF is likely to be told what BC was. It's a big CAF, and if they don't want to play ball, the money can go elsewhere... I bet a few new CDC, or LAVs could be bought with the extra cash.

The RCAF is just going to get itself kicked out of the decision making room.

If they havent been already.

Again, no other serious nation would let its air force go buy whatever without domestic considerations being taken into account.

 

[Altair]

  

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/trump-urges-us-to-produce-all-f-35-components-domestically/3322677

Former President Donald Trump urged the US on Thursday to produce all components of the F-35 fighter jet domestically, citing national security concerns.

"We will require all essential materials for our national security to be produced here in the United States, creating millions and millions of new manufacturing jobs," said Trump, who is seeking reelection in November.

"When we build the F-35, we have the wings built in one country, we have the tail rudders built in another country. We have the seats built in another country. We have the electronics built in seven different countries," said the former president at a luncheon at the Economic Club of New York.

"What the hell would we do if there's a war, and we'll end up fighting half of those countries, and we don't want to have a war, because right now, we're closer to World War III than we've ever been in our lives," he said.

Its not even like he hasnt mused about it before...

 

[Rainbow1910]

Sweden is able to build 15ish jets a year.

If a Canadian partnership can double that, especially with them needing to supply Ukraine, thats our foot in the door, thats us providing a industrial base SAAB needs.

I view this as an opportunity to be more than just a assembly plant.

A Ukraine contract which is still up in the air, for a country at war who cannot pay for the aircraft themselves. Such an order could disappear tomorrow, is that the sort of item we want to hedge billions of dollars of investments and a 5-10 years of development on? Other export options for Gripen seems exceptionally sparse.

What is this Saab industrial base exactly going to do for Canada once Gripen is finished production and there is no more orders left? We will not have built sufficient expertise to meaningfully participate in a 6th generation program, Saab is not going to rob work from their domestic Swedish facilities to keep a Canadian branch plant alive and Saab is very much behind the curve on large unmanned platform development. Why are we hitching ourselves to a desperate and low capability partner? It seems like we're being led on by promises and a carrot on a stick.

Laughed out the door. If they want a part of the increased pie that is coming they should get on board. There is no way Carney is going to try to get to 3.5 percent of GDP on the military while letting the RCAF direct all that money out of Canada with little to no benefits here at home.

When a Government is more worried about industrial benefits than military capability, that is how we get capabilities like the CF-5 tossed to the airforce. The military is stuck operating unsuitable equipment long past its useful date because the Government wants to pump up a questionable relevant industry. Just because the RCAF isn't willing to sign onto an inferior fighter attached to a questionable domestic industry question, doesn't mean they are willing to dump all of their money abroad. We invest internally when it makes sense and take that investment elsewhere when required, this is realistically the latter of those choices. The F-35 program is not the make or break of the CAF's defence programs, it's a drop in the bucket when compared to the types of projects that the Navy is putting together, with high domestic workshare and offsets.

A piece of that pie isn't useful to the RCAF when it comes far too late, shriveled up and half rotten. We're leaving some of the most vital bit of Canadian defence kit to a second rate platform nobody wants.

Yet your suggestion of doing exactly the same nonsense that we have over the last 50 years and expecting different results is somehow worse.

And your suggestion is naivety wrapped up in a Canadian flag. Doing something just to be a change from the status quo is not automatically an improvement, especially when there is either no attached follow-up plan or that itself is equally as unrealistic and naive. I have no problems building our domestic industry where it makes sense, this is not one of those situations. The juice is not worth the squeeze, why has nobody else besides Brazil taken Saab up on this oh so generous offer when its been repeatedly offered? It very much seems like we are the sucker.

Again, defaulting to the status quo is still worse.

Your suggestion is Canada signs onto a platform with a very small userbase, where we would be stuck shouldering a substantial amount of the upkeep and development burden, for an inferior aircraft that has very limited future opportunities? All of this on top of dumping years and billions into setting up domestic plants to facilitate this?

I feel your dislike of the F-35/American equipment and this seeming desire to "change something" is forcing you to accept worryingly poor options that all of our allies have already declined years ago.

If push comes to shove, go with SAAB.

Go with the arguably worse option of the two/three, duly noted.

Yet you provide no alternatives to the status quo.

I am not sure if you ignored my alternatives or simply did not read them, but I have been providing them for quite sometime. I have been pushing for Canada to ignore this Gripen fixation and move onto large unmanned wingman drone development. Aerial combat is evolving to an end point where manned fighters will be supported by fleets of partially expendable drone wingmen, nobody has developed the industry standard yet and there is substantial room for new players to enter the market.

Instead of putting forward yesterdays fighter that has already been largely rejected by our allies and the world as a whole, Canada either develops our own indigenous unmanned system or we get onboard with an existing design to fully license the IP and production of it. We would have a platform to heavily reinforce the operations of our existing fighter fleet, while also making a truly viable platform for the foreign market. Australia has developed the MQ-28 Ghost Bat out of an aviation industry that isn't entirely dissimilar to Canada, what looks to be an advanced and fairly capable option.

I disagree that the Gripen is the only or even best option to develop a domestic aviation industry.

Status quo ante should not be acceptable going forward. Full stop.

If we are spending 3.5 percenf of GDP we cannot just be simple customers, tossing all those billions out the door with nothing in return. Especially since it leaves us vulnerable to cost cutting politicians in the future.

If we are going to fixate on domestic production for every single item we want to procure regardless of the reality of the situation, we're inviting countless boondoggles and money burning exercises. This is not something that most nations do, effectively only the superpowers have this kind of industrial onshoring capability. 3.5% of GDP on defence is not a huge or unrealistic figure that necessitates everything be a domestic industrial program, Canadians are very much unfamiliar with such a number due to our spending being so low for so long.

The alternative is spending billions at home for a sub-par capability, largely orphaned compared to our allies with limited industrial building and export potential? I don't see all of the supposed advantages to the Gripen that others are apparently seeing, it's baffling to me to sell your military capabilities so short for the promise of domestic jobs.

 

[Altair]

The alternative is spending billions at home for a sub-par capability, largely orphaned compared to our allies with limited industrial building and export potential? I don't see all of the supposed advantages to the Gripen that others are apparently seeing, it's baffling to me to sell your military capabilities so short for the promise of domestic jobs.

Name a G7 nation that isnt building their own domestic fighter jet in some capacity? Here is the short list, Japan and Canada.

Name a country in the G7 that isnt having a mix of 4th gen and 5th gen fighters. Here is the short list, Japan and Canada.

So one nation constitutional bound to the the USA defending it and Japan.

You want to keep that small minded, small fish in a big pond, colonial mindset, you do you. Its how Canada has done it for half a century, history is on your side.

I would rather Canada try to think bigger, do better, be less dependent on the USA and develop an alternative to just buying new stuff once every 40 years.

I just think that if we are spending 120-150b a year on defense spending, it makes sense to invest that here to build things here as opposed to just making lockmart richer.

 

[Czech_pivo]

Ok I'm going to attempt to weave this discussion into the NSS. I'm not going to say which partner we should necessarily be going with during this analysis.

I hear from quite a lot of people on here that Canada doesn't have, currently, the domestic ability to produce a 6th or a 5th or even a 4th generation fighter jet and that we shouldn't even bother considering doing so. That sounds a lot like the argument that has been put forward 15 or so odd years ago when the NSS was being slapped together. Let's put aside our ability to produce the fastest private corporate jet on the market today and let's also put aside the ability of CAE.

That we hadn't produced a modern warship in over 20yrs and that we'd be wasting our time in doing so was a thread that was loud and strong when the NSS was being cobbled together and it still has champions today. The solution that was taken, for all 3 classes of ships that the RCN has taken possession of, (AOPS), is about to take possession (JSS) and will take possession of in the future (River Class), was for Canada to buy an existing set of blueprints for the AOPS (Svalbard class), for the JSS (Berlin Class) and for the Rivers' (Type 26) and to add various 'Canadian' touches (needs/requirements) to each of these classes of ships. Today, though we have throughput constraints in my humble opinion, we have successfully commissioned the DeWolf class, are about to commission the Protecteur class and have had our first keel laying ceremony on the River class. Not bad for a country that hadn't produced a warship in 20 odd years.

But what did we 'really produce' in each of these classes of ships?

Engines:

• Where the engines in the AOPS produced/manufactured in Canada? Yes, they were in Peterborough.
• Where the engines in the JSS produced/manufactured in Canada? No, no they were not. Those engines were produced in Europe at MAN's facilities there and their CDN facilities provided the 'integration, training, testing and support' of these engines.
• Where are the engines in the River's produced/manufactured in Canada? No, no they are not. Those engines are being produced in the UK by Roll Royce (gas turbines) and the diesel generators in Germany by Rolls Royce.

Armament:

• AOPS - its 25mm was not produced in Canada - .50 cals I don't believe were produced in Canada
• JSS - its CIWS (20mm) was not produced in Canada - .50 cals I don't believe were produced in Canada
• Rivers - long, long list of items here, but the main 127mm guns will not be produced here in Canada, the mk41's will not be produced here in Canada, 30mm autocannons will not be produced here in Canada, the .50 cals aren't produced in Canada, etc, etc, etc

Radar/Electronics:

• AOPS - Denmark played a role in the radar, LM Canada played a role, who else?
• JSS - LM Canada, SAAB played a role, who else?
• Rivers - LM Canada, LM US, Thales (France), who else?

Steel:

• AOPS - Canada, China, who else?
• JSS - Canada?, China?, who else?
• Rivers - ??

So for each of these classes, we, Canada produced the 'shell' of the class and in 1 class, AOPS, we produced the engine. It sounds a lot like making a car. Ford, Chrysler, GM, Honda, Toyota, KIA, etc, don't make the radios/touch screens that go into their vehicles. They don't make the tires that go on their cars, They don't make batteries, they don't make headlights, they don't make the steering wheel, the windows, none of that. They focus on the design and the manufacturing of the vehicle frame (in most cases), and they farm out the specs to others and then they pull it altogether and assembly it.

In each of the above classes, Svalbard, Berlin and Type 26, someone designed them and sold them to us and we in turn added some 'Canadian' flavour to them and then we started manufacturing the frame and farmed out to others (mostly foreign companies), the production of the 'radio, tires, windows, engine, seats, floormats, etc, etc,' and then we pulled it altogether and assembled it all.

Where am I going with this? The US has said that the F-47 is a US only project, no partners, no foreigners will be a part of it.

So this means for us to team up with SAAB only, or SAAB, Germany & Spain or with GCAP (UK, Japan & Italy) or France, or go it completely alone, the reality is that in each of those scenarios certain key aspects of a 6th gen fighter will incorporate key pieces of its puzzle from 'vendor's most likely outside it set of partners. In NO situation do I see GCAP or SAAB/German/Spain (Canada), or France not having to incorporate outside partners.

Pulling this back to the discussion of potential 4-4.5th gen fighters assembled in Canada or even potential 6th gen fighters manufactured/assembled in Canada, I view it as pretty much the same situation as what the NSS was talking about 15ish years ago. Do we believe that the ability to manufacture parts of and have final assemble of, a 4.5, 5 or 6 gen fighter is needed within Canada? I would argue that this question is absolutely NO different than the question, 'Do we believe that Canada should have the ability to manufacture parts of and have final assembly of a modern warship within Canada?' They are 1 and the same question.

With all this being said, the need, the requirement, for us to have the F35 now and going forward into the future should be apparent to anyone rationally looking at the lay of the land. I do believe that 72+ are needed. Going forward, whatever path we chose, we need to look back at the same discussions around the NSS and make our decisions based off of those discussions. If we are to be an independent, sovereign nation into the future, then we must have to ability to produce some sort of fighter program at a scale where their numbers do make a difference in any future potential conflict.

 

[Altair]

Ok I'm going to attempt to weave this discussion into the NSS. I'm not going to say which partner we should necessarily be going with during this analysis.

I hear from quite a lot of people on here that Canada doesn't have, currently, the domestic ability to produce a 6th or a 5th or even a 4th generation fighter jet and that we shouldn't even bother considering doing so. That sounds a lot like the argument that has been put forward 15 or so odd years ago when the NSS was being slapped together. Let's put aside our ability to produce the fastest private corporate jet on the market today and let's also put aside the ability of CAE.

That we hadn't produced a modern warship in over 20yrs and that we'd be wasting our time in doing so was a thread that was loud and strong when the NSS was being cobbled together and it still has champions today. The solution that was taken, for all 3 classes of ships that the RCN has taken possession of, (AOPS), is about to take possession (JSS) and will take possession of in the future (River Class), was for Canada to buy an existing set of blueprints for the AOPS (Svalbard class), for the JSS (Berlin Class) and for the Rivers' (Type 26) and to add various 'Canadian' touches (needs/requirements) to each of these classes of ships. Today, though we have throughput constraints in my humble opinion, we have successfully commissioned the DeWolf class, are about to commission the Protecteur class and have had our first keel laying ceremony on the River class. Not bad for a country that hadn't produced a warship in 20 odd years.

But what did we 'really produce' in each of these classes of ships?

Engines:

• Where the engines in the AOPS produced/manufactured in Canada? Yes, they were in Peterborough.
• Where the engines in the JSS produced/manufactured in Canada? No, no they were not. Those engines were produced in Europe at MAN's facilities there and their CDN facilities provided the 'integration, training, testing and support' of these engines.
• Where are the engines in the River's produced/manufactured in Canada? No, no they are not. Those engines are being produced in the UK by Roll Royce (gas turbines) and the diesel generators in Germany by Rolls Royce.

Armament:

• AOPS - its 25mm was not produced in Canada - .50 cals I don't believe were produced in Canada
• JSS - its CIWS (20mm) was not produced in Canada - .50 cals I don't believe were produced in Canada
• Rivers - long, long list of items here, but the main 127mm guns will not be produced here in Canada, the mk41's will not be produced here in Canada, 30mm autocannons will not be produced here in Canada, the .50 cals aren't produced in Canada, etc, etc, etc

Radar/Electronics:

• AOPS - Denmark played a role in the radar, LM Canada played a role, who else?
• JSS - LM Canada, SAAB played a role, who else?
• Rivers - LM Canada, LM US, Thales (France), who else?

Steel:

• AOPS - Canada, China, who else?
• JSS - Canada?, China?, who else?
• Rivers - ??

So for each of these classes, we, Canada produced the 'shell' of the class and in 1 class, AOPS, we produced the engine. It sounds a lot like making a car. Ford, Chrysler, GM, Honda, Toyota, KIA, etc, don't make the radios/touch screens that go into their vehicles. They don't make the tires that go on their cars, They don't make batteries, they don't make headlights, they don't make the steering wheel, the windows, none of that. They focus on the design and the manufacturing of the vehicle frame (in most cases), and they farm out the specs to others and then they pull it altogether and assembly it.

In each of the above classes, Svalbard, Berlin and Type 26, someone designed them and sold them to us and we in turn added some 'Canadian' flavour to them and then we started manufacturing the frame and farmed out to others (mostly foreign companies), the production of the 'radio, tires, windows, engine, seats, floormats, etc, etc,' and then we pulled it altogether and assembled it all.

Where am I going with this? The US has said that the F-47 is a US only project, no partners, no foreigners will be a part of it.

So this means for us to team up with SAAB only, or SAAB, Germany & Spain or with GCAP (UK, Japan & Italy) or France, or go it completely alone, the reality is that in each of those scenarios certain key aspects of a 6th gen fighter will incorporate key pieces of its puzzle from 'vendor's most likely outside it set of partners. In NO situation do I see GCAP or SAAB/German/Spain (Canada), or France not having to incorporate outside partners.

Pulling this back to the discussion of potential 4-4.5th gen fighters assembled in Canada or even potential 6th gen fighters manufactured/assembled in Canada, I view it as pretty much the same situation as what the NSS was talking about 15ish years ago. Do we believe that the ability to manufacture parts of and have final assemble of, a 4.5, 5 or 6 gen fighter is needed within Canada? I would argue that this question is absolutely NO different than the question, 'Do we believe that Canada should have the ability to manufacture parts of and have final assembly of a modern warship within Canada?' They are 1 and the same question.

With all this being said, the need, the requirement, for us to have the F35 now and going forward into the future should be apparent to anyone rationally looking at the lay of the land. I do believe that 72+ are needed. Going forward, whatever path we chose, we need to look back at the same discussions around the NSS and make our decisions based off of those discussions. If we are to be an independent, sovereign nation into the future, then we must have to ability to produce some sort of fighter program at a scale where their numbers do make a difference in any future potential conflict.

Far too many are comfortable with simply being merchants or a procurement client state of the Americans.

That said, your last paragraph is spot on.