European militaries only need one type of helicopter

[rotor-rooter]

This might be a very interesting insight into the future European strategy. Only one type of helicopter?

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/12/09/world/europe/ap-eu-europe-defense.html?_r=0

[FC80]

There might be plenty of H225s going spare soon :}

[[email protected]]

Exactly what has been wrong with European Government - trying to pursue a 'one-size-fits-all' solution to every problem.:ugh:

[piperpa46]

The CH-47 could be an excellent ASW platform, It might be a little difficult to make it fit on a type 45 though.

[ShyTorque]

Maybe they should reduce the scope of the EU's gravy train lunch menu, too.

[Evil Twin]

Don't forget that these are the people that get to vote for their own pay rises.:ugh:

[Lonewolf_50]

It would appear that Mr Juncker is an ignoramous when it comes to defense matters.
The chief of the European Union's executive branch said Friday he wants to streamline defense procurement and industries in member states to make them more efficient and less dependent on U.S. military protection. Reasonable statement. "We have in Europe 174 kinds of weapons" when "one European helicopter and one European tank would be enough," Juncker said. That's downright stupid. You'd need one purpose built for cargo and one purpose built for attack, at a minimum. The design tradeoffs based on mission requirements appear to be something Mr Juncker has no understanding of. I won't comment on how many tank types would be needed, but I suspect that the experts in land warfare may have similar views regarding that utterance.

[Shackman]

Presumably he means only one type is required to carry his ego around.

[tigerfish]

I am afraid that politicians in general and especially those like Juncker, only look at the question from a cost viewpoint and never on how efficiently it will be possible to operate the machine.
To them a helicopter is something that flies but unlike a conventional aircraft it can take off vertically. Thats about the scope of their knowledge, and it is very compartmentalised. There is no understanding of varying roles, sizes and capabilities. To them its a helicopter and all helicopters are the same end of!

Politicians are very similar to accountants in that respect!

TF

[rotor-rooter]

Mind you, he is from Luxembourg, which has neither an Air Force, Navy or any helicopters - but they do have a typical EU boondoggle. It's hardly a wonder he's such an expert on this topic!

Aircraft

NATO acquired 18 E-3A AWACS aircraft, with a decision to register them in Luxembourg, because until that point Luxembourg did not have an air force. The first E-3 was delivered in January 1982. Presently there are seventeen E-3As in the inventory, with one loss in July 1996. The aircraft are registered to Luxembourg, flown by NATO pilots, and based at the NATO Air Base Geilenkirchen.

Aircraft Origin Type Variant In service
AWACS Boeing E-3 Sentry United States early warning and control E-3A 17[18] under NATO command – modified version of the Boeing 707-300

Transport
Airbus A400M Atlas European Union tactical airlift on order 1, in cooperation with the Belgian Air Component

Retired
Aircraft Origin Type Variant
Piper PA-18 Super Cub United States Trainer, Liaison aircraft L-18C 3 in service from 1952 to 1968.

[abgd]

Can anybody find a full transcript of the speech? Obviously only 1 type of helicopter and 1 type of tank would be ridiculous. Usually this kind of stuff is on the EU website, but I can't find any record of it at the moment.

I would have said 'nobody serious' could propose anything quite so stupid, but I suppose there has been the F35 do-everything warplane.

[ericferret]

Jean-Claude Juncker, the Brexiters best recruiting sergeant!!!!!

[Tango123]

Juncker does not know what he is talking about.

I flew a VIP (Chief of Defence) quite a few years ago in Denmark. He used to be a fighter pilot. Having this background, he stated that the goal futurewise was one helicopter type for the danish military, since three (Lynx, S-61 and AS550) was too much/expensive for a small military like the danish one. Budget cuts etc. would make it necessary. Also logic thinking, since the danish military have had only one fighter type since 1993 - the F-16, first time since the end of WW2. No plans of changing that, since the F35 will replace the F16 in an few years.

Now 17 years down the road, we have EH101, Seahawk - replacing the Lynx, and the AS550 - still three types.

[Non-PC Plod]

Its easy to be too pedantic on this, just because he used overly general examples. The point of the speech seems to be that savings could be made if Europe did more to harmonise its procurement process. Maybe he should have said one training helicopter, and one main battletank. It really doesn't affect the gist of what he is saying, so there is no point in dying in a ditch over the detail!

[Tango123]

N-P P, I don't see any point in having a vision, like Junckers, if there is no realism in it at all. And there is not!

France will always buy Airbus A/Cs, Italy AWs, and the small nations like Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway will perfer US, like the they did with the F-35, even if the Eurofighter had been better and cheaper. Nations producing military equipment will buy their own, and small nations relying on NATO (US and UK) will perfer buying buy US military equipment.

[abgd]

I would agree with NPCP - the gist is that our defence procurement could be simplified. What does '174 kinds of weapons' mean anyway? He gives the counter-example of the USA operating 27 kinds of weapon - but there are 175 types of aircraft operated by the US army, navy, coastguard, air-force so presumably the comparison is with a subset e.g. front-line attack aircraft, tanks only. Is a transport or a training helicopter actually a weapon (OK, I know you can probably bolt on a gun and claim it is). On this basis you could infer that 'one European helicopter' means 'one attack helicopter' and not 'using Apaches for training, attack and troop transport'.

Even if there is a degree of parochialism I'm sure it's true that a degree of co-operation could improve capability hugely. And which has done better: the Eurofighter or the Rafale? France may have chosen its own aircraft, but it would have been surely better off staying at the party. What if the Eurofighter had ended up with the best features of the Rafale and vice-versa? Perhaps even more foreign exports as well.

[noflynomore]

I don't think "one helicopter type" is at all comparable with "one main battle tank"
More like with with "one tracked armoured vehicle" which is clearly ludicrous.

NATO needs a different helo type for;

Training (2 types, surely?)
Battlefield Attack (one)
ASW (one)
Small Ships(one)
Troop/cargo/liason/utility . Arguably one dedicated type; Chinook or CH53 but you'd still need 2 others as variants of ASW and Small Ships (eg EH101 and Lynx) being common types you already have - albeit in very different variants.

That makes six distinct types with 2 variants. You might contrive an advanced trainer common with a small ships/liason and bring this down to 5. Below that seems impossible.

[tottigol]

Given Herr Junk-er origins one dan only surmise at which should be the manufacturer.
I wonder what's going to happen when France and Germany shall find themselves the only remaining nations in the EU.

[Lonewolf_50]

I wonder what's going to happen when France and Germany shall find themselves the only remaining nations in the EU.
Great rejoicing?

[singesavant]

well at least if these two countries are the last EU remaining one, they might not be the initiator of WWIII, gotta give them that in regard of the past which we seem to have all forgotten...