https://www.defensenews.com/global/e...arine-hunters/
German Defence Ministry dismisses French offer of pre-loved submarine hunters
COLOGNE, Germany — German defense officials have dismissed a French offer of four Atlantique 2 maritime patrol aircraft, arguing the refurbished planes’ expected readiness state would make them unsuitable for service in the German Navy.
Officials in Paris extended a
proposal to their counterparts in Berlin after news broke earlier this spring that the U.S. government was
prepared to sell the German sea service a handful of P-8 Poseidon aircraft as a replacement for the country’s clapped-out P-3 Orion fleet.
It is unclear if defense leaders in Berlin have formally notified their French colleagues that they found the Atlantic 2-based proposal to be lackluster. Information about the conclusion first appeared in a letter last month from Thomas Silberhorn, one of the German Defence Ministry deputies, to lawmaker Christian Sauter, a member of the parliamentary Defence Committee.
German government-news service Behörden Spiegel first reported on the missive.
Silberhorn’s one-page response to Sauter, a member of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), suggests the idea of four Atlantique 2 planes wouldn’t even come close to plugging the Germany Navy’s maritime-patrol and anti-submarine shortfall, either for training or actual missions.
“The aircraft were produced as of 1984 and fielded to the French navy beginning in 1989,” the letter stated. “The condition of the proposed ATL2 cells was not specified by France,” it adds, using the acronym for the Dassault-made aircraft.
That language suggests a re-winging of the planes would be necessary, a tricky undertaking that officials here considered for a now-defunct Orion life-extension program before government auditors flagged runaway costs last summer, according to Sebastian Bruns, a naval analyst at the University of Kiel.
“If the French offer us a similar option, we haven’t gained anything,” he said. “I can’t help but think that they want to get rid of their aging airframes while driving a wedge into Germany’s prospective P-8 purchase.”....