The German government will not abandon the purchase of F-35A fighter jets due to the lack of modern alternatives for the role of a nuclear weapons carrier.
You need tiers of capability. Nukes are one, but a more readily used one is the ability to knock out (or at least suppress) ground based air defense. Stealth aircraft like the F-35 are perfect for this mission, they can get in range, fire off an anti-radiation missile, and get out. Non-stealth aircraft may be forced to turn back before they get their shot off, thus leaving the enemy air-defense active and forcing a scrub of the planned attack on what the air defense was defending.
What does modern in case of aircrafts even mean? And can’t the Dassault Rafale carry nuclear weapons?
The nuclear weapons in Germany are from the US, and the US refuses to help adapt them for fighter jets other than US made.
Since nukes are under US control, why does Germany need to carry them?
The NATO nuclear weapons sharing agreement allows Germany to use ~15 American nuclear weapons when under attack.
Thanks, TIL.
mhm, that sucks but its understandable. Guess we could purchase them from France?
we better solve our satelite and anti air capacity, before we tell agent orange to fuck off.
You need tiers of capability. Nukes are one, but a more readily used one is the ability to knock out (or at least suppress) ground based air defense. Stealth aircraft like the F-35 are perfect for this mission, they can get in range, fire off an anti-radiation missile, and get out. Non-stealth aircraft may be forced to turn back before they get their shot off, thus leaving the enemy air-defense active and forcing a scrub of the planned attack on what the air defense was defending.