What if Germany did not go for the F-104

[GK Dundas]

What's almost never talked about when it comes to the exceedingly high German losses. Was a simple combination of two factors as I see it.
The Germans suffered from insufficient training and experience. And the unforgiving conditions of the role they were carrying out..
It was an incredibly tough role,low level strike.

Edit to just add one thing I had a cousin who flew CF 5s,CF 104s and 18s and his comment was he spent his flying career mostly at low level and mostly scared.
The phrase that stuck was "Blink at the wrong moment and you're dead."

 

[martinbayer]

F-104G was the only game in town. Lockheed had no need to lubricate anybody and wasted their money on Strauss and Pr.Bernhard.

All true and well put. Germany had every incentive to choose the F-104 and did. But what if, in a bizarre twist (and this being an 'alternative history' thread), Germany did not go for the F-104? Who had the next best proposition - Grumman?

I'd say, realistically, the F-8.

I think that would have been way too heavy/sluggish/expensive for a country of the size of then West Germany. I could see the F-5A as much better suited for a pure nimble quick reaction interceptor at the time.

 

[Yankee_Aviator]

I tend to agree that the F-8 would be the most likely, could it be modified more for the land based role? I'm thinking no variable incidence wing so they can add more hardpoints, lightened structure, J79 or even a Spey, and 30mm ADEN/DEFA cannons to replace the unreliable Mk.12s. Was anything close to this proposed or feasible?

I'd go as far as to argue for an M61 Vulcan in place of the Colts as was done on the A-7

 

[Yankee_Aviator]

A land-based Crusader with a J79 would indeed no longer need a VI wing - as the engine is not only shorter, but the nozzle won't hit a flight deck at low speed and high AoA anymore.

Problem: these two modifications would cost Germany an arm and a leg. "Better is the ennemy of good" sometimes.

Maybe the V.I wing mechanism could be locked in place or removed altogether without further modifications ?

Vanilla Crusader IIs would probably be a better idea.

The Marineflieger at least would like the Crusader for obvious reasons. Maybe it could be adapted to lob anti-ship missiles (Kormoran ?)

I vote for the Crusader as the winner here. Super Tiger would be better but has no backing from its mother country, and that's pretty bad.

It's also worth mentioning that the F-8 was the sole type to carry the AIM-9C. The SARH Sidewinder variant would have given NATO air forces a capability that the F-104 wouldn't offer until the Italians developed the F-104S; that being the ability to employ radar guided missiles. This capability would have been particularly useful in the point air defense role, allowing the interceptor to shoot at a bomber from the frontal aspect instead of having to get behind it and shoot from the rear as an F-104G carrying AIM-9Bs would have had to. The Crusader would have been something of a "Phantom Lite" so to speak. I'd still argue for the substitution of a J79-GE-11A as in the F-104G, deletion of the V-I wing mechanism, and changing the gun armament to an M61 Vulcan as was done in the A-7 (yes I'm aware the A-7 came much later, but I would imagine that if Vought sought to stick an M61 into the Crusader, it would end up in much the same arrangement as would eventually be seen on the A-7 Corsair II)

 

[Yankee_Aviator]

Forget the Super Tiger or the Crusader, the real answer to this problem, as the Germans realised a decade later, was the F4 Phantom. It first flew in 1958 and entered service in 1961.
Compared with the tortuous options above, especially the daft SR177, getting the F4 around in the late 50s rather than the early 60s seems a much easier alt Luftwaffe.
Canada is the other F4 should have been.
This would not have killed the Starfighter though the Belgians, Danes, Dutch and Norwegians might have gone with Drakens (Denmark bought some) or Mirages (Belgium later bought Mirage Vs).
They might even have bought Lightnings if the UK had got its act together.

Would the US have been willing to green light export sales of the brand new Phantom only a year after its first flight? I think unit cost aside, US export policy of the time would have hindered early Phantom foreign military sales more than anything.

 

[uk 75]

Re-visiting this thread I think the Mirage III would have been chosen if there had been no F104.
Military aircraft procurement is more about politics than the qualities of the aircraft. Lockheed gave West Germany a major boost to developing its own industry and the US was crucial to the country's defence. After the US France was Germany's most important partner and was to also be a major partner in aerospace.
Like Lockheed Dassault were a forceful outfit and knew how to sell their product.
Mirage III was the only European supersonic choice. Sweden was not a NATO member so Draken was not an option.
Lightning in its later export versions might have been a runner but could not carry a fuselage mounted NATO nuclear weapon like F104 or Mirage III.

 

[tomo pauk]

Re-visiting this thread I think the Mirage III would have been chosen if there had been no F104.

The most sensible choice in that time and place.

 

[alertken]

sensible..bar 3 issues, which is why I have said F-104(to be)G was the only game in town.

Ike was Pres. He had decided, Trumpily, in '57 that W.Europe should do more to defend itself, so: increase spending, and offset the $ drain of US Forces - especially dependents (he had spent years as a Major in the Canal Zone and saw dependents as extravagantly cosy for conscripts).
He also decided to share the dying by arranging a dual key Release Procedure to crew USAW with alien warmware. (RAF Project "E" was not for England, but Europe).

So a Mirage award would have required:
- more industrial collaboration than RAAF secured...which proved to be more than anybody except Israel has ever extracted from AMD;
- something else very substantial in FRG Defence Budgets for a decade to go to US as $ Offset... but more, much more than this...
- US to assist in hanging USAW on it! US by 1959 was so aiding: UK, Canberra, V-Bombers, and later would aid Shackleton, Nimrod and Italy/Neths Atlantic...but, in 1960, France...?

 

[Kiltonge]

The most sensible choice in that time and place.

Except the Mirage III was ruled out by the Luftwaffe as failing to meet the requirements that the F-104 and Super Tiger achieved. It also didn't come with a healthy dollop of US MAP funding; free money.

Without the F-104 the ST wins on technical merit as it originally did, before Lockheed spun-up the incentives.

I think the scenario is more intriguing without the Super Tiger existing. Would Germany have softened the requirements so that Mirage could contend? Or stick with limited US options?

 

[Rule of cool]

Whatever is chosen it will have to be adopted by the parent country in numbers, and the Super Tiger was not. IIUC the USAF bought 153 F104A, 26 F104B and 77 F104C before the F104G was selected by West Germany, and these number remove much of the risk of the programme failing.

The only other potential options are the Lightning and Mirage III, the Lightning lacked the support of it's home government and therefore development.

 

[Caryina2642]

Whatever is chosen it will have to be adopted by the parent country in numbers, and the Super Tiger was not. IIUC the USAF bought 153 F104A, 26 F104B and 77 F104C before the F104G was selected by West Germany, and these number remove much of the risk of the programme failing.

The only other potential options are the Lightning and Mirage III, the Lightning lacked the support of it's home government and therefore development.

I dont see the USN not buying the super tiger as big of a deal as say the F20 in the 80s. I mean if it wasnt for the korean war Australia was going to buy the Hawker P.1081 to replace the DH Vampire.
Plus it means for jobs and a larger aircraft industry for west germany, canada, japan plus whoever else buys it. They can create a consurtium for producing spares

 

[Rule of cool]

I dont see the USN not buying the super tiger as big of a deal as say the F20 in the 80s. I mean if it wasnt for the korean war Australia was going to buy the Hawker P.1081 to replace the DH Vampire.
Plus it means for jobs and a larger aircraft industry for west germany, canada, japan plus whoever else buys it. They can create a consurtium for producing spares

That's the difference between 1st and 2nd Gen jet fighters; the complexity of the basic design makes them inherently riskier and owning the IP more important.

 

[uk 75]

The Supertiger and various Lightning variants could only have been NATO production aircraft if the US and UK had given them the effort the US and Lockheed did with the F104. Bur this can also be said of the Mirage as Alertken explains above.
Arguably though it stretches credibility the SR177 if it had been technically feasible and the UK not the UK we know and love....
But the only aircraft to serve its manufacturing nation in both fighter and strike roles was the Mirage. So it remains my choice.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Pardon me, binged the thread.

Is it a Me-109 desert livery, on that AV-8B ??!!

If you're going to do an AH livery, start with the best!

I believe the scenario posed at the beginning of this thread is as follows: West Germany has announced that it will not be buying the F-104 (we don't know exactly when this happens though). The F-104 is no longer an option for the FRG. What happens next?
To take your points in order:
1. I presume the 'you' here is addressed to each of the manufacturers competing to supply the FRG with its next fighter. I'm not sure what you mean by 'killing' the West German order. Do you mean that the successful contender (other than Lockheed) must secure a West German order by 1959 to have any chance of creating a 'snowball effect' similar to what happened with the F-104?
2. Chip away at the smaller NATO members? How do you mean?
3. Yes ('you' being, again, presumably the contending manufacturer).
4. Yes (ditto).
5. Interesting point. It's a shame we don't know, in this scenario, exactly when the FRG declined to purchase the F-104!
6. The F-104 is dead to Germany. However, there's nothing to stop the other nations from purchasing it. Could Lockheed have managed to create that 'snowball' effect even without the original German snowball? Seems unlikely. I suppose the question is, would the 'sale of the century' have still happened if the FRG had picked a different design, say, the Super Tiger?

I think the "bribe of the century" getting caught would effectively kill the F-104 for both Germany and Japan.

For Japan, the next leading plane was the Super Tiger. IIRC the Super Tiger was also leading in Germany, too.

With perfect hindsight, do we know what was the most realstic option ?
- single seater with Sparrow II, active homing
- single seater with Sparrow III, semi-active homing
- two-seater with Sparrow III, semi-active homing

Sparrow II was not viable for 1950s/60s technology. I mean, yes, technically you could make the radar work, but it'd be a 5nmi range weapon. In perfect weather. In clouds or in rain, much less.

I'm also not convinced that a single-seater SARH Sparrow III is viable. Not enough automation available to make the things work in practice.

Note that the successful Sparrow plane was the Phantom.

 

[SSgtC]

I'm also not convinced that a single-seater SARH Sparrow III is viable. Not enough automation available to make the things work in practice.

This depends on what your target is. For the F8U-3 that lost to the Phantom, Vought had developed both a highly functional autopilot, and had automated a big chunk of the radar. In theory, the pilot would fly the Crusader III up to cruise, engage the autopilot, then go heads down to work the radar. Once a target was selected, the FCS would slave the radar to that target without further input from the pilot. So long as the pilot kept the radar within 60 degrees of the target. After that, all they had to do was shoot.

But here's where the problem comes in. As a fleet defense interceptor, who's primary targets were expected to be bombers and MPAs, this system works fairly well. Minimal maneuvering is required, so the pilot can focus on working the radar and FCS. However, if your target is a fighter, then good luck using a Sparrow. You need a very capable HUD and HOTAS system to make it even partially workable if your primary targets are enemy fighters. And in the late 1950s, that's pushing it

 

[Scott Kenny]

This depends on what your target is. For the F8U-3 that lost to the Phantom, Vought had developed both a highly functional autopilot, and had automated a big chunk of the radar. In theory, the pilot would fly the Crusader III up to cruise, engage the autopilot, then go heads down to work the radar. Once a target was selected, the FCS would slave the radar to that target without further input from the pilot. So long as the pilot kept the radar within 60 degrees of the target. After that, all they had to do was shoot.

But here's where the problem comes in. As a fleet defense interceptor, who's primary targets were expected to be bombers and MPAs, this system works fairly well. Minimal maneuvering is required, so the pilot can focus on working the radar and FCS. However, if your target is a fighter, then good luck using a Sparrow. You need a very capable HUD and HOTAS system to make it even partially workable if your primary targets are enemy fighters. And in the late 1950s, that's pushing it

I'm not convinced that the autopilot would remain working after a few carrier landings.

 

[airman]

I think an alternate history of F-104 where this aircraft was cancelled could be open many options. Considering the options of Vought F-8 Crusader and Phantom II i am inclined for Phantom II as possible alternative to F-104.