Future Combat Air System (FCAS / SCAF / FSAC) - Speculation and Theories

[galgot]

Again it was DA that pushed to end this project because they wanted more of the pie, thats not a secret. Airbus just made it more public.

You are right about that.

Yes that leader was France, and France pretty much got everything they wanted besides a blanco check.

Well, the end result is the end of SCAF, and Airbus DS getting the whole new big German defence budget for his new project alone, how convenient. So if they pushed to end this project, you should thank Dassault instead of blaming them.
Show a bit of gratitude, tsss tss tss...

 

[red admiral]

I don't think these assertions of JV vs Prime models are correct.

 

[zrav]

Perhaps Dassault made things worse by being tone-deaf or uncooperative... [...] Personally I don't trust Airbus DS's motives one bit, as their obstructionism happened right after Germany decided to spend hundreds of billions on defense (partly to make up for decades of underinvestment) and became more comfortable pushing its weight around... too much of a coincidence IMHO and I suspect that Airbus DS decided they could make a play for a much bigger share of that pie by sabotaging FCAS.

Your framing is backwards. In an effort to show European unity and willingness to cooperate the Merkel government had struck a deal with France that was already very favorable to DA (and detrimental to German industry), yet DA decided to try to renegotiate even those terms and started pointing fingers when ADS did not budge. I'd call that an attempt to try to either get away with it or sabotage a project that was already dead while not looking like the culprit. And I agree with the others that are calling the breakup a blessing, although a late one.

 

[galgot]

Hilarious how everyone seems happy with this project being abandoned, while still pointing finger at who did what to make collapse their (now) apparently most hated project.
I have solution, being French, I'm ready to cheer at AirbusDS for sabotaging this project, while I encourage Germans to cheer at Dassault for doing the same. Yeepee.

 

[zrav]

Tbh I don't care who gets to do what and decide in European defence projects. I do, however, think that the integration and consolidation of the European defence industry is a necessity, and in this context the french Strategic Autonomy is an obstacle (I am not disputing that it has its benefits, too).

 

[Ballysack]

I seriously keep wondering how FCAS could have turned out, if SAAB/Sweden had been a party to it in the beginning. Could SAAB have proved enough of a counter-balance to Dassault & Airbus for it not to blow up in everyone's face, allowing them to be a key mediator? I remember Trappier even brought this up. Furthermore, could a pre-R&D kind of fund be a possible solution? Somewhere where different companies put a pricetag on their previous research, such that other companies can kind of buy into, without the fight over intellectual property and their sharing thereof.

 

[H_K]

I seriously keep wondering how FCAS could have turned out, if SAAB/Sweden had been a party to it in the beginning. Could SAAB have proved enough of a counter-balance to Dassault & Airbus for it not to blow up in everyone's face, allowing them to be a key mediator?

Doubt so. It's hard to have a successful partnership when there's a dissymmetry in experience and expectations, and one partner in particular has an inflated sense of their ability to contribute.

Dassault & Saab had a successful partnership on Neuron (along with a few others such as Leonardo and Airbus Casa). Saab in many ways had a similar partnership with Boeing on T-7 Redhawk. In both cases Saab was willing to accept that the other partner had design leadership. Perhaps if Saab advocated strongly for continuing the same model... would that convince Airbus DS or the German government decision makers to change their mind?

Because the fundamental problem was that Airbus DS was insisting on sharing equal intellectual property and design leadership rights with Dassault, which Saab didn't do either on Redhawk or Neuron and probably wouldn't have done on NGF (even though Saab would bring more to the table than Airbus DS). Some might counter that Dassault demonstrated an inflated ego, but at least their qualifications to lead NGF were never in doubt... and indeed that was set out in the original FCAS deal (i.e. Airbus got the lead on the combat cloud and EuroMale UAV, Dassault got the lead on NGF).

 

[EmoBirb]

Hilarious how everyone seems happy with this project being abandoned, while still pointing finger at who did what to make collapse their (now) apparently most hated project.
I have solution, being French, I'm ready to cheer at AirbusDS for sabotaging this project, while I encourage Germans to cheer at Dassault for doing the same. Yeepee.

Was this directed at me?

Either way, yes I believe it's better that way because now Dassault can focus on delivering an aircraft/system that the French military actually wants while Airbus can focus on delivering the same for the German military. Nobody has to compromise for the other anymore.

 

[snne]

Was this directed at me?

Either way, yes I believe it's better that way because now Dassault can focus on delivering an aircraft/system that the French military actually wants while Airbus can focus on delivering the same for the German military. Nobody has to compromise for the other anymore.

What about the Spanish?

 

[kqcke for you]

What about the Spanish?

What? Never heard of them before/j

 

[Scott Kenny]

What about the Spanish?

The last time Germany cared about what the Spanish thought was in the 1930s.