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Comment by Xylakant | Hacker News Reader

One reason that germany has selected the F35 as it’s next gen multirole aircraft is that it’s certified to carry US nuclear weapons. Other planes are theoretically capable of doing so, but would require adaptions and certification, increasing cost. With Finland on a path to join the NATO, this could be one consideration here as well.

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US nukes, of the free-falling kind, were exactly why Germany went for a US model. And of those options, F-15, F/A-18 and F-35, the F-35 is the most modern. The F-15 was more or less obsolete at the time (the go for the -X uograde came later), and the F-35 prpably has the longer service life ahead of it.

The Eurofighter could of course carry and drop US nukes. The issue is that it would need US cwrtification to do so, and for rather obvious reasons that certification was close to impossible to get.

Again, the F-35 is a great plane. There are reasons so why it is not not even for the USN and USAF, only one.

Not to sound presumptive but... In the event of an actual nuclear war, why would anyone worry about the certification?

Because you still need to test that stuff before using it. And yes, if it was accute, testing and certification would go fast (see COVID vaccines), but it would still be tested. In reality, having a platform able to carry nukes is Germanies way to be, and stay, part of NATO's nuclear weapon councils. For sure, Germany could also buy Rafales and use French nukes, but that would create such a public outcry that the only result would be no nukes at all anymore for Germany regardless of whose nukes Germany is borrowing.

Edit: The reason for the outcry over French nukes is not that they are French, but rather the need to change the laws around nuclear participation to allow the switch. And that legislative changes would lead to a ton of public debate everyone wants to avoid, as this debate would kill nuclear participation in general. So nobody in governmant wants to take this risk, hence the procurement of a US platform to replace the aging Tornado fleet as a carrier of US nukes.

Again, forgive my ignorance: why would anyone (aside from plane salesmen) care whether German planes carry French or American nukes? Are the French people that opposed to sharing with the Germans? That's for the insight!

The German public cares, US nukes are kind of an accepted, and mostky ignored reality. French nukes would wake up the public. The big party that cares about US nukes on non-US planes, e.g. Eurofighter, is the Pentagon. As they have to certify the aircraft, they are a lot less eager to do that fast or at all. Because the Pentagon prefers NATO nations, or any other allied nation, to buy the F-35 over other models.

And the French, which excluded their nukes from NATO oversight, might actually be reluctant to share them with Germany. Using Rafales insteads of Eurofoghters might helo, but then Germany is in the same position it is with the F-35. With the added "benefit" of a potentially hurtful public debate.

The French would be okay.

But German defense policy is built around self-defense and coalition defense: NATO, EU, UN. Nuclear weapons are opposed by Germany, and it's only because NATO is viewed as essential that nuclear sharing is accepted. Most Germans don't know about it though. A bilateral (FR-GE) extension of nuclear policy would be politically unacceptable to Germany, and require extensive legal change.

The French proposal was intended as an incentive to make nuclear policy evolve and think about common European interests, and wasn't really meant to be practical. As you state, it would require to change German constitutional law. It also reflects France's position as a nuclear power that doesn't partake in US-NATO nuclear planning and sharing (this in turn would be unacceptable to the French political class and public opinion).

I think the German acquisition of F-35s is a bit subtle. The Luftwaffe always wanted to buy F-35. I suspect they stalled the subject of the Eurofighter nuclear certification (which would take a good ten years) to force the German government to buy F-35s to keep its commitment to nuclear sharing. The whole thing happened at a time where the ministry of defence seemed disorganized and plagued by scandals. To be coherent with the Eurofighter policy, nuclear certification should have been a top priority ten years ago...

The relationship between the German government, the Luftwaffe, the US industry (and Lockheed...) and the German aerospatial industry has always been complex, and Germany has often been keen to use allied programs to avoid internal defense industry problems, with more or less success. See the Starfighter article on Wikipedia for the most egregious example.

With the German industry stalling the French-German-Spanish fighter project, I also suspect that they'll plan a similar manoeuver with the Eurofighter replacement.

The German Luftwaffe, Defence ministry and Lockheed have a colored history for sure. It would be a pitty so if the Germans manage to kill FCAS... NGAD, the US equivilant, seems to be a) not for export and b) not so well suited for the European theatre. so it is either FCAS, more F-35s (something Airbus would lobby heavily against) or a domestic program. And the latter seems to be unaffordable, the French would likely go alone as they did with Rafale out of principle. And Germany isn't Sweden neither.

The main pain point in all those large European defence programs is industrial workshare, especially between France and Germany and within Airbus between various sites.

German pilots also train with American nukes. You can’t just slap a nuke on a plane and treat it like any other bomb. And in peacetime, a jury rigged attachment loosing a bomb would be a publicity disaster:)

Thanks, that makes sense.

How about using some mock nukes? Unless you're dropping it, as long as it has the same weight and dimensions, who cares if it goes boom or fizz?

Because you can't just strap a nuke to a pylon, pull the safety pin from the fuze and fly off into the sunset in your cowboy hat.

You need an extensive set of avionics to control and arm the nuke in the plane which add substantial cost and aren't designed for/integrated into all aircraft.

It seems to be hard to find an explanation for the lease gravity nuclear weapons strategy for Germany.

I presume that they require US launch codes (and the F35 has a kill switch?). So what is the use for Germany?

The fear in Europe (confirmed by Westpoint graduate Mearsheimer long before the Ukraine war) is that if Russia strikes a single city in Europe, the US will get second thoughts and not retaliate. Germany then cannot retaliate either, so what is the point?

This is the reason for France to have its own nuclear arsenal and fighters.

The reason that those US controlled, German dropped, nukes allow Germany to oarticipate in the NATO nuclear planning councils. The Netherlands had the same agreement and dropped out of it a while ago.

> One reason that germany has selected the F35 as it’s next gen multirole aircraft is that it’s certified to carry US nuclear weapon

Which begs the question, why didn't Germany collaborate with France on nukes where they could be a more or less equal partner, compared to the US where they would always be the subservient party with little to no control?

Charles de Gaulle. Apparently there was a proposal to share nuclear weapons between France, Germany and Italy, but according to the Charles de Gaulle government "atomic weapons should never be shared with others" (https://www.openstarts.units.it/bitstream/10077/15330/1/Nucl...).

De Gaulle wanted sovereign control of any French nuclear deterrent and did not trust that, if it came to it, the US would put itself on the line for Europe: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_139272.htm - presumably, for similar reasons he did not want any dependence on allies, even ones closer in location and likely part of the same conflict.

The US did actually help the French nuclear programme once it started going, under the reasoning that multiple nuclear-armed NATO members is better than one.

De Gaulle has long been out of power and dead. We're talking about current-ish policies and choices, and Macron did talk a few times about sharing the nuclear power and burden with the whole EU as France is now the only nuclear power left, but maybe it was just talk.

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