BAE to Seal $40B Eurofighter Deal With Saudis

[Izzy1]

Sure. Especially with BAE doing the negotiation with the Saudis...
I don't expect them to sell IRIS-T instead of ASRAAM.

So with AMRAAM/METEOR and ASRAAM I don't see the Saudis being inferior to the Israeli fighters when it comes to AAMs.

AMRAAM C-5 is certain for introduction but Meteor when developed is very likely, MBDA is already marketing the combination out here.

RSAF has requested details for compatibility on AIM-9M/X which they have ordered for their F-16S squadrons. Yet again however, in the interim, ASRAAM seems the most likely. Saying that, the contract to supply them as part of Tornado Sustainment Phase II has yet to be signed.

 

[swerve]

You know what's really sad: We (the U.S.) are going to have to end up selling our prized fighter (the F-22) to Israel because our European friends couldn't refuse the money Saudi Arabia was offering for the Eurofighter and keep it to themselves. Now the whole Israel lobby is going to force us into selling the Raptor. Why can't Europe just ever keep their best weapons to themselves? If they didn't sell the Typhoon to S.A. we wouldn't have to sell the F-22 to Israel. How can it be that the countries of NATO are basically forcing each other to sell weapons that shouldn't be exported? We should be keeping them safe in our own hands. Hell, this is absolutely absurd and truly baffles me.

Perhaps, if the USA didn't lean quite so hard on certain countries to buy American, & didn't persistently top European offers of our second-best weapons with something better, we could get away with not selling our best. If the world hadn't been flooded with F-16s, F-18s, & now F-18E, Dassault might still be selling Mirage F.1s, instead of having to push Rafale just to try to stay in the game.

 

[merocaine]

If the world hadn't been flooded with F-16s, F-18s, & now F-18E, Dassault might still be selling Mirage F.1s, instead of having to push Rafale just to try to stay in the game.

I have never understood the need to stay in the game, its hardly worth the candle.

 

[Scorpion82]

I have never understood the need to stay in the game, its hardly worth the candle.

It's all about money. The industry just try to sell its product to as much customers as possible to make money. It might also have a positive impact on the price for the original customers.

 

[swerve]

I have never understood the need to stay in the game, its hardly worth the candle.

France doesn't want to have to grovel to the USA for its fighters. Seems a pretty big candle to me.

 

[merocaine]

France doesn't want to have to grovel to the USA for its fighters. Seems a pretty big candle to me.

I did'ent mean France buying US, Just why the burning need to export? Its a national defence procurment, its not like there are big profits around in selling. To be in control of your weapon manafacturing should be the main thing, not how many foreigin sales you can rack up, F-16's to Morrocco are a case in point, why then sell at a loss?
Its one thing to sell to a close ally, its another to sell to a potentully unstable regime like the saudi's the most advanced aircraft you possess, for what? a few shekels, other than that I can't see any burning reason why this sale has be allowed to go through.

I'm aware this is way off topic...sorry!

 

[Izzy1]

Wearing my company hat, delivering Typhoon to Saudi was always about more than just profit. It is vital for numerous reasons.

Avoiding the Governmental, political and strategic reasons involved in the sale, from a purely industrial stand point Typhoon secures at least 5,000 UK jobs directly and some analysts reckon another 20,000 UK jobs indirectly (not to mention many thousands more with regards our Eurofighter partners). For the UK and European Aerospace industry, Typhoon's importance can be measured in terms of employment alone.

In terms of profit, with maintenance contracts alone over the lifecycle included, the deal could reach a figure of 30 Billion GBP+ No FTSE 100 company could turn their nose up at that.

Finally, the Saudi invetsment in Typhoon will allow further development of the platform to increase its capabilities. Again, for Europe's Aerospace industry this is vital as we compete in a market dominated by the US giants, the never-ending list of Flanker variants coming out of Sukhoi and the rapidly evolving Chinese and Indian aerospace industries.

I could go on for a while...

 

[Ryttare]

I did'ent mean France buying US, Just why the burning need to export? Its a national defence procurment, its not like there are big profits around in selling. To be in control of your weapon manafacturing should be the main thing, not how many foreigin sales you can rack up, F-16's to Morrocco are a case in point, why then sell at a loss?
Its one thing to sell to a close ally, its another to sell to a potentully unstable regime like the saudi's the most advanced aircraft you possess, for what? a few shekels, other than that I can't see any burning reason why this sale has be allowed to go through.

I'm aware this is way off topic...sorry!

Are you American? Because I never hear anything like this when the US sells weapons to various countries. A few years ago Chile seemed interested in buying Gripens, and even if it never became serious ex-president Carter was protesting loudly against it and said it would destabilize the region. When they instead bought F-16 he didn't say a word. He probably thought F-16 was worthless compared to Gripens so one has to see it as a complement.

The US has sold many quite capable weapons to Saudi Arabia, and also very important force multipliers as AWACS and AtA refueling tankers. Why does USA feel it has to sell weapons abroad when they themself has a such a big demand internally in it's own armed forces?

I think that considering a big share of this deal includes maintenance and training of crews the risk of the Typhoons used agressively against west and Israel is minimal.

 

[Izzy1]

You know what's really sad: We (the U.S.) are going to have to end up selling our prized fighter (the F-22) to Israel because our European friends couldn't refuse the money Saudi Arabia was offering for the Eurofighter and keep it to themselves. Now the whole Israel lobby is going to force us into selling the Raptor. Why can't Europe just ever keep their best weapons to themselves? If they didn't sell the Typhoon to S.A. we wouldn't have to sell the F-22 to Israel. How can it be that the countries of NATO are basically forcing each other to sell weapons that shouldn't be exported? We should be keeping them safe in our own hands. Hell, this is absolutely absurd and truly baffles me.

Hold on a minute. The US has sold to Saudi:

F-15C/D/S - the US's premier fighter aircraft at the time of sale.
E-3A AWACS - back in 1981 and today, still the World's premier AWACS.
RE-3A/B - ELINT platforms of RC-135 class that NATO doesn't even have.
AIM-9X - The US's top SR-AAM.
AIM-120C - The bench-mark of the world's MR-AAM systems.
(Not to mention JDAM and JASSM on the way)

M1-A2S Abrahms - a variant of the US's premier MBT.
M2 Bradley - the US's current standard AIFV.
Stinger MANPADS - Hope the Saudis know where they all are.
Patriot - As above.

Europe comes a distant second to supplying their premier kit to Saudi Arabia. Would you not agree?

 

[merocaine]

Wearing my company hat, delivering Typhoon to Saudi was always about more than just profit. It is vital for numerous reasons.

Avoiding the Governmental, political and strategic reasons involved in the sale, from a purely industrial stand point Typhoon secures at least 5,000 UK jobs directly and some analysts reckon another 20,000 UK jobs indirectly (not to mention many thousands more with regards our Eurofighter partners). For the UK and European Aerospace industry, Typhoon's importance can be measured in terms of employment alone.

In terms of profit, with maintenance contracts alone over the lifecycle included, the deal could reach a figure of 30 Billion GBP+ No FTSE 100 company could turn their nose up at that.

Finally, the Saudi invetsment in Typhoon will allow further development of the platform to increase its capabilities. Again, for Europe's Aerospace industry this is vital as we compete in a market dominated by the US giants, the never-ending list of Flanker variants coming out of Sukhoi and the rapidly evolving Chinese and Indian aerospace industries.

I could go on for a while...

something tells me you've delivered this speech before

This is neither the time of the place to debate this, although i believe those points are debatable.

@ Ryttare
Irish by the way, horrified bystander!

 

[Brandon]

Hold on a minute. The US has sold to Saudi:

F-15C/D/S - the US's premier fighter aircraft at the time of sale.
E-3A AWACS - back in 1981 and today, still the World's premier AWACS.
RE-3A/B - ELINT platforms of RC-135 class that NATO doesn't even have.
AIM-9X - The US's top SR-AAM.
AIM-120C - The bench-mark of the world's MR-AAM systems.
(Not to mention JDAM and JASSM on the way)

M1-A2S Abrahms - a variant of the US's premier MBT.
M2 Bradley - the US's current standard AIFV.
Stinger MANPADS - Hope the Saudis know where they all are.
Patriot - As above.

Europe comes a distant second to supplying their premier kit to Saudi Arabia. Would you not agree?

Yes. I understand we shouldn't have sold many of these weapons to S.A., but we've learned. We aren't going to export the F-22 even to our closes allies, which IMO is a good thing. Europe (especially UK) is still selling and upgrading their top weapons systems to Saudi Arabia-Eurofighter, Tornado. While we did sell the F-15, we aren't going to sell the Raptor.

 

[Alpha Epsilon]

But the reason why the USA does not want to sell the F22 is not strategic reasons but because they fear countries will copy their technology, it has little to do with the reasons you cite, on the other hand the USA is selling F35s to Israel, so you might as well say the UK has to sell Eurofighters to Saudi-Arabia to keep the balance of power there.

 

[swerve]

Yes. I understand we shouldn't have sold many of these weapons to S.A., but we've learned. We aren't going to export the F-22 even to our closes allies, which IMO is a good thing. Europe (especially UK) is still selling and upgrading their top weapons systems to Saudi Arabia-Eurofighter, Tornado. While we did sell the F-15, we aren't going to sell the Raptor.

When the French were trying to sell more Mirage 2000s to the UAE, you countered them with F-16s upgraded with radars better than US fighters had at the time, & offered all your latest air-launched weapons to sweeten the deal. When did this sudden conversion come about?

Frankly, my taurine faeces meter is registering something here. Not selling the F-22 is nothing to do with keeping down the level of technology of potentially unstable countries. If so, why not sell it to your closest allies? Stable, friendly countries. None of your arguments against exporting weapons apply to them. But on the contrary, you're trying to restrict the ability of those allies even to support the F-35s they intend to buy from you.

 

[Ryttare]

Yes. I understand we shouldn't have sold many of these weapons to S.A., but we've learned. We aren't going to export the F-22 even to our closes allies, which IMO is a good thing. Europe (especially UK) is still selling and upgrading their top weapons systems to Saudi Arabia-Eurofighter, Tornado. While we did sell the F-15, we aren't going to sell the Raptor.

Are you really sure you wont sell F-22 to anyone? It's what is said now, but it can be changed quite easily. As Swerve said, there is something fishy here, why not sell it even to your closest allies? My suspicion is that the reason behind this is not to prevent unstable dictatorships from getting hitech weapons. More probable is that the reason is to promote the sales of F-35.

 

[Brandon]

Are you really sure you wont sell F-22 to anyone? It's what is said now, but it can be changed quite easily. As Swerve said, there is something fishy here, why not sell it even to your closest allies? My suspicion is that the reason behind this is not to prevent unstable dictatorships from getting hitech weapons. More probable is that the reason is to promote the sales of F-35.

Have you not heard the term "keep the best for yourself." It doesn't matter who it is you're selling to, a country should ALWAYS keep their most advanced weapons systems to themselves. This is why we (or Russia for that matter) don't export our strategic bombers or why no nation exports nuclear submarines. The thing with fighter aircraft though is that some nations can afford the best and we just can't say no because of how much money is involved. I really hope that we (both U.S. and EU) have some sort of secret aircraft. The US probably does at Groom Lake, but I don't know about what EU nations have kept secret.

 

[Ryttare]

Have you not heard the term "keep the best for yourself." It doesn't matter who it is you're selling to, a country should ALWAYS keep their most advanced weapons systems to themselves. This is why we (or Russia for that matter) don't export our strategic bombers or why no nation exports nuclear submarines. The thing with fighter aircraft though is that some nations can afford the best and we just can't say no because of how much money is involved.

Aws Izzy1 and Swerve pointed out USA has a track record of selling very advanced weapons to non democratic countries, even sometimes more advanced than is available to your own armed forces. So I don't buy this holier than you attitude when you say you don't sell F-22 even to your closest allied.

I really hope that we (both U.S. and EU) have some sort of secret aircraft. The US probably does at Groom Lake, but I don't know about what EU nations have kept secret.

The cold war is over and I don't belive even USA has any secret aircraft today. Europe has never had any secret aircraft and I don't belive that has changed.
Once the swedish datalinks in Draken and Viggen were kept as national secrets and there might be similar secrets today but i actually doubt it.

 

[swerve]

...The cold war is over and I don't belive even USA has any secret aircraft today. Europe has never had any secret aircraft and I don't belive that has changed. ...

Europe has had aircraft which were secret until after they flew, though not operational secret aircraft.

The W. German Lampyridae project (cancelled before it flew - Cold War over, & all that) was secret even from its allies for some time. The USA was prompted to reveal the F-117 to W. Germany when the Germans showed them Lampyridae, which used the same stealth principles. IIRC, the Germans showed it to the British, who'd not long before been shown F-117, & we said - "Errr - you might want to let the Americans know about this. They may have something they'd like to discuss with you".

The UK was developing stealthy UAVs recently. Didn't reveal them until they'd been flying for a while. The secret Replica project in the 1990s (not revealed for several years) for a stealthy fighter got the UK into JSF on the ground floor, as it convinced the USA that we could build our own equivalent, & might sign up some of the other potential JSF partners & do so if they didn't give us privileged access to JSF. Much good that did us, when the "privileged access" turned out to mean less than was promised.

 

[Izzy1]

The UK was developing stealthy UAVs recently. Didn't reveal them until they'd been flying for a while. The secret Replica project in the 1990s (not revealed for several years) for a stealthy fighter got the UK into JSF on the ground floor, as it convinced the USA that we could build our own equivalent, & might sign up some of the other potential JSF partners & do so if they didn't give us privileged access to JSF. Much good that did us, when the "privileged access" turned out to mean less than was promised.

Swerve is not wrong;

REPLICA got the UK the JSF/JCA contract - the Lockheed's XF-35 design mirrored the REPLICA's top-hull protortype. It fit like a glove.

Let the doubters, decide.

 

[spoiled_ksa]

Free World !!

Hi all,

I think every country has the right to buy the best planes to defend its territory.

This deal will bring a lot to Saudi: 10000 jobs + assembly plant for Typhoon + advanced Training & Technology Transfer.

For the record, Saudi Arabia has never attacked other countries.

 

[eaf-f16]

Hi all,

I think every country has the right to buy the best planes to defend its territory.

This deal will bring a lot to Saudi: 10000 jobs + assembly plant for Typhoon + advanced Training & Technology Transfer.

For the record, Saudi Arabia has never attacked other countries.

That's not entirely true. They participated in GW1.