When Is a Snub Not A Snub?

 

As the year draws to a close, the silly season in defence news reporting appears to be kicking off. The current contender for ‘most mind-blowingly wrong’ article on defence is based on an article that appeared in the Daily Telegraph this week, all about plans by Germany to ‘snub’ Britain by buying F35 and not Eurofighter for the replacement Tornadoes for its tactical nuclear mission. The article describes how the decision to buy the F35 is apparently a ‘blow’ to BAE Systems which helps manufacture the aircraft, and how in turn this is a snub to the British Government and Typhoon. Rather oddly, the Telegraph splashed this story as a scoop in December 2022, when the announcement was made back in March 2022The problem with articles like this is that they take a random collection of facts and turn them into a story which bears little resemblance to reality…

It is often forgotten that at its heart NATO is fundamentally a nuclear alliance. During the Cold War not only did the UK and US commit a significant part of their nuclear arsenal to NATO (e.g. British Polaris submarines were declared to NATO for targeting purposes but remained under national control), but there was a significant amount of ‘nuclear sharing’ weapons in use. This meant that a nation would house nuclear weapons and their armed forces would fly missions in combat with them, but the actual warheads would remain under American control in peacetime until the decision was taken to hand them over for release and use. It is perhaps worth noting too that nuclear weapons can only be used by NATO members if both the US President and British Prime Minister agree to do so.

The benefit of this arrangement is that helped bind nations into the nuclear side of NATO by giving them both a stake, and a say in the weapons and their use. Even after the Cold War ended, these arrangements persisted, with seven nations continuing to provide aircraft that could deliver the nuclear mission if needed – this includes Germany among others.

The nuclear sharing mission is delivered by using US made and owned freefall tactical nuclear weapons  (the B61 bomb), which are delivered from specially modified aircraft with crews well trained in conducting the nuclear role. These aircraft are known as ‘Dual Capable Aircraft’ (DCA) as they can be used for both conventional and nuclear roles. In the UK a variety of fixed wing aircraft could do this – including the Tornado, Jaguar and Harrier although it is roughly 25 years since the last freefall nuclear bombs (WE177) were retired from use.

Nuclear weapons are phenomenally complex weapons to manufacture and use and doing so requires an enormous amount of work. It is not as simple as saying ‘go attach the bomb to the underside of the aircraft and then drop it when required’. The simple act of generating an aircraft to fly a nuclear mission requires a very lengthy chain of work, from making sure the weapon is ready for use, to putting it on the aircraft, to planning the strike and then executing it. Every step is rigorously planned and controlled with painstaking accuracy to ensure that safety and control of the device occurs at all times. The level of scrutiny attached to this work is beyond anything else done by the military due to the importance of safety and security.  Even the act of adding the bomb to the aircraft is not as easy as you may think. How do you attach a nuclear weapon to a fast jet, and then release it ready to detonate when required? There is a lot of work that needs to be done to add the right software and technology to ensure that the aircraft can deliver the device when needed, and that it works as intended.

To get this right requires either an aircraft designed from the outset to carry out the nuclear mission, or it requires extensive redesign and evaluation to make sure its fit for purpose. Even simple questions like ‘can the aircraft fly safely with a nuclear bomb underslung’ need to be answered – you don’t want to find out on the job that some obscure quirk means that flying the nuclear mission makes the aircraft aerodynamically unstable and liable to crash. You also need to ensure that the flight control software and systems that operate the aircraft can handle the integration of a nuclear weapon and the various software that goes with this. Think of it as installing an entirely new operating system within an operating system and hoping that both run happily alongside each other without any unforeseen or dangerous circumstances.

Even the most basic of issues need to be assessed to ensure that the aircraft is safe – for example, does using a Typhoon impact on how the various devices used for moving and installing the weapon on the aircraft work? Is there space to operate it safely or does it pose a series of problems that could put safety at risk. You cannot take any risks when looking to carry out work involving live nuclear warheads and every last detail must be assessed and considered in minute detail.

Assuming all of this works, then you need to ensure that the aircraft can actually fly the nuclear mission as intended. Does carrying the bomb impact on performance or operating limits? How do you fly the nuclear mission in a way that doesn’t damage the airframe, and is it possible to fly the various delivery options (e.g. dropping, toss-lobbing etc) and at what speed/altitude etc? Ensuring that a jet is capable of actually flying the nuclear delivery mission is a very lengthy and complex process of itself that takes a long time to do.

Finally you need to ensure that all of this is written up and that a proper set of agreed operating procedures that both your nation and the USA (as weapon provided) is happy with and these are agreed and not deviated from under any circumstances. With all of this in place you’re then good to go and start training for the nuclear delivery role – a mission that of itself takes a long time to prepare and train for. One of the best books that the author has ever read on the sheer amount of work required to get a tactical nuclear bomber squadron up to speed is ‘Bucket of Sunshine’ by Mike Brooke – an account of working on the Canberra to get it ready for the nuclear QRA role during the Cold War. The sheer level of work and effort required to conduct the nuclear mission makes you understand it is vastly more complicated than ‘just hang a bomb on  it’.

This all matters for the Typhoon because none of this work has been done. Although conceived during the Cold War, no work has previously been done to integrate nuclear weapons into the Typhoon aircraft, which means every part of this would need to be done from scratch at potentially enormous cost and time delays. While it is without doubt technically feasible to do, it would require a lot of time and effort and require heavy US involvement to ensure they were content with the outcome. It would also create a very small ‘orphan fleet’ of aircraft that were modified for the nuclear mission, adding a significant cost and maintenance burden onto the Luftwaffe that no other Typhoon member state would be able to support. The result would be, literally, years of delays while this work was carried out and no guarantee of success.

By contrast taking the F35, which has undergone the extensive trials and testing needed to carry out the nuclear mission is a much more sensible approach. The F35 will form the mainstay of  aircraft able to deliver US tactical nuclear weapons for the coming decades and will be used by many NATO partners. US planning is for the B61 to be delivered from the F35, including in NATO, which means that had Germany opted for Typhoon, it would have been very much the exception to all the other allies. It is infinitely more sensible to opt for a single delivery platform across the Alliance, which all partners can support and work to a common agreed standard, rather than a number of much smaller aircraft fleets. The choice for Germany to buy into the F35 is an absolute ‘no brainer’.

In no way was this a snub to the UK or the Typhoon. It makes no sense to buy an aircraft that isn’t designed to do the nuclear role and then try to make it work, when a platform is already available at cheaper cost. The F35 is getting cheaper over time in real terms, meaning Germany will get far more value for money both from procurement and also longer term support and maintenance costs than creating its own mini-Typhoon fleet. This is an incredible sensible decision that makes sense to everyone but the Daily Telegraph.

It may also be worth noting that if you’re going to write an article about how BAE Systems is being snubbed by the decision not to buy Typhoon, you may want to check what else BAE Systems builds. Given the company is a key manufacturer of the F35, with around 15% of every F35 produced globally built in the UK, the UK defence industry benefits whether Germany goes for Typhoon or F35. It is a little bit embarrassing to read an article which moans about snubs to the UK but which doesn’t seem to have had any basic research done on it.

The simple truth is that this is a sensible decision for Germany, a good decision for NATO in that it strengthens its credibility as a nuclear alliance and a great outcome for the UK aerospace industry that safeguards jobs across the UK. This is definitely not a snub for the UK.