Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "France just got left out of development of Europe's next gen tank?" video.

Molotov-Ribbentrop pact version 2.0
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In the first half year of Russias invasion did France with its 70 million people send half as much military aid to Ukraine than Estonia with 1 million people. This is how much France cares about Europes common security and solidarity with Eastern Europe who for years have felt threatened. Macron seems more concerned about not humiliating Putin than what he is concerned with Russia starting one war of aggression after another, Russias bombings of kindergartens and 800 hospitals, or how russia have kindpapped and stolen 200.000 children from their parents, how they have destroyed cities like Mariupol and Bakhmut. How russia have made hitlists on people they planned to kill in order to get rid of Ukraines intelligentia and russify the country. France have no problem with massacres like Bucha and Irpin or the deliberate murder of 600 children in a bomb shelter... or the plunder and destruction of museums, or the theft of 600 airliners from western countries russia have done, or the fact that russia have built torture centrals - including torture cells for children, and they have regulary ignored the geneva convention... France is okay with all that. This is the kind of friend France is. Its siding more with Russia than with western countries like Poland, Estonia or Sweden. So to hell with all pro-russian french politicians. And since all major names in French politics is pro-russian, I guess I have to say to hell with France. Where is the freedom, brotherhood and equality in Putins russia that you love so much? Where is the brotherhood to help Ukraine? Why shouldnt Ukrainians be free and not having to live under russian opression? Who have decided that russia have the right to play the masterrace and rule over all countries in Eastern Europe? Why should the consent of Ukrainians, Georgians, Poles, Balts and such be ignored? France should feel ashamed of itself for its russophile stance. And there is a long list of French companies that needs to be boycotted for helping Putin pay for his war and murder of civilians.
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It was one thing to build a plane or a tank back in the 1950s. Today things are much more complicated. Sweden created J-35 Draken in just 5 years. But creating a modern stealth fighter competative with the worlds best aircrafts is nothing you can do in just 5 years anymore I guess. Making planes with stealth, advanced materials, electronics are much more complicated.
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Macron is terrible. But so are all the other candidates as well. Why do your country only having such awful politicians? I think my own country have stupid and naive politicians. America got old farts. German politicians are stuck in politicial correctness and refuse to change course - and even to this day are they still hoping for trade with Russia "to secure peace" 🙄 which proves that they have learned nothing from history. UK is a country with wonderful people, but it seems to have been chronically suffering from bad luck with recruitment of prime minister. Boris Johnson and Sunak are okay I guess, but the rest have been underperforming... and Thatcher, Blair and Cameron have been directly harmful to their country. France needs a new Colbert or Richelieu.
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I think the French national military priorities are not in line with its national interest. Nuclear weapons and a mobile force to police Africa are just prestige projects for French attempts to play a great power - which it no longer is. It reminds me of russia that also waste money on nuclear weapons, colonial wars, and prestige weapons like aircraft carriers and missile cruisers despite those ship will never be able to compete with USA in numbers or quality. It would make more sense for russia to have a strong coastal navy with small ships instead and invest more money into training pilots instead of wasting them on thousands of nuclear weapons. But I guess that its deep rooted into the French national identity that you need to take care of French Africas problems. Because without those colonies you would just be just another country like Italy that isn't playing any role in world politics. Personally do I think the French project in Africa to be a bit of a lost cause. 7 countries have already switched side from France into the Russian camp only this year - and (excuse me if I am being ignorant) I believe this have some things to do with France lack of military strength to deal with Islamists, and rebels supported by the Wagner group. And in Africa there is also a very stupid and illogical love for the imperialist colonial power Russia, while France on the other hand is hated for its colonial past.
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The problem is that we don't have the same national priorities and never ever will, and the EU is not a solution to this problem either because this is how things will always be. Some countries are not interested in colonialism, while that is the most important thing for France. Some countries have different terrain, different potential enemies, different climate, different size of their wallets, different size of their populations - so of course do all countries in Europe have different opinions what the best tank should be like. A rich country like USA with much oil and money to afford a large logistical organisation for its military will of course like a fuel thirsty expensive tank that needs enormous amounts of maintance, and they like aircrafts that are expensive hangar queens. While other countries like Germany prefers Leopard2 that is easier to maintain, but the tank is a little bit weaker in firepower and armor. France does not care about the russian threat because they only care about fighting in africa against people with spears so they do not care so much about firepower or armor for their vehicles, but instead do they want vehicles that are fast. A country like Ukraine would probably want a tank with wide tracks that can travel over muddy fields without getting stuck. While a country like Sweden wants armored vehicles that can drive through deep snow - so they prefer CV90 over Bradley for that reason. And both Ukraine and Sweden takes the threat of Russia very seriously, while countries like Spain and France do not worry about getting invaded by Russia. And then you have military doctrine that also impacts tank design. Germany think it is important to have tanks that can drive back just as fast as they can drive forward - while countries like russia do not care about this ability. A country like russia wants tanks with autoloaders so they can have fewer men inside their tanks, and one benifit of that is that this also saves manpower that they can use in the frontline as foot soldiers. Israel is a country with a very small population that cannot afford to lose much blood and meat when it is fighting against its many much larger arab neigbours. So their tanks puts an extreme priority on crew safety to minimize the risk that tankers die in battle. But building tanks this way do also mean that their tanks might getting more expensive than they otherwise would be. And Merkava is a tank much criticisized for its low top speed, which is on the other hand considered a non-problem by others. So building weapons is usually a game of making trade offs. And when a country have extremely different wishes than other countries it will become difficult to design a weapon that makes everyone happy. France do have needs that is much different from those of Germany, Eastern Europe, and Scandinavia so of course it will be alone in much of the weapons it makes.
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@ozone2031 "Better to work on our own industry than to rely on discutable allies" Huh? Its you Frechies that are the biggest pan-european federalists at all. No country claim to be as much pro-EU as you. But here you say you sould work with arabs instead of Europeans. I call this hypocrisy. You say that Swedish defence firms should not get EU money because they are not 100% European in your mind because the cooperate with USA and Britain. But here you talk about working with arabia and africa instead.
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@MrBahjatt The Poles were fed up with having to wait years before getting any tanks, and Germanys pathethic witholding of tanks to Ukraine have made Leopard2 a non-option for Poland - so they bought American and Korean instead. I don't know the motivation of Poland to buy F16 in this specific case. But to me it seems like Scandinavian countries have bought F35 for political reasons (to get closer ties and protection from USA) rather than buying a weapon for the sake of its performance - as I think that Gripen E would make much more sense for countries like Finland and Norway. Sweden have however bought NH90 from France-Germany-Spain-Italy-Netherlands... and the helicopter is not just ridiculously expensive but also worthless performance wise and demanding ridiculous amounts of maintence. Had I been prime minister I would give those helicopters away for free to russia as military aid, as they are more of a burden to own than an asset. I don't oppose the idea of buying more European weapons in Europe - and with that I do not just mean weapons built by companies 100% located inside the EU, but also companies that cooperate with other European defence firms like BAE systems in UK. And cooperation with USA is not much of a problem either since she is an ally and a friend, ans should be treated as such. If European countries should buy European products, then those weapons needs to be good and not overpriced junk like NH90. European soldiers should not have to die to guarantee profits for french fat cat industries, if there are better American weapons available that can help soldiers fight better. And all EU countries have different needs, and not many countries are interested in French equipment designed for expeditions in Africa. So those countries should have other options available. And if no such options exist, then they should be able to buy American weapons instead. I for my part see that French, German, British and American equipment often lacks the requirements needed to be suitable in Scandinavian terrain for example. That doesn't mean those countries make bad stuff, it just means that their weapons will not work well in a Scandinavian context. Bradley cannot handle deep snow as well as CV90 for example. But otherwise do Sweden use much kit from those countries like the Swedish-French-British Meteor missile, the British Swedish Archer artillery or NLAW, or the German Leopard 2 tanks, and American Patriot.
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The EU cannot even give 1 million artillery shells to Ukraine... more than half of the promised delivery time has passed and only 200.000 shells have so far been given. So the EU would not make things more effective, but rather the contrary. Western Europe stood at its height of military strength and economic strength during the Cold war before most of Europe had joined the EU.
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I also don't understand this continental European hatred against America. It is our friend, but you constantly smear her. So f*** Europhiles like you. I much prefer USA over EU.
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@CCC-nf3bk You Europhiles often sound like Putinbots
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There is some truth to what you say, in this case did France and Germanys view of a future tank divert too much to be practical for a cooperation. And there is nothing wrong with that. This happens all the time also between other countries. However, one could on the other hand argue that France jellous protection of its own industry and its strange military requirements for its equipment makes it a very difficult partner to work with as it becomes difficult to find a common ground what the requirements should be. Other countries do not want carrier based aircrafts, wheeled armored vehicles, light mobile vehicles with weak armor and firepower for fighting in former French colonies in Africa.
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Abrams and leo A7 and A8 are the best tanks in the world. Leclerk have a tiny turret that limits the size of the gun and thus maked it unable to kill Armata with its 120mm gun. But if France use DPU ammo like USA then it might still be capable of doing so.
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@phunkracy If they aren't, then why do France want tax payers of other countries to pay for their bombs? And why have them if you are inside Nato and already have the protection of Natos nuclear umbrella? And in the case of Russia I think it is clear that you do not need thousands of nuclear warheads. That only costs money. I also think it is enough with a few dozen warheads. I think the threat of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich getting wiped out would be enough to deter another German invasion of France. Having more bombs than that is just a waste of money.
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Eurofighter is more manouverable and better at air ballet. And its thrust-to-weight ratio beats all the best western aircrafts. Rafale however is an excellent carrier based aircraft that can carry a very big bombload and it have much sensors and EW. I consider both planes to be roughly equally good, but I think I prefer Rafale. Having a plane that is both land and sea based is an advantage. So is a big bombload, and so is good sensors, and I rather take Rafale than F35 or Super Hornet - and that will make Rafale the best naval fighter/attack aircraft in the world right now. Eurofighter is a plane that have suffered much delays and it was built to fight against a Soviet invasion of west-Germany - a threat that have ceased to exist over 30 years ago. It is a hangar queen and needs a huge team to maintain it. Production of the plane stopped long ago - so there is a huge lack of spare parts and Britain have been forced to cannabalize airframes to provide spareparts for their remaining airplanes. And Germany did only have 4 operational planes available. And with a ground crew of say 20 people, and the need to 3D print spareparts because no spareparts are any longer available in storage - do I consider a big failure. The cost per flight hour for Eurofighter have also been very high so I consider this plane to be a dissapointment. And with so few planes available for an air war with russia will I consider this plane to be almost useless. Rafale on the other hand is an expensive plane to build and it can mostly only carry French build weapons - which is a problem if you are a country that wants to buy those planes from France. Personally I prefer Gripen E if I want a land based aircraft. But if I need a sea based fighter I pick Rafale (at least until a Sea Gripen gets developed).
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