During his hearing before the Defense Committee of the National Assembly, Joëlle Barre, the General Delegate for Armaments, indicated that following the order of 5 P8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft from Boeing by Germany to replace some of its exhausted P3C Orions, France should reassess its participation in the Franco-German Maritime Airborne Warfare System program, or MAWS, which was supposed to allow the two countries to replace their maritime patrol aircraft Atlantique 2 and Orion by 2035, based on cooperation between Airbus and Thales. And according to the site latribune.fr,…
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Unsurprisingly, Berlin is getting closer to the acquisition of American P8A Poseidon
Asked by a parliamentarian about the replacement of the P3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft still in service with the German forces, the representative of the Ministry of Defense to the Bundestag, Thomas Silberhorn, declared that the Ministry did not consider the French offer relating to an interim solution based on the loan of 4 Atlantique 2 aircraft from the French Navy as a solution adapted to the needs of the German armed forces in this area, while the acquisition of 5 Boeing P8A Poseidon meets the operational expectations of the State -German Major. According to him, the negotiations for the acquisition of these devices, a contract evaluated by the…
Read the articleFrance offers the loan of 4 Avions Atlantique 2 to Germany as a waiting solution
This one, it is unlikely that the Germans saw it coming! We will not return to the most complex situation which currently opposes France and Germany on the subject of the various defense cooperation programs launched simultaneously with the arrival of President Macron at the Elysée Palace, while relations between Berlin and Washington was at its worst with Donald Trump's repeated attacks against Berlin's lack of eagerness to invest in its defense and to acquire equipment made in the USA. Since the arrival of Joe Biden at the White House, the situation has however changed a lot for Berlin, which…
Read the articleThe French Naval Aviation will receive 12 Dassault Falcon 2000 Albatros for maritime surveillance
The Aéronautique Navale de la Marine Nationale, created in 1912, is the oldest French military air force, and one of the oldest on the planet. It now consists of 3 components. The on-board fighter component, which uses the Rafale M, but also the E-2C Hawkeye aerial surveillance planes, and some Falcon 10 planes used for pilot training in blind flight and certain chest missions (the plane playing the role of a target or attacker). The helicopter component operates NH90 Caiman Marine and Panther embarked on frigates, as well as Dauphin and Alouette III for rescue missions and…
Read the articleFrance has deployed its fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean against Turkey
The French Navy has announced that it has deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean from 4 to 13 November, a powerful surface combat fleet, made up of the light stealth frigate Lafayette, the anti-submarine frigate Latouche-Tréville, and the defense frigate aerial Forbin, the most powerfully armed of the French Navy's combat surface units. This naval device, designated Surface Action Group or SaG by the Admiralty, which also includes an Atlantic 2 maritime patrol aircraft based in Crete, and an Air Force Awacs E3F Sentry forward air control aircraft, is the one of the most imposing deployed by France in the last two…
Read the articleGerman Orion P-3C withdrawal: a threat to the Franco-German MAWS program
As we learn from Naval News, always extremely well informed on naval matters, the German Ministry of Defense has just announced that it is ending the modernization program for the eight P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft in service in the German navy. Considered to be too costly and too risky, this modernization program should quickly give way to the acquisition of new maritime patrol aircraft. The decision to withdraw the Orions in 2025 at the latest, rather than from 2035, could however have very serious consequences on the MAWS (Maritime Airborne Warfare System) program jointly conducted by France and Germany. In…
Read the articleWill visual observation capabilities really be at the heart of the future maritime patrol aircraft?
In 2018, France and Germany signed a letter of intent to cooperate on the development of a new maritime patrol aircraft (PATMAR) to replace the current aircraft by 2035, the MAWS (Maritime Airborne Warfare System ). In the meantime, France will be able to count on 18 venerable ATL2, or Altantique 2, currently being renovated and always ready to ensure the safety of French naval and land operations, anywhere in the world. Last November, an article by frigate captain Molina published in the Revue de Défense Nationale drew up a composite portrait of what this PATMAR aircraft of the future could be. The model that…
Read the articleNew Poseidon P-8A weapons could make it a bomber
In a request for information to industry posted on the new online Federal Procurement Center, the US Navy's Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) has disclosed some of its plans to expand operational capabilities of its fleet of P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft. This would indeed go through the integration of new weapons on the Poseidon. These armaments would considerably extend its military capabilities, to the point of making it a real regional bomber, while making it more formidable than ever for naval combat on and under water. The debate over the extent of the operational spectrum of the P-8As has raged for years in…
Read the articleRussia chooses Tu-204 as future maritime patrol aircraft
Maritime patrol is an area relatively unknown to the public. Most often dependent on naval air forces, it is made up of long-range aircraft, equipped to detect, monitor and potentially engage ships and submarines present in a large maritime area, sometimes very far from the coast. Maritime patrol aircraft, such as the French Atlantic 2, the American P3 Orion, or the Russian Tu-142, were traditionally devices equipped with turboprops, designed to operate at very low altitude and at low speed, in particular to use the detector of magnetic anomaly which makes it possible to detect the variations of the terrestrial magnetic fields in the presence of a significant mass…
Read the articleFrance and Germany will announce the construction of a maritime patrol aircraft in common
The German Defense Minister, Ursula von der Leyen, and her French counterpart, Florence Parly, will sign on April 27, on the occasion of the latter's visit to Berlin, a letter of intent for the design of a “Naval Warfare Air System”. In all likelihood, it will be a question of designing a replacement for the Atlantique 2 used by the French Navy, and the Lockheed Orion P3C, used by the German Navy, two aircraft from the 80s. Last month, France and Germany had announced joining the NATO project for the purchase of a joint maritime patrol aircraft. However, Lockheed's P8 Poseidon left with...
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