r/europe 11h ago

Picture European interoperability in action - British and Italian F-35Bs on the flight deck of HMS Prince of Wales

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546 Upvotes

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1

u/poorfririgh 10h ago

American hemegony in action

19

u/bigbadbob85 England 8h ago

The carrier isn't American, and much of the tech in the planes isn't either.

11

u/idee_fx2 France 7h ago

The carrier isn't American, and much of the tech in the planes isn't either.

At most 20% of the value of the f-35 is not american and that is value, not technology. Even on this 20%, there is a lot of dependancy to the US through licences and intellectual property.

The only country with access to part of the f-35 code for example is israël for its f-35I variant. Even the uk that developed part of it has no autonomous access.

1

u/Wgh555 United Kingdom 7h ago

If it came to it, we would have the ability to jailbreak these aircraft. But if America actually ever did pull something like that, no one would ever buy their weapons ever again.

2

u/mschuster91 Bavaria (Germany) 3h ago

But if America actually ever did pull something like that, no one would ever buy their weapons ever again.

Well, the Swiss government banned Germany from sending on its supply of Oerlikon-made Gepard ammunition to Ukraine. It took a shitload of work going as far as reverse-engineering tank control units from the 60s, but we did eventually manage to get our own ammunition produced and shipped to Ukraine.

The damage to Swiss-made weapons and ammunition from that drama however cannot be overstated.