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France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

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Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#151

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #140
gdy wrote: post #28

I wonder what French think now about their cancelling of the Mistral deal with Russia [0] under American pressure [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistral-class_amphibious_assau... [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-russia-mistral-idU...

A complete and shameful shit show. This wasn't even a warship. Yes, it made the French look like fools and untrustworthy and they had to dump that ship to another nation for a huge discount. A complete failure. Merci Hollande! /s USA is nobody"s ally when it's about business. USA only has interests.

> This wasn't even a warship.

It's an helicopter carrier with advanced air space control and telecommunication capacities. That's definitely a warship.

Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#152

Post by sudosysgen »

dnautics wrote: post #137
sudosysgen wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, no one is using nuclear subs to defend territorial waters. Their job is to help the US run a blockade against China and it's trading partners, nothing else.

Specifically in this case it's to build submarines which can chase after submarines which are trying to break us blockade. If china invades Taiwan, the obvious next step is to blockade Chinese oil imports, which cripples upwards of 60-80% of Chinese domestic food production, but is justifiable on "military grounds" and definitely prevents china from creating supply lines outside of the first island chain. There is no…

Their job isn't to chase other submarines next to Chinese waters. That is suicidal. Chinese submarines are almost as stealthy as the Virginia class, and they'll have to operate in the middle of Chinese anti-submarine warfare. That is to say, they won't survive long.

Their job is to actually sink the merchant ships. The US can't do that easily with surface combatants, because getting close to a strait means compromising your position, which means risking getting suck by a Chinese hypersonic missile.

There is absolutely a sensible retaliation from China, that's to sink the US fleet in the pacific using ground-based weapons which can't be destroyed.

Hence why submarines are interesting to the US, it's the only way to force a blockade without risking destruction by very powerful Chinese anti-shipping weapons that can't be destroyed with ease.

Also, the entire blockade strategy itself is a risky gambit. China has enough stockpiled as far as oil goes to guarantee 100 days at full consumption without any imports, and before any invasion of Taiwan they would make sure to secure enough overland imports, stockpiles, and domestic production to allow for over a year of oil.

Meanwhile the political costs of blockading the Malacca Straits and co will be devastating to the US. It will be the US's Suez Canal Crisis. China will keep Taiwan anyways.

China is definitely going to break through the first island chain. 4-8 Virginia class submarines are not gonna change anything there. They are not invulnerable superweapons, and if they were the US already was going to use them.

Without air supremacy and given the massive concentration of Chinese anti-submarine assets, operating in the first island chain is a completely suicidal option.

The only possible way for this to happen is if somehow the US manages to get Russia on board with a blockade.

Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#153

Post by jhgb »

rmk wrote: post #45
tmilard wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I am french I will not say anything too dark. But yes, this SUB contract was big. Giant.And Naval Group is partially a state company. The Worth for french community is this : 1) French just hatted Trump. Deeply. His sense of hatting his allies ( Germany...) and loving his foes ( North Corea, ect). 2) As opposed, French loved Biden. More rounded, multi cultural, more social like in Europe. I would say french p…

The nuclear subs appear to have much bigger advantages over conventional subs, so on the merits of the product, perhaps the US/UK combine increases security in the Pacific and strengthens the "contain China" strategy. Similarly, withdrawing from Afghanistan puts an end to twenty years of lying to the American public that the Afghan war was even a modest success, and allows resources and political capital to be focuse…

Well then the Australians perhaps should have asked the French to build them nuclear subs, like the French are used to building?

Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#154

Post by guerrilla »

nradov wrote: post #88
fruffy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How trustworthy is The War Zone? It seems to be largely focussed on US defence tech industry, so I expect fairly biased reporting on this topic. Is there a better source?

There is some pro-US military bias in their analysis and editorial content. But their factual reports tend to be more accurate than the mainstream media.

> But their factual reports tend to be more accurate than the mainstream media.

How do you know that?

Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#155

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #146
make3 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

trying to sell weapons to Russia, an aggressive total dictatorship, you deserved that one

> trying to sell weapons to Russia, an aggressive total dictatorship, you deserved that one Well USA is selling or has sold weapons to Saudi Arabia, a known democracy respecting human rights/s Weapons used to massacre children in Yemen, I mean let's not claim USA is a paragon of virtue either, when it comes to the business of war.

To be fair France did it too. Looking at arms deal from rich democracies is a sure way to become really cynical.

Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#156

Post by worrycue »

ldargin wrote: post #39

There's no question that nuclear subs are more appropriate for Australia, especially against a sophisticated opponent like China. Hopefully USA and Australia can compensate France in some way to maintain their prestige.

I hope the Australians are aware of the disposal cost of nuclear submarines - if I’m right the UK has yet to fully dispose of any of their retired nuclear submarines; they are just sitting in harbour. If Australia is alright with that, or the US agreed to do disposal for them, then that’s fine I guess.

Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#157

Post by skissane »

rjsw wrote: post #130
skissane wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn’t just that Australia cancelled the deal and made a new one with someone else. It is they kept their plans secret from France instead of letting them know about it and giving them a chance to make a counter-offer or save some face. France has nuclear submarines too, so maybe France could still have played some role? Maybe AUKUS could have been AFUKUS? They didn’t allow France into the negotiation room, and the…

French nuclear submarines require refuelling part way through their operating life, US and UK ones don't. Australia doesn't have or want to develop the domestic nuclear power industry to be able to do this itself.

That is because US/UK nuclear submarines use weapons-grade highly enriched uranium, French submarines only use reactor-grade enriched uranium. The US has been trying to stop non-nuclear weapons states from adopting highly enriched uranium for naval propulsion on the grounds of proliferation risk; they've decided to make an exception here for Australia. However, the US will supply that uranium to Australia, Australia has agreed not to attempt to enrich it themselves.

Australia could have gone with US nuclear submarines, but still thrown some sops to the French, like some engineering consulting or training cooperation or buy some components from them or something. France would not have liked that, but still would likely have been more happy than they are now, where they've been shut out completely. Even if Australia/UK/US tried to include France somehow, but it didn't work out, would have gone down better than the current situation in which they never took France into the conversation.

Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#158

Post by i_am_proteus »

mahkeiro wrote: post #25
tkojames wrote: post #16

It is super laughable because the nuclear powered version that they are building for themselves was a fixed bid contract for something like 10 billion for 8 subs.. and the Australian contract keeps going up and up something like 35 billion for ten subs. The diesel sub for Australia is based on the nuclear sub that they signed the fixed bid contract for. Anybody with half brain can tell they are making up the lost of…

French contract took 4 years to be negotiated, the US one less than 6 months, in total secret with no public check… expect big surprises at the end, US weapons program are not known to never overrun their costs

The most recent submarine program (Virginia class) was effectively on-budget.

Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#159

Post by ClumsyPilot »

ericmay wrote: post #94
skissane wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn’t just that Australia cancelled the deal and made a new one with someone else. It is they kept their plans secret from France instead of letting them know about it and giving them a chance to make a counter-offer or save some face. France has nuclear submarines too, so maybe France could still have played some role? Maybe AUKUS could have been AFUKUS? They didn’t allow France into the negotiation room, and the…

Looks to me like political hardball being played and it’s surprising France (and to a lesser extent the EU). Frankly, France and the EU have been trying to straddle a middle ground between the US and China, and strategically Europe is mostly irrelevant outside of the UK (yes I know France can project some power I’m not downplaying them) but they have been dragging their feet and the action is just not going to be in…

"Europe is mostly irrelevant outside of the UK"

By what metric did you conclude that? It doesn't have a majorlead in anything measurable

Re. USA and Russia, it was US, not EU pressing for greater sanctions against Russia

Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#160

Post by driscoll42 »

tkojames wrote: post #16

It is super laughable because the nuclear powered version that they are building for themselves was a fixed bid contract for something like 10 billion for 8 subs.. and the Australian contract keeps going up and up something like 35 billion for ten subs. The diesel sub for Australia is based on the nuclear sub that they signed the fixed bid contract for. Anybody with half brain can tell they are making up the lost of…

The War Zone looks interesting, but I find the combination of detailed military asset reporting from a website otherwise devoted to automotive news and car reviews odd.
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