I can more or less agree with your assessment. However there are obvious technical constraints and moreover programmation constraints.
The deal was thought of this way: Germany, which has high competence on heavy tanks, would handle MGCS, with minimal French involvement. France, which has high competence on fighter planes, would handle FCAS with minimal German involvement.
7 years later, here's how it turned out:
- Germany demanded dominance on the MGCS design, and we accepted that they would get the lion's share of the program and base it off Leopard 2 and not Leclerc. In exchange for essentially giving up a French next gen tank, we asked for the ASCALON gun to be integrated, leaving the Germans with the entire frame, engine, design, and really everything else
- Germany refused to integrate ASCALON and wanted full control of everything
- Germany kept the project "going" very slowly and weakly for years and years
- Germany ended up "having a baby in our back" and decided to soft-drop MGCS and create a German-only Leopard 3, leaving us holding the bag
One can make a case that this is just how it turned out and that France should just buy Leopard 3s because France wasn't all that interested in making a heavy tank in the first place. But even then, we shook hands on a project, got nothing, waited for years, then were left to hang. Anyone would find that disrespectful.
7 years later for FCAS though, things are a million times worse:
- Germany also made us wait 7 years
- Germany tried to pull EVERY bit of construction in Germany despite France having the skills
- Germany had "Airbus Spain" (nothing more than a subsidiary of Airbus Germany) incorporated to make it a "3-way partnership"
- Germany and "Spain" aka Germany 2 then said "we represent 66% of the partnership so our majority decision should be respected" and every single decision was about demanding French technologies transfered to them and building plans being made in Germany and "Spain"
- It was obvious to anyone with eyes that since Spain doesn't have the proper toolchain, the Spanish plans would all fail, at which point "Airbus Spain" would concede to send everything they have to Germany
- Once Germany would have had nearly all production lines in Germany, they would have said "since we have almost everything working here, the problem is France needlessly holding on to their inefficient production lines"
- Germany tried to argue every single last thing even when it was in the contract, like naval version of the plane which is a mandatory part for AC capability
And key thing, this is EXACTLY the same as to what happened with Eurofighter. Germany "signed" with the rest of Europe then demanded to remove the engine to shove a bigger, less efficient and pointless German engine so they could make money. They tried for years to change the standard radar for one of theirs. They also, and that's the key problem here, held back and stomped their feet on every single last upgrade the plane needed and negotiated every single piece.
This is why Eurofighter is, frankly, a shit. Why it got its radar 10 years late. Why it is only good on paper but in effect France alone has sold about 300 Rafales abroad while the entire consortium of England/Germany/Italy/Spain has barely sold half of that.
Germany is perfectly content with bombing projects it is privy to, it has no qualms demanding other people's technologies, it has no problems slowing everything down to get as much as it can. In one word, they behave like arabs trying to negotiate everything and care very little about doing a good project.
This pattern repeated itself on the Boxer (overweight, unwieldy), the Eurofighter, or that silly giant turret thing the Skyranger. Germans like to build big and expensive rather than efficient. This is not useful in war. Even the Ukrainians who tested Leopard 2s said "nice and all but we can't repair them and those older Leopards from the 70s actually are good".
I agree that FCAS was probably a stupid project in the first place and that France, which has genuine ambitions for the plane, wants Dassault to run the project because when Dassault was given full control of the NEUROn, despite being an international project, it came out on time, was an excellent drone, and completely did everything at cost and with competence. Same happened with the SCORPION trio, Griffon-Serval-Jaguar, one boss, one goal, great success. One boss should run things. The Germans hate having a boss because they'd rather re-re-re-re-re-renegotiate everything, and the dirty tactics to "renegotiate the main contract" then blame us for "not accepting their reasonable demands" is just insulting. These people are not honest, and all their grubby attempts to take our technology are extra insulting.
President of Colombia, @petrogustavo, whatever is going on in your personal life, there are lines that must never be crossed. Using Nazi slogans is a disgraceful low from which there is no coming back.
I hope you come to your senses and apologize before this Wednesday, when you are scheduled to preside over the debate at the United Nations Security Council.
@MaximoMustero@DeathaItashi When they have some. We're the only solution you have yet you're not grateful. Worst, you're actively acting to destroy our nuclear facilities and capabilities you rely on. Go back to mining coal, that's all you got.
@MaximoMustero@DeathaItashi Thankful? Your entire electrical network depends on us to be provided EVERY SEASONS and yet your production is killing dozens of thousands of people each year in addition to being the highest carbonated production in the EU. The Spanish are already selling their surplus to Portug