On March 14, the German Ministry of Defense announced via a short tweet that it intends to replace its fleet of Tornado aircraft with American Stealth F-35 fighters.
According to the ministry, the F-35 model is to replace the old Tornado IDS planes with variable geometry wings, which were adapted, among other things, to carry nuclear weapons as part of the nuclear sharing program.
Germany plans to purchase about 35 machines that will be able to carry the American B61-12 thermonuclear gravity bombs, which are stored at the German Büchel air base and which can be made available by the Americans to Germany in the event of a crisis.
Other machines such as Eurofighter Typhoon, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet or the EA-18G Growler were also considered in the tender.
Choosing the F-35, however, does not mean replacing the Eurofighter, which will continue to be the backbone of the Luftwaffe and is to be developed towards using it as an electronic warfare (ECR) aircraft to replace the older ECR Tornado.
The decision to buy American fighters is the first such a large contract of the new German government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz. In the days after Russia's attack on Ukraine, the German leader pledged to allocate the required 2% of the budget for defense, an amount that Germany had not allocated in recent years, a fact which was repeatedly criticized by former US President Donald Trump.
Germany will become the next, after Finland, Switzerland and Poland, users of the F-35 in Europe. The fighters are to arrive at the Luftwaffe by the end of 2030.
Source: thedrive.com, twitter.com
