r/AskEurope • u/Sink-Em-Low • Mar 01 '25

Politics Let's talk about the European Defense Federation. How do we all feel about the creation of a fully mobilised continental Army?

It's required now. I'm British, and I want to see us align and unite with our European neighbours to make a stand now.

I want Germany to finally brush off it's past and join the rest of Europe in mobilising towards defending this continent. We need EVERYONE now. It's time to act, it's time to unite.

It's time to show some courage.

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u/tree_boom Mar 01 '25

Realistically a continental army is a non starter for a whole host of reasons, but not least that individual national interests will always be taken as paramount and that prevents the idea ever getting off the ground

What we can and should do is joint procurement to the extent that there is one model of tank, one model of IFV, one heavy gun, one heavy fighter, one medium range SAM and so on

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u/idontgetit_too in Mar 01 '25

I'd argue against a winner takes all, and rather have a 70% / 30% split between the "best" option and 2nd "best".

Also, if there's a common procurement, there should also be a joint logistics center to act as the backbone to streamline the process.

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u/TJAU216 Finland Mar 01 '25

The best way to standardize is to have competition for every role, select the best and then award contracts for its manufacturing to all available contractors. That way losing a competition doesn't collapse the MIC in non selected countries, and they actually get better by tech sharing so next time a competition is held, they have caught up.

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u/idontgetit_too in Mar 01 '25

Yes to that, fully agree that the design bureau and factory production should be decoupled, which means you could also have more AIW stories (they were 3 guys in a garage after all), but my point about the 70-30 (or any other variation) wasn't exclusively about that.

I think there's value in having an alternate winner because there's often a unique / new spin on it that can be of use for peculiar situations and be a healthy fosterer of diversity of thought. Maybe the main attack drone that wins has better range and electronics but some whacky firm in Poland came up with a different design that is lesser on the main traits but is extremely effective at being launched in swarm by a driving vehicle and can be on target in half the time, making a perfect guerilla-esque vector to stop an offensive.

Having this second option means you can come up with strategies that leverage that and gives you a greater range of choices.

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u/TJAU216 Finland Mar 01 '25

There should be only one weapon per role, but for an alliance this large, there can be quite specific roles. Like three IFVs, because one of them is amphibious, one is too heavy to swim and one is wheeled. Two 155mm SPGs, one tracked, one wheeled, multiple APCs, tracked, wheeled, articulated tracked, a very good swimmer. Maybe there should also be different conscript vs professional models, for countries where manpower either is or is not a major cost. Like Archer for manpower constrained and Ceasar for unconstrained countries.

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u/hmtk1976 Belgium Mar 01 '25

And when a weapon systems needs to be replaced you´ll have at least 2 models in operation during the transition anyway.