Why Austria Selected Eurofighter EF-2000 Typhoon?
Enviado: Seg Abr 23, 2007 9:50 am
By Georg Mader
Until today it is undeniable that the Austrian selection of the Eurofighter EF-2000 Typhoon was surprising. It surprised even most of the Austrian Ministry of Defence (MoD) staff. And not only them. The BAE-Systems staff in Warton, UK, told me in April 2002 that the Austrian campaign is, "a world-record attempt out of the standing and without training!"
That was a rather accurate description of the situation.
But here in Austria it was a need to undertake this ultra-quick process - as the Drakens have soldiered on seven years longer than planned in the 1980s, and today we have only 17 qualified supersonic-pilots left. Former cabinets have slipped this decision endlessly and there was no time left to lose any more.
For almost 40 years, Austria, meanwhile the 7th or 8th richest nation in the World, had always been told by the former Social-Democratic- (SPOE) administration (the best friends of ‘neutral’ Sweden) that "nobody is going to attack or harm us…", "what much more social and humanitarian work we could do with that money…". This standpoint created a climate of "…we have Congress-places with UN, Mozart, our ski-aces, fine food and vine, etc...". Eventually this resulted in there being absolutely no dedication to defence or to the understanding of a collective-security in the Austrian public: the media and half of the politics educated Austrians that way for 40 years.
However, this comfortable common-sense was – in part quite brutally - stopped by the new conservative, centre-right cabinet that won on elections in 2000, even if this administration never attempted to risk openly speaking about joining the NATO. The Austrian military was placed under a new defence-doctrine, which emphasises collective-security, burden-sharing and the transformation from (military never fullfilled) neutrality into a somehow non-aligned status.
This was the bed in which this fighter-competition was laid and fought through by the MoD and the Chancellor Schuessel, against stiff resistance, a 600.000 petition-drive, 30 urgent questions asked during a dozen extra-sessions of the Parliament by the SPOE and the Green Party, and even its own Ministry of Finances, which tried to run 0-deficit policy, "after 30 years of left-occured debt-making".
Many were actually right to expect the Gripen to win the Austrian contest, then it was the favourite of many Austrians as well.
It was very soon quite obvious that the MoD would do anything in its powers to prevent the F-16: the USA were eventually allowed to offer the new F-16C Block 52+, but this offer had no serious chance given the US-FMS authority was not ready to provide jamming-resistance details in MHz on the V-9 radar and did not offer a moving-map integrated into the cockpit-displays. The F-16 was certainly the cheapest choice: the MLU-F-16 offer was worth EUR 700 million, and was actually finance-minister Grasser's child. Grasser fought for it until the very end - which came in the critical council-meeting on 2 July 2002.
But – as a solution for the next 30 to 40 years was sought for - unsurprisingly, the 33-head quotation-commission from the different branches of the MoD, eventually declared the EF-2000 for a winner, basing their choice on a list of 1.000-capability-points. According to this list the EF-2000 was the most advanced design, and won by 4:1 during the final selection. This despite the fact that the very same officers (most of which are "Cold War Warriors") expected that when the question of costs would be merged, the Saab's offer for their very much beloved Gripen would win 'hands down'. Eventually, the offer from Swedes was delivered irritatingly slow and proved not only sloppy, but also too highly calculated.
What these officers apparently were not aware of was that meanwhile the leading Austrian politics decied that:
- 1) Austria was foremost a part of the future European security-alliance, and that
- 2) The politics was heavily influenced by industrial offset-agreements offered by the EADS, which were very easy to "sell" in the public.
When the MoD stricly ruled out the F-16, the finance-minister Grasser stricly ruled out the Gripen as an "orchidee-type" and a visionless exotic "island-solution" for the upcoming 30 years. While that was a political exaggeration, the laughing third was the latest participant in the competition, the Eurofighter - which was also the most expensive solution for Austria.
That was the main reason for the eventual decision. Some left-wing politicians subsequently supported a petition drive, which was signed by between 9 and 10% of regular voters, but had no influence in Parliament: the government, and especially chancellor Shuessel, praised the most advanced European solution - and signed.
Lockheed-Martin accepted the deal sillently, and quietly pulled back. Saab did not.
After severe floods hit Austria, in summer of 2002, the Eurofighter again became target of priority-debates in public and media. Vienna's team of Gripen-International, under Roger Lantz – who had openly considered legal steps after the initial decision - was now pointing to “an alternative gesture by Swedish defence-minister von Sydow, from 3 September, to offer up to 18 earlier Gripen’s on lease for approximateld EUR 500 million, from 2003 onwards. In his words, “a lot” would have been possible in that desperate situation to help Austria”. But the government had not re-opened the type-decision and Gripen-International was in the same boat with MiG, who were together nerving the government and feeding the media with unrequired offers.
With hindsight, there is definitely no answer to the question: how could it be that "a lot" more was not possible only few months earlier?
The obvious answer is that, "some old friends" were all too sure about this "done deal" in Vienna.
Personally – as a native and domestic defence-correrspondent - I think, the Eurofighter will boost all of the Austrian military, but also the spending for the military (Austria has the lowest defence-budget in all of Europe). It is to bring our air force out of a dusty corner, but also push our security-policy into a new age, after so many years of doing nothing.
This brave step by our government was necessary: had the Drakens been replaced at the time this was originally planned, in 1997-1998, there would be no EF-2000 as tender and the people then in power - but now in opposition - would have got their "Northern Prince" (for which they cry for until today).
As next, there is the question of the price: a Swedish Gripen-Pilot told me personally during a visit in the Czech Republic: "For THAT price, you HAD to go for Eurofighter. I don’t know who’s fault it is, but offer was too expensive…!"
This is undeniably truth. The eventually negotiated price for 18 EADS Typhoons is EUR 1,959 billion, including all system- and support costs, and the financing of 18 half-year payments from 2007 onwards. The offer for Gripen was only between 3 and 4% cheaper in cash and 5-year payment, and not much more even in the targeted 9-year payment. This is nothing near being acceptable for an aircraft with 30-40% less capability in climb-rate (important for small airspaces), radar, processing-reserves etc.
Welcoming the MoD’s action, Aloysius Rauen, EADS' chief executive officer for military programmes, told me in an interview for Jane's, in summer 2002: "No other customer will ever get the Austrian price for Tranche 2 [Eurofighter again]. We do not exactly know what else – beyond the requested and offered criterias of the tender - will be in that Tranche 2, but Austria will be a part of that huge project. Their fixed-price is the privilege of the launch export customer."
In late July 2004 I interviewed Maj.Gen. Wolf, Commander of the Austrian Air Force. Questioned on details of the type-selection process leading to the, "somewhat surprising" Typhoon, Maj.Gen. Wolf explained that, "we wanted an absolutely new platform to cover the next 40 years for the first time. Therefore a F-16MLU was not an option. The new-built Block-52 did not fulfill two electronical must-criterias in a moving-map display and the radars ECM-stability. This was naturally not a capability-problem by Lockheed, but rather a question of selective downgrade in export-regimes, versus our targeted ECM-stability.“ The Austrian quotation-body has explained its unwilligness to accept a downgrade to the Americans clearly, "but they had the intention to overcome this with a very, very good price", Wolf explained.
"A little later on, the Gripen turned out far too expensive in all three financing-regimes considered, when comparing its technical as well as economic-industrial potential with the Eurofighters’. This was also shown when we were using the criterias and it turned out that many details were 'just matching' by Gripen while the Eurofighter surprised us because capabilities we did not think as possible yet were included."
Also considered in the evaluation process were the future development-potentials coming along with the designs. Maj.Gen. Wolf added that, "One cannot deny a certain growth-potential to the Gripen, but compared to the Eurofighter, the Swedish industry would always ask who would pay for future integrations of pods, of certain modernisations? Hungarians, South-Africans or Czechs…?"
Maj.Gen. Wolf closed his personal "review" of this "Austrian campaign" with some serious toughts: "For me personally, it was a pity that Dassault did not answer our RFP in 2002 with a bid for the Mirage 2000-5II. When we had that design here to test in 1998, its RDY-radar, the level of data-fusion, and system-integration did outclass everything comparable then."
Maj.Gen. Wolf counts it as very important "for our relation with the most modern players and developments, when – because of the Eurofighter - we have established Austrian technical personnel in NATO-installations like the "EF system-support centre" (SUZ,) at Manching (Bavaria), and in the German Luftwaffe's Eurofighter-levels. A demanding task for the neutral-thinking levels in Austria."
Maj.Gen. Wolf expects, "that we will need a 170 staff to run the Typhoon, totally new for everybody with its interacting and embedded 83 computers in 5 families. But this is the challenge we had to take-on, after a decades-long standstill and a - somehow humiliating - "2nd-hand" airforce!"
Until today it is undeniable that the Austrian selection of the Eurofighter EF-2000 Typhoon was surprising. It surprised even most of the Austrian Ministry of Defence (MoD) staff. And not only them. The BAE-Systems staff in Warton, UK, told me in April 2002 that the Austrian campaign is, "a world-record attempt out of the standing and without training!"
That was a rather accurate description of the situation.
But here in Austria it was a need to undertake this ultra-quick process - as the Drakens have soldiered on seven years longer than planned in the 1980s, and today we have only 17 qualified supersonic-pilots left. Former cabinets have slipped this decision endlessly and there was no time left to lose any more.
For almost 40 years, Austria, meanwhile the 7th or 8th richest nation in the World, had always been told by the former Social-Democratic- (SPOE) administration (the best friends of ‘neutral’ Sweden) that "nobody is going to attack or harm us…", "what much more social and humanitarian work we could do with that money…". This standpoint created a climate of "…we have Congress-places with UN, Mozart, our ski-aces, fine food and vine, etc...". Eventually this resulted in there being absolutely no dedication to defence or to the understanding of a collective-security in the Austrian public: the media and half of the politics educated Austrians that way for 40 years.
However, this comfortable common-sense was – in part quite brutally - stopped by the new conservative, centre-right cabinet that won on elections in 2000, even if this administration never attempted to risk openly speaking about joining the NATO. The Austrian military was placed under a new defence-doctrine, which emphasises collective-security, burden-sharing and the transformation from (military never fullfilled) neutrality into a somehow non-aligned status.
This was the bed in which this fighter-competition was laid and fought through by the MoD and the Chancellor Schuessel, against stiff resistance, a 600.000 petition-drive, 30 urgent questions asked during a dozen extra-sessions of the Parliament by the SPOE and the Green Party, and even its own Ministry of Finances, which tried to run 0-deficit policy, "after 30 years of left-occured debt-making".
Many were actually right to expect the Gripen to win the Austrian contest, then it was the favourite of many Austrians as well.
It was very soon quite obvious that the MoD would do anything in its powers to prevent the F-16: the USA were eventually allowed to offer the new F-16C Block 52+, but this offer had no serious chance given the US-FMS authority was not ready to provide jamming-resistance details in MHz on the V-9 radar and did not offer a moving-map integrated into the cockpit-displays. The F-16 was certainly the cheapest choice: the MLU-F-16 offer was worth EUR 700 million, and was actually finance-minister Grasser's child. Grasser fought for it until the very end - which came in the critical council-meeting on 2 July 2002.
But – as a solution for the next 30 to 40 years was sought for - unsurprisingly, the 33-head quotation-commission from the different branches of the MoD, eventually declared the EF-2000 for a winner, basing their choice on a list of 1.000-capability-points. According to this list the EF-2000 was the most advanced design, and won by 4:1 during the final selection. This despite the fact that the very same officers (most of which are "Cold War Warriors") expected that when the question of costs would be merged, the Saab's offer for their very much beloved Gripen would win 'hands down'. Eventually, the offer from Swedes was delivered irritatingly slow and proved not only sloppy, but also too highly calculated.
What these officers apparently were not aware of was that meanwhile the leading Austrian politics decied that:
- 1) Austria was foremost a part of the future European security-alliance, and that
- 2) The politics was heavily influenced by industrial offset-agreements offered by the EADS, which were very easy to "sell" in the public.
When the MoD stricly ruled out the F-16, the finance-minister Grasser stricly ruled out the Gripen as an "orchidee-type" and a visionless exotic "island-solution" for the upcoming 30 years. While that was a political exaggeration, the laughing third was the latest participant in the competition, the Eurofighter - which was also the most expensive solution for Austria.
That was the main reason for the eventual decision. Some left-wing politicians subsequently supported a petition drive, which was signed by between 9 and 10% of regular voters, but had no influence in Parliament: the government, and especially chancellor Shuessel, praised the most advanced European solution - and signed.
Lockheed-Martin accepted the deal sillently, and quietly pulled back. Saab did not.
After severe floods hit Austria, in summer of 2002, the Eurofighter again became target of priority-debates in public and media. Vienna's team of Gripen-International, under Roger Lantz – who had openly considered legal steps after the initial decision - was now pointing to “an alternative gesture by Swedish defence-minister von Sydow, from 3 September, to offer up to 18 earlier Gripen’s on lease for approximateld EUR 500 million, from 2003 onwards. In his words, “a lot” would have been possible in that desperate situation to help Austria”. But the government had not re-opened the type-decision and Gripen-International was in the same boat with MiG, who were together nerving the government and feeding the media with unrequired offers.
With hindsight, there is definitely no answer to the question: how could it be that "a lot" more was not possible only few months earlier?
The obvious answer is that, "some old friends" were all too sure about this "done deal" in Vienna.
Personally – as a native and domestic defence-correrspondent - I think, the Eurofighter will boost all of the Austrian military, but also the spending for the military (Austria has the lowest defence-budget in all of Europe). It is to bring our air force out of a dusty corner, but also push our security-policy into a new age, after so many years of doing nothing.
This brave step by our government was necessary: had the Drakens been replaced at the time this was originally planned, in 1997-1998, there would be no EF-2000 as tender and the people then in power - but now in opposition - would have got their "Northern Prince" (for which they cry for until today).
As next, there is the question of the price: a Swedish Gripen-Pilot told me personally during a visit in the Czech Republic: "For THAT price, you HAD to go for Eurofighter. I don’t know who’s fault it is, but offer was too expensive…!"
This is undeniably truth. The eventually negotiated price for 18 EADS Typhoons is EUR 1,959 billion, including all system- and support costs, and the financing of 18 half-year payments from 2007 onwards. The offer for Gripen was only between 3 and 4% cheaper in cash and 5-year payment, and not much more even in the targeted 9-year payment. This is nothing near being acceptable for an aircraft with 30-40% less capability in climb-rate (important for small airspaces), radar, processing-reserves etc.
Welcoming the MoD’s action, Aloysius Rauen, EADS' chief executive officer for military programmes, told me in an interview for Jane's, in summer 2002: "No other customer will ever get the Austrian price for Tranche 2 [Eurofighter again]. We do not exactly know what else – beyond the requested and offered criterias of the tender - will be in that Tranche 2, but Austria will be a part of that huge project. Their fixed-price is the privilege of the launch export customer."
In late July 2004 I interviewed Maj.Gen. Wolf, Commander of the Austrian Air Force. Questioned on details of the type-selection process leading to the, "somewhat surprising" Typhoon, Maj.Gen. Wolf explained that, "we wanted an absolutely new platform to cover the next 40 years for the first time. Therefore a F-16MLU was not an option. The new-built Block-52 did not fulfill two electronical must-criterias in a moving-map display and the radars ECM-stability. This was naturally not a capability-problem by Lockheed, but rather a question of selective downgrade in export-regimes, versus our targeted ECM-stability.“ The Austrian quotation-body has explained its unwilligness to accept a downgrade to the Americans clearly, "but they had the intention to overcome this with a very, very good price", Wolf explained.
"A little later on, the Gripen turned out far too expensive in all three financing-regimes considered, when comparing its technical as well as economic-industrial potential with the Eurofighters’. This was also shown when we were using the criterias and it turned out that many details were 'just matching' by Gripen while the Eurofighter surprised us because capabilities we did not think as possible yet were included."
Also considered in the evaluation process were the future development-potentials coming along with the designs. Maj.Gen. Wolf added that, "One cannot deny a certain growth-potential to the Gripen, but compared to the Eurofighter, the Swedish industry would always ask who would pay for future integrations of pods, of certain modernisations? Hungarians, South-Africans or Czechs…?"
Maj.Gen. Wolf closed his personal "review" of this "Austrian campaign" with some serious toughts: "For me personally, it was a pity that Dassault did not answer our RFP in 2002 with a bid for the Mirage 2000-5II. When we had that design here to test in 1998, its RDY-radar, the level of data-fusion, and system-integration did outclass everything comparable then."
Maj.Gen. Wolf counts it as very important "for our relation with the most modern players and developments, when – because of the Eurofighter - we have established Austrian technical personnel in NATO-installations like the "EF system-support centre" (SUZ,) at Manching (Bavaria), and in the German Luftwaffe's Eurofighter-levels. A demanding task for the neutral-thinking levels in Austria."
Maj.Gen. Wolf expects, "that we will need a 170 staff to run the Typhoon, totally new for everybody with its interacting and embedded 83 computers in 5 families. But this is the challenge we had to take-on, after a decades-long standstill and a - somehow humiliating - "2nd-hand" airforce!"
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